Where's the pepper ???

We started our day with a run/walk to Lanikai. As we passed numerous early day adventurers (humans with and without dog companions). We played the can we say good morning first and are they Hawaiian locals or vacationers game. We were a little caught off guard on how to rate the lonely small pug dog that was all alone attached to a brick on the beach... surely he was local and had misplaced his human. He was very cute and knowing he surely does not have rabies I was tempted to pet, hug, and squeeze him, but it is my first day and did not want to get in trouble if his local human was soon to appear (evident later his owner was close by snokeling). Our game concluded that people with dogs are definitely local, people without tans are most likely vacationing, and people with their own coffee mugs probably have a beach house close by and should be our new friends !!!

We returned from our run a little sweaty, a little stinky, and surprised by a new house guest in the dinning room (a male with a tan and an accent). We only muttered a few words before we scurried off to seek cleanliness. In the privacy of our room Jeff declared the new male visitor was surely Sharon's pool boy.

----> we need to break for a moment, we think for the protection of our blog we will now start to change names to protect peoples true identities; we will from now on refer to Sharon as Karen and Karen no longer has two dogs instead she has two... antelope?.

So after getting ready for the day we went out to the kitchen to prepare breakfast (we have the full kitchen to our disposal). We rummaged through the cabinets and found what we needed to fix breakfast. Well almost everything there was still one ingredient missing, Where's the Pepper? This is when we realized how perfect this place was for us, we had spent most of the time on the plane playing hidden object games. Now, we were living in one but like any game the excitement only lasts so long and eventually you want to finish the level and move on. So just like on the Ipad we were going to use the "HINT" button, in this case it was Karen who was sitting at her computer 10 feet away. I should have known the game of life doesn't have a hint button as her response was "it's your kitchen just look around" after Jeff commented on how he had looked just about everywhere she did finally yell a hint from her seat about the area the pepper was located in and we found it. Now this alone would have been enough excitement for breakfast but the real surprise came when I went to pick up the pan I was cooking eggs in only to find the handle was non-insulated metal and just as hot as the burner. Fortunately the pot holders were an easy find(plus I am tough GRRRR(meow)) and I was able to finish my eggs. Now Jeff not being a big fan of eggs thought he would go the easy route and have cereal. Karen had informed us that she had plenty of cereal we could eat and had mentioned that there was some 1% milk in the fridge we could use. She had made a comment about having tried the milk and said it was ok to her, which seemed rather strange but as the conversation carried on we came to realize she drinks 2% milk and wasn't sure she would like the 1%. This led us to only buy a small container of skim milk, so Jeff pours his cereal and heads into the fridge to find this 1% milk only to discover it has a date of March 29th stamped on it (seriously who keeps milk 2 weeks past the date, and offers it to paying guests!!!) thankfully he hadn't poured it on his cereal yet or tried it for himself. We now take Karen's opinions with a grain of salt (which I still haven't found by the way). It was very nice to eat our completed breakfast outside by the pool though. Karen does have a beautiful place to stay with a nice pool and property on the channel. As Jeff cleaned the dishes, by this point I was a little scared of the kitchen, I ventured out to the channel. I settled down at the ledge and enjoyed watching the paddle boat crews and surf board paddlers. Behind me I had heard a lot of birds flying around that I had assumed were scared of an intruder present, until I turned around to realize I was heavily outnumbered. Surely they were seeking food of which I did not have. I calmly backed into the gated pool area where I felt much more comfortable. Ever since watching Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds when I was younger, I was not willing to chance it. To my surprise there were yet another 2 visitors poolside. For some reason I assumed they were midwestern so naturally one of my first questions was where they are from and sure enough they were from IL. My excitement was broken by their disapproval of my Wisconsin upbringing evident by the male stating " I would have thought in Hawaii we wouldn't have to deal with packer fans". Alas to say that this conversation did not go in a direction worth commenting on any further then stating "if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all". Who can be negative on a holiday to Hawaii ?

Starting our exploration of Hawaii real estate was interesting to say the least with navigating several new areas and learning that we have been horribly mispronouncing city names. I made use of my master navigating skills and we explored a few areas that could potentially be our new home. We visited Kaneohe, then made our way through the mountains to Honolulu. We drove past the BMW dealership then along the south east coast through Waikiki, Diamondhead and to Hawaii Kai. Hawaii Kai appears to be our favorite at this point but we still have much to learn. We ate dinner at Kona brewery (Thanks Katie for the recommendation) which had a very well priced (same as what we would have paid in WI) and very good meal while sitting outside overlooking the bay. Our next stop was our friend Ceanne's favorite when she lived on the island, Hanauma bay. This was by far the most breathtaking place we have visited and we will be certain to spend many of our days in the beautiful blue water below. This state park costs only $1 per car for parking and even has it's own resident cat, I wanted to pet it but it was between the fence and the cliff just too far out of reach. This was all wrapped up with a gorgeous drive the rest of the way around the south east tip of Oahu. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.........