(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Home again

I have over 300 photos from vacation to review, organize, and post to Flickr. I also have a bunch of notes and travel recommendations for anyone else headed to Hawaii. What I have not had is time.

We were home for less than 12 hours when one of my account managers asked me to join him for a 2 day visit to North Carolina this week. We had a lot of good meetings, so the 10 hours I spent in the car over Wednesday and Thursday was worth it, but being home is nice too. Barring another surprise trip, I'm home until June 16. I really do love my job, but the travel for the past 6 months or so has been ridiculous.

Check back this weekend for Hawaii contest prizes and more pictures of paradise. Now I've got to get back to work.

Rosemary is too busy relaxing to post

But here's a picture of Upper Waikani Falls to make up for the lack of anything. D included for scale.

Vacation photos on Flickr

Aloha from Maui!

To view the full collection of our vacation photos, check here every day or so. I don't promise to write a full blog post every day, but I will pull photos off of the camera every other day or so.

Right now, I have an appointment with a mango daiquiri and a sunset.

Recipe for a perfect birthday

Spend all morning at the spa. I enjoyed the papaya-pineapple body scrub, lomi-lomi massage, and a facial.

Have a tasty salad for lunch.

Spend all afternoon reading at the pool. D took the photo from our balcony. If you look closely, you can see the top of my head between two umbrellas.

Go out for dinner at a truly interesting restaurant. Ciao Mein's Italian-Chinese fusion menu has several award winning dishes; I had trouble choosing just one item for dinner. If I had been with a crowd of friends, it would have been fun to order many dishes family style to get a taste of everything. The bar makes outstanding mango daiquiris. D and I both enjoyed our entrees—he had pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and I had ginger-garlic shrimp.

How many socks can SpindleRose knit while on vacation?

And can she finish the tank top she packed, too?

Where did that lovely 747 take D and me yesterday?

Does this help?

In all my travels, would you believe that this was my first ever flight in a 747? I was pretty excited to see it when we arrived at our gate in Atlanta after a 5:55 departure from Dulles. Pretty excited = big smile, since that was all I could muster after leaving home at 3:45 am.

We are in Hawai'i until May 24. Our plans are to kick back, relax, and see some of the sights we missed on our previous visits. The inside of one or two world class spas, Diamondhead, the Road to Hana on a sunny day, and Haleakala's crater are high on my list. D thinks the best way to see Hawai'i is inverted at 3000 feet in an Extra 300L. He flew this morning. He also wants to swim with dolphins, visit the Maui Ocean Center, and drink several fruity cocktails while listening to the surf. If you have any favorite Oahu or Honolulu haunts that are off the beaten path, please let me know.

I had a good start on the vacation knitting on the flight over, until I tried on the peach sock and found it too big. I ripped back a bunch and started the pattern again with 8 fewer stitches. Will I knit all the yarn I packed? Guess how many socks I will finish in the comments to this post before we arrive in Maui (by 10:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, May 12). I will send something from Hawai'i to a random commenter or two. And if you guess exactly, you will win a prize, too.

Between now and Tuesday, I plan to enjoy Waikiki Beach and a fruity cocktail or two, knit a bit, shop a bit, and visit the spa (my birthday present to myself). Moms, enjoy your day, everyone else, have a happy Sunday.