hanauma bay + a random 'off the beaten path' coastline

octopus. 

eel

octopus again. actually, there are two in this picture. can you see the second one? 

(he's down in the right corner) 

this day was a long time ago, as you can see, nate is in some of these pictures. (he's back in seattle now.) but i figure, better late than never. 

pali puka

do you see the tiny people up there?

 ashley and i at the pali lookout (before the craziness)

 no railing!? are we still in america?

for those of you who are wondering, puka means hole in hawaiian.

so now we can say we've been all the way up there!

we came.

we saw.

we conquered.

i've known ashley (and her fam) since elementary years. our families went to the same church, and her parents taught us in sunday school. when we got older, we helped in the toddler/preschool classrooms. i moved away after 6th grade, and hadn't seen her (in person) since. 
so glad to be back together again! 

at the beginning of this summer, ashley, nate and i co-led the games at vbs. ashley did most of the leading though. :)

now, about the hike. our church planned this event, to hike from church to the puka. but at the last minute, they decided to start from the pali lookout. it's "midpoint" between church and the pali puka (~2.5 miles from the church). but since i had hiked up to the lookout before, ashley and i hiked from the bottom and actually met up with the church, because 1. we were super fast (not really) 2. they were having difficulty finding parking. 

i wish i could have taken more pictures of the cliff and sheer drop-off, but my main concern was getting up and down without dying. so that meant keeping my phone in my backpack and using my hands and feet to climb up... should have had a gopro. :) some parts were super steep, gravely and sketch, and at other parts, the path was a foot and a half wide with a cliff two inches to our right. all we had to hold on to was a couple twigs and bushes.  i've texted on trails before (not recommending it), but this one was a different story. haha no texting here. 

oh! i found a youtube video of the hike; i didn't need a gopro after all! :)  
as i was watching this video, my heart rate increased by a lot, and yours will too. 
oh my goodness. it might be hard to imagine, but watching the video is scarier than actually doing the hike.

 umm and, did you see the ropes he's using? well, we didn't have that luxury. someone must have taken them down. :\

if you don't have seven minutes, go to 1:25 & 3:06.

but seriously, it's worth watching!

north shore (beach & farmer's market) with my cousin + other things

favorite street name ever.

hermit crab!

my cousin introduced me to coconut water mochas. delish.

we accidentally held up traffic when we were looking at the local peacocks. they got mad and honked (the people, not the peacocks... i don't think peacocks honk). oops. at least i got a picture. :)

fruit leather + chapstick. a fraction of the farmer's market finds. 

mangos, mangos, so many mangos... in our yard. 

i call this the caramel macchiato run



i left mid morning to meet amanda, and i took 20 (give or take) wrong turns before getting on the right road towards the north shore. i basically toured the whole island and went everywhere except where i needed to be. thankfully, there was no traffic or it would have taken half the day to get up there. ok, so we finally met up and she shows me her favorite beach. we hangout, read, i go explore the tide pools and we take a dip. you know, basic beach things. we stopped at a grocery store where we got coconut water mochas (yum), then we headed over to the waimea valley farmers market. it's tucked away in a valley (just like the name suggests); we got there at the perfect time because we got a parking spot right away. i bought apple bananas, kale, green papaya, sea asparagus, and the stuff in the picture: fruit leather & chapstick- one peppermint, the other chai tea. 
call me a hippie. 

later that evening, the family went on a walk while i did this crazy run on mapmyrun through a soccer field. (mapmyrun is an awesome free app. if you have it, friend me!)

mānana trail

i tripped before we even got to the trail sign. how embarrassing.

photo credit: nate gleisner (he took his one and about 2 others)

this trail also goes on forever, but we turned around at about three miles. 

we ate, hung out and nate put up his hammock at a lookout area.