fun in the sun

There's was a beautiful bay down the road from where we were staying called Waimea Bay. In the winter months, it is one of the premier surfing spots on the North Shore of Oahu. I would love to sit and watch some of this.

I can't even imagine those kind of waves because in June, the water is calm, clear and perfect for family swimming. There's hardly any movement in the water at all. There happens to be a big rock in the bay. (Suzanne, please don't view this next part - I know there is risk and danger in rock jumping.)

After swimming for a while, we hiked to this cool overlook of the beach and the bay.

Later in the afternoon we drove into the little town of Haleiwa. We had to stop at Motsumoto's to get some world famous Motsumoto Shave Ice. . . . and that bugs me to type 'shave' instead of shaved, but it is what it is. They sell 'shave' ice all over this town. Anyway, I thought it would be a cute little ice cream shop, but no. It's an old little market type store that has been there forever and as far as I could see, didn't sell any groceries. It just sells shave ice, T-shirts and souvenirs. Obviously we're suckers for brand name merchandise:The line was out the door and around the corner of the building. Every time we drove through town, there was an equally long line. This is not your everyday snow cone. Well, I suppose you could order a plain ice, but why come this far and not order "the works". They start with Azuki beans in the bottom (a Japanese bean, cooked and soaked in sugar), a little ice cream, then the shaved ice and 3 flavors of your choice. . . flavors like watermelon, guava, or if you're adventurous - lilikoi(??). Then sweet condensed milk over the top. Then we found some great seating out by the dumpsters to eat our treats. I've got to say that it was twice the quantity and twice the sweetness than any of us could stomach, but kind of yummy and when we were at the Phoenix airport, someone asked us if we visited Motsumoto's and we could proudly say "YES".