Lanikai Adventures

Blog time! Sunday is blog day. Kind of like how Sarah and I watch "Sunday movies". Any movie that airs on Sunday, is technically a Sunday movie, right? We'll work on that justification...
This weekend was awesome! Actually, the whole week was awesome! I just took 3 exams so I had nothing new to study for (well, nothing to cram for). Sarah is home for spring break. I finished the needed lab reports, and even spent Friday afternoon into evening doing 4 pages worth of an extra credit write-up that isn't due until next Wednesday. If you know me, you know how difficult that is. For me, the weekend often starts at noon on Friday when I'm out of my last class. But to work until after 6:00 finishing assignments, that is unheard of. The benefit: It freed up Saturday completely!
Before I get into Saturday, I'll talk about Tuesday. I don't have class Tuesday, so Sarah and I took our free day together as an opportunity to go out to the east side of the island to Lanikai, officially my favorite beach right now. The beaches we usually frequent are on the north shore, and for the past few months it's been firing; tons of surf, a few contest were scheduled, and lots of traffic and people. At Lanikai, the water is calm, the stretch of beach is long, and it was just a nice change of pace from our norm. I could keep describing Lanikai, or, you could just see for yourself.

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I didn't expect the pile of sand this guy made to turn into this.

This is my new favorite picture of Sawyer.

Naturally, I wanted to go back. We planned it all out, and decided Saturday would be a great day to do so. It worked out well that 3-5 other couples around us also wanted to go! Then Friday happened. Friday brought with it, an entire day of rain. The type of rain where it was pretty well accepted that it would be extending into Saturday without fail. (The rain is likely the reason I finished assignments). Sure enough, Saturday morning came and the rain continued. One couple dropped out, then another, then another. Our neighbors were forced out of their big run due to the rain, and it was seeming to be a losing battle for us, with the rain being very victorious in taking its captives! Sarah and I still needed to get out in it though. Our car was (and still is), in Kaneohe getting an oil leak fixed; we needed to go get it. Our neighbors had volunteered and they were still down to taking us. We left flirting with the idea that we would venture to the beach despite the rain. There's a lot of detail and rain between leaving our place and ending up at the beach, but suffice it to say we got Donkey Balls Chocolates, our car is not finished, and we almost just headed back home instead of driving the additional 15-20 to Lanikai. Ultimately, we headed to the beach. Low and behold, when we arrived there was no rain!! It still was not sunny, but there was also not any rain! Apparently it hadn't rained much at all on the beach. We set up our half tent for Sawyer, laid out towels, and got our relax on... kind of. A man, who we later knew as Shawn, looked at us and said with a pointed finger, "Who's paddle boarding next?!" This stranger was awesome; immediately welcomed us and said to let him know when we were ready to paddle out, that we could take his board at any time, and THEN he introduced himself. I like that order of events. Each of us paddled out, each of us stood up, and from what I saw no one fell. Sarah even later whispered to me in such a surprised and excited tone, "that was easy!", and then expressed that she wanted to head to Waikiki and finally rent boards to try longboarding. Why rent, and why Waikiki? I don't know or care, I'd just love to get her out there!

The rains eventually came again, and we headed back home. But the fun didn't stop! Our church family was having a barbecue and movie (The Count of Monte Cristo). A huge screen was erected in the courtyard behind our building, and burgers were grilled. A few of us upstairs pulled our couches out of our apartments and hoisted them up on chairs to see better. It just now occurred to me that there was no rain while the grilling and movie were happening, that's pretty awesome! I'm a man of God, and to him I give credit and say, "thank you".

Brian waiting for burgers and movie to be ready.

This was post-movie. 4 couches out of their apartments is a happy sight!

So, that's the weekend. It is now Sunday morning and it's been raining since I woke. I thought on Friday that the rain would put a damper on the weekend but somehow we worked around it and had a great time. Today we'll go to church, tonight we'll likely play games then tuck into bed, and tomorrow we'll look forward to the inevitable question, "How was your weekend?".