In this year of trying to “embrace winter”, our little deep freeze getaway was, well, not long enough, yet, nothing to complain about for sure. I’m  back at work and trying to pick up lots of nursing hours this year, so we had to make this one quick. We spent a couple weeks in Oahu, our home away from home, at least it seemed, as we often got asked if we’re local. We must appear to dress the part, navigate the street’s, activities, shops and restaurants like we know the place. That’s fine by me, it wouldn’t be a bad place to call home for a while.

We both had big surf goals, and swapped each other almost daily for “alone time” in the water. Kind of a joke because Waikiki is one busy surf break and unless you’re out before dawn, or during a gale force wind storm you’ve got about 40 friends floating beside you. The resident turtles were also out most days, playing near the shore and out near the surfers, and the helicopters were noisy, numerous and frequent. Just when we were getting relaxed, and focused with some adequate surf-muscle stamina it was time to jump back on the plane to -20 degrees. We did catch some pretty great waves though; I had my longest and best ever on the very first day. Unfortunately, the waves shrunk, and a big storm came through to lessen a few days on the board.

It was pretty easy to pass our time, and when not surfing we could be found with our little mermaids in the pool, or building volcanoes down in the sand, mowing down on sunrise surf shack smoothie bowls, or joining the hotels’ craft coordinator Nathan (our Hawaii “grampa” as the kids called him) at the keiki fun table making bracelets, flower lei’s, and learning to hula to a ukulele tune.

Another day we ventured to the zoo, another to the aquarium, but we actually passed on a car trip around the island as we opted for in the past, because everyone seemed happy doing the usual “day in the life” kinda stuff. We did do a little bit of shopping to pick up the small yearly dose of clothing at our favourite surf shops that are much more available than back in Canada. Even this was tame this year, because as per the latest minimalist expert we are trying to “Marie Kondo” our excess to avoid  the accumulation of unnecessarily purchased items and eventually waste. I’m pretty proud to say we even brought bowls, cutlery, and reusable straws and bags from home on this trip.