living like locals: A spoonful of sugar

Since moving to Oahu we have been trying lots of new sports.. We enjoy living close to the beach and want to take advantage of all the fun activities the ocean offers. When we first arrived on the island we both were excited to try out surfing. We bought a groupon and took a lesson. After our lesson we were feeling a little too confident. We both caught almost every wave and thought we were on our way to surfing the 30 foot waves on the north shore. Yea well, that is until we rented some boards a couple days later and tried it on our own. I have decided the surf lessons are meant for tourist. They don't really teach you any techniques or how to catch waves on your own, they push you into the waves and all you have to do is stand up. This makes you feel like you are a professional and gives them a chance to snap a picture that they will charge an arm and leg for you to purchase. I am not trying to be negative about surf lessons, because they are fun and I suggest all visitors to give them a try. All I am trying to say is they do not really prepare you for getting out there on your own. Like I was saying we rented some giant 11 foot boards(the bigger the board the easier it is to get up and to balance) a few days later. It was pretty much a disaster. We were clueless about pretty much everything. Paddling out we got hit by a lot of waves and knocked off our boards and then when we were a pretty good ways from the beach we started trying to catch some waves. We couldn't figure out the timing very well at first, so Landry decided he would try to push me. This is when it became very comical. As we were turning trying to get ready and wave came in and since Landry was so close to me his giant board hit me in the back of the head....well I did catch the wave but I never stood up because when I opened my eyes I couldn't see anything. I blacked out for a couple of seconds and it really scared me. Needless to say the rest of the time we were out on the water I felt a little shaken up and we never really caught any waves. We were down, but not ready to give up. So we rented boards 4 or 5 more times and still felt discouraged.
Landry works with several guys who enjoy surfing and surf a couple days a week in the mornings before work. They are always trying to get us to go out with them, but I have been avoiding it due to the fact I was afraid it would be extremely embaracing from our previous experiences. Well a couple of weeks ago I was off and Landry did not have to be at work until noon so we decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours. We had just arrived and were lathering up with sunscreen when one of Landry's coworkers pulled up. He was meeting two other guys to surf for a couple of hours. He asked us if we wanted to give it another shot and said the other guys had 2 nine foot boards we could use. So we said why not. We drove to another beach down the street called White Plains beach. It is a family friendly military beach and is supposed to be good for beginner surfers. We have been wanting to surf there for a while, but you can only rent boards if you are military at this beach. They waves were perfect for us that day around 1 to 2 feet. We both had a blast. We were getting the hang of timing and when to paddle into the wave. 2 days later we went again with them, but there was only one other guy with a board so we shared it. Landry swam out with me on a boogie board. I caught around 4 waves and stood up on 2 of them. I asked Landry if I looked like a surfer girl and he said yea until you stand up. I was having so much fun and Landry only got to get on the board a couple times before it was time to leave. We are looking in to buying a used board on craigslist so we can go to this beach and practice whenever we want. Try, try, try again...

A few weeks ago we had a fall festival at our church. As always I was rushing around at the last second figuring out our costumes and getting all the necessary supplies. Thank goodness for pinterest. I began searching for couple's costumes and ran across a really cute picture of Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweeper. It looked simple enough to use some clothes we already had and to just buy some accessories.

There was a costume contest(which I missed because of traffic), trunk or treat for the kids, some finger foods to eat and a lot of games set up in different classrooms. Landry and I played corn hole with some of the teens and adults. It was a very fun and festive night.

The following weekend we ran a 5k race called the color run. I had seen several peoples pictures on facebook, covered in bright colored powder. When I heard it was coming to Honolulu I told Landry we had to sign up. It was a bit pricey, but overall I think it was worth the money for all the fun we had.

There were over 8,000 participants.

We wore our clear, nerdy glasses. We wanted to wear something to protect our eyes from the powder, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see too good in sunglasses. We bought these glasses last year when we lived in Nashville to ride on our scooter. Man do we have some great memories wearing these goofy things.