Tuesday's adventures

Erik and I started our Tuesday with a walk to the park. We've been waking up pretty early, so we figured we might as well get up and do something. We loaded Kayleigh in the backpack carrier and off we went. We took a nice stroll down the beach and crossed through a marina to get to the park. The park was pretty, but towards the front of it is where a lot of homeless people live. It's pretty sad, really.
Back to happier times--we fed Kayleigh breakfast in the park, which ended at the ocean. We walked around a little more of it before heading back to the hotel. As you can see in the picture, Kayleigh conked out before we got back home.
After a short talk with someone about how great owning timeshares is, we regrouped and headed for the North Shore. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that we went off of the itinerary for the day. We had decided that it might be too late to go kayaking after our "talk", so we'll have to do that another day. Back to our morning...we headed off to Hale'iwa for Giovanni's Shrimp Truck lunch, the beach, shaved ice and Dole Plantation. Giovanni's Shrimp Truck is famous for selling shrimp off of a truck. Most of the group ate it, but I still can't eat seafood since I was pregnant with Kayleigh, so I went to another truck for some greek salad and onion straws. Everyone that ate it liked it, though, so it must have been good!
We decided to just drive until we found a pretty beach to stop at for awhile. We must have picked a good one, because we found the one where turtles come up to lay out. It was amazing seeing these huge sea turtles swimming by you and then going up to the beach. There are volunteers there that remind you to back away from the turtles and let them do their thing. What I think the one lady didn't understand was that I was holding a one year old in stomach deep water, and even though she was telling me to back away from the turtle, I wasn't going anywhere! I honestly think she expected me to tread water with Kayleigh in my arms!
After a quick dip in the water, we changed our clothes and headed to get some hawaiian shaved ice. We wanted to stop at Matsumoto's shaved ice, which is the one we heard about before. The line was out the door and around the side of the building, so we went down about a block to another shaved ice place. Some people got ice cream with theirs, and a couple got it with some kind of "sweet" bean. The beans tasted like black beans, so I'm not sure why someone would think it's a good idea to put it together with shaved ice! If you know me, you know that I'm not big on trying new things, so I stuck to plain shaved ice. I do have to say that the ice cream looked good with it, thoughh!
After eating the shaved ice, we headed over to Dole Plantation. All Erik and I wanted to do was try the human maze, so we headed straight there. In this maze, instead of getting from point A to point B, you have to find 8 stations and trace whatever image it gives you. We had to trace a hula girl, a sun, a warrior, a sea urchin, a train, a pineapple (of course!), a fish, and a palm tree. Erik and I completed the maze in just under 50 minutes. The record time is 6 minutes, and I think whoever did that had the maze memorized! We tried some pineapple ice cream, which was good, but very sweet. Some people in the group took a train ride around the plantation.
After a VERY busy day, we came home for some pizza and sleep! Today we are heading back to the North Shore. Erik and I are going horseback riding while his parents take care of Kayleigh. Then we'll head to the Polynesian Cultural Center to check it out, eat at the luau and watch the night show. It's going to be another big day, but also another fun day.