Photos above are from me and Wayne's photog field trip to Gasworks (one of my favorite places in the city) taken with my Lomo Mini Diana! I have always, always, always wanted a Diana camera and luckily the one we had at work went on sale, as did the film, I bought 12 rolls. These shots were my first roll and they came out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I love playing with the overlapping, I just have to remember to adjust the focus for each shot and work on keeping a steady hand. I can't wait to see what kind of marvelous photos I'll take in New York City.

Well, well, well it is April already and spring is in full swing. The days are longer, thanks to daylight savings time (which I don't fully get the concept of, I'm totally blonde about the whole why is there daylight savings and how does it work), and lately >knock on wood< we have had a string of nice weather days. Seriously, I had consecutive days of jogging this past week, it was wonderful. But it's not GOD awful hot, the air is still cool and when the sun shines it's nice. Living in cold damp weather for the last six months really makes you appreciate the nice sunny days.

I'm off to San Francisco bright and early tomorrow morning. I really should be sleeping and not typing this but, I have that I'm going on vacation excitement flowing throught my blood, despite only being off for three days. I'll take whatever I can get. I can't wait to see my family and my new cousin, every year a new cousin arrives. Hopefully I can squeeze in a quick visit with my little Michelley. We always try to make time to see each other whenever the other visits. I call it our annual reunion. It makes me grateful to be able to be still great friends with old coworkers, I met Michelle when she was just finishing up her junior year of high school, back then at the bong we were still hiring high schoolers. We bonded over ballet and Rent. :) After 8 years working at Billabong I have gone through many, many, many coworkers, some of them bad, but most of them super duper awesome. The best thing I got out of that job was the lifelong friends I've made. Speaking of Bong friends, Rossy and I have discovered that our parents are friends from way back when. I knew that he lived where my Aunty Dee-Dee lived in Aiea back in the day, we always used to joke how we could've been friends waaaay eariler if we knew this. Now realizing that our parents are good friends makes it almost like we were destined to become friends. lol.

Other random thoughts of the moment:
-EXACTLY 20 days until NYC with Wen. Poor girl is letting me do the planning, she doesn't know what she's gotten herself into.
-DAMN YOU Jimmy Fallon, I didn't get tix.
-CatPaint App for iPhone, download it, you won't regret it I promise.
-I'm kind of over DrawSomething, it's eats my battery up. That lasted like 1 week.
-Obsessed with strawberries, the grocery stores near my apartment seem to always have it on sale.
-Saw Hunger Games with Wu/Woo, LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it, team Peeta for life. But Gale is so damn hot.
-Trying NOT to get into The Voice. After getting into American Idol for one season and the person I wanted to win didn't even get into the top five (yes the blind guy from season after David Cook), I gave up getting into competition singing shows, it was too much work and I'd just get frustrated. But The Voice has some substance and the newly single Adam Levine is easy on the eyes.

I was blessed with another WHOLE weekend off. Sometimes I think it's work it to be scheduled 12 days straight to get 2 days in a row off.... sometimes. And it was another weekend spent in a bikini. I enjoyed another Triple B Saturday with the bong crew (Triple B=Beach x Basketball x Beer Pong). After a full day of sun at Sandys, Courtney and I tracked down the Melt truck for another taste. We both had the Magical Mushroom Melt, messy but oh so awesome. Basketball was great, we tried to play at Kanewai Park (my old stomping grounds in college) but they took out the lights and the people didn't want to play with us. So we headed back to Makiki Park for some full-court ball. After two quick games and a shower, we ended the night with beer pong and king's cup at Tony and Christina's. The SOD's (Supervisors on Duty me and Chaz) defeated Stock-Peter and Tony AND Sales-Matt and Christina, what can say that's how we roll!
Sunday was spent at Lanikai with Malia and Kat. I haven't been to Lanikai since the break up, it was our favorite beach and we loved going into Kailua to eat. Slowly I've been returning to the places and things that we both called our favorite, and reclaiming them as just my favorite. Making new memories, sharing my favorite eating places, shops, etc. with other people I love. It was good to be back. Before we hit Lanikai we stopped in at Kalapawai Market, I had my usual Feta-Veggie on Foccacia with an Italian soda, oh how I've missed Kalapawai. Hands down the best sandwiches on the island.
It was a great weekend, sad to see it go so fast... no onto 10 days of straight work, then I'm off to Cali. It's a good thing I got some sun while I could I probably won't be back at the beach till April sometime!

Sunrise at Maks.

Sunset Beach

Malia, Tammy, Me, and Wen having a lazy Sunday on the N. Shore.

February has come and gone, 2011 has been flying by. And I'm glad, it seems like just what I need; keeping myself busy, doing things I love with the people I love. 

Last weekend I worked on both Saturday and Sunday, and even though I had Monday off I had to do the Great Aloha Run (running = work). Which by the way I complete in 1.5 hours, cheehooo. And in between all that working and running, I managed to get in dinner with Wendy, Villa, Waikiki Bar night (we hit 5 bars in one night!), and taco night at my house. It was a busy busy weekend. So this weekend I had the entire weekend off, and there wasn't anything else I wanted to do but be at a beach with good company. So my goal for this weekend was to spend 80% of it in a bikini, and that I did. Now I don't get many 2-day weekends, so I felt as if I had all the time in the world to do whatever the hell I wanted, I took advantage of every minute. Here's what the weekend consisted of:

Friday evening

• Eat The Street in Kakaako with mom. Just like last time lines were ridiculous! But I did get to try my first Let Them Eat Cupcakes cupcake (li hing mui mango). LTEC is my old TGIF coworkers Nick and Kawehi's cupcake company, I'm incredibly proud of them! The cupcake was amazing, moist and tasted so delicious, I can't wait to see what's next for them! Also I was able run into a handful of old friends and coworkers.
• Not wanthing to wait in line, Wayne picked me up and we went to eat at Camilias with Anna and Wendy. ALL YOU CAN EAT YAKINIKU! I had the meanest yakiniku cravings all week, totally satisfied it.
• After yakiniku Wayne and I had a Glee Karaoke sesh at my house! "Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putta..." ahhh favoritest Glee Karaoke song right now.

Saturday... longest day EVER

• Sunrise hiking with Matt at Makapuu!! Something I've never done before and it was AMAZING!! We also got to see a whale (I effing love whales).
• After hiking and a beer run at Foodland (that's right an 8 am beer run), we headed to Sandy's and got prime parking spots close to gas chambers. The Bong kids came (Kat, Mark, Chaz, Christina, Rachel, Sean, and Tony) and we spent the whole day posted at the beach. I still couldn't find the guts to get in the water but, we did get to bury Chaz in the sand and he couldn't get up, it was pretty entertaining. Hopefully Matt posts the video of that.
• After 8 hours at the beach, I headed back into town and got ready for an evening with Courtney, whom I haven't seen in forever. We hit up the Melt food truck for dinner, and I got my first taste of the greatest grilled cheese sandwich EVER. You people need to follow @meltHNL on twitter.
• We then headed to Makiki Park to meet up with Matt, Tony, and Christina to play some basketball. Here I thought we were going to just shoot some hoops, it turned into a full court game. I haven't played basketball like that since the college days, so I was pretty rusty. Hopefully we will turn this into a regular thing because I forgot how much I love the game.
• You'd think my night would've ended there. No it kept going with beer pong at Tony and Christina's place. By the end of the night, I renamed the day "The return to college" because cruising Sandy's, basketball, beer pong, reminds me off the carefree college days.

Sunday (lazy day with the girls)

• ROAD TRIP! Time for my monthly trip up country and thankfully it was a wonderful sunny day. I was joined by Wendy and Malia.
• We started with li hing margaritas at Cholo's (it's almost like tradish already).
• After meeting up with Tammy we decided on spending the day at Sunset tanning and girl talking. It was a beautiful day, clear skies and the sun was blazing. I unfortunately was fried from 8 hours at Sandys the day before so I reapplied sunscreen EVERY hour. And Anthony stopped by to visit!
• Someone at Superbowl watching told me that Banzai Sushi at the North Shore Marketplace had the "best sushi" on the island. That being said I of course had to try it out, so before we headed back into town stopped in for a bottle of Sapporo and couple of sushi rolls. Read my review on Yelp.
• Our day ended back in town at a bbq at Magic Island with Ala and Joey. Tired and sunned-out I only stayed for a hour (sorry Ala I'm pooped!).
• Now to ended this wonderful weekend I'm watching the Oscars and typing this.

I'm exhausted, thank you to all my friends (and the weather gods) for making this weekend AMAZING.

Andy Irons 1978-2010

"I surf because of you."

(Well surfed, because I haven't surfed in awhile) Andy Irons is my favoritest surfer. Long before I worked at the Bong, long before he was even sponsored by Bong. I used to think it was fate that I worked for the same company my favorite surfer was sponsored by. I used to dream of one day Andy would visit and fall madly in love... oh those days of being 19. That didn't happen, but I did get to meet him twice. I can't imagine the surf world without him. A.I. you will be missed.

Belated post.... before I left for Lanai (like 3 weeks ago, I know I know SLACKING). Cory organized a booze cruise for us bongers!!!! $30 for 90 min, OPEN BAR. The alcohol was cheap but after 2 drinks you couldn't really tell. hahaha. It was nice to be out on the water, and I didn't get seasick. I told Cory we should do this EVERY month! The only crappy thing was with all that drinking I was forced to hold my pee. They had a bathroom, down below deck, but come on... would YOU use a bathroom that drunk people use while out at sea, can you imagine how gross it is or how many people have missed the toilet bowl. Gross.

Last week before I jumped on a plane to Maui, Robbie hosted a Billabong boat trip! We took this beautiful yacht out just outside of Waikiki for a sunset cruise. Happy times with my bong crew and I didn't get sick! Sadly I didn't swim, it was too cold, but there was plenty of good times on the boat beers and shots, jam seshes on Peter's uke, poke and ruffles (our favorite combo). Cory needs to plan more boat trips with Robbie, I say every other month!

I had to leave early to catch my plane so I missed the BBQ and the after party at Ala's. There is something about boats that make me extremely exhausted. It's probably the dramamine. When I got to Maui, I went straight to bed. I was so pooped.