I'm baaaaa-ack!

So long since my last post- I think I've decided this will be a late-spring/summer/early-autumn-blog. I started to write about our wonderful trip to Hawaii over Christmas, uploaded all these great pictures, was about to post them....something happened on this website and I lost everything. Lost with everything was my energy to start over. For about 4 months. Here are a few little highlights:

Hawaii. Of course!

It was so wonderful, although I think James and I both agree we don't want to be gone on actual Christmas Day again, even though we spent the day on a gorgeous beach with champagne, it just didn't "feel" like Christmas.

Fun fact about Kauai, in addition to feral cats in the middle of nowhere (seriously, I don't know how on earth they survive) there are chickens and roosters EVERYWHERE. We were there 10 days and I just couldn't get used to it, they made me happy every time we saw them and these are a fraction of the pictures I took:

We hiked about 3 miles of the Na Pali coast and there were some buddies along the way:

I often become frustrated at how it's just impossible to capture what your eyeballs are seeing in nature with a camera, I come home to show photos to people and say "ahhh. It was so much more beautiful than this" hence the reason there are very few scenic pictures in this post....

And finally I will end this highlight with my tale of sea sickness...

Ahhh, don't I look so happy? Little do I know in a few hours I will be the most miserable I've ever been in my life. So James and I wanted to see the Na Pali coast from both sides (one is only accessible by water, the other you hike; see above) so we splurged on a 1/2 day cruise on a smallish boat/catamaran thing with about 30 other peeps. We waited in the little gift shop and I noticed they sold Dramamine, and other sea-sick remedies, and I realized I had never really been out in the ocean on a boat before, wondered how I'd fare, and decided quickly I would be fine since I've never been car sick, enjoy roller coasters and love airplane turbulence. Oh Sara, you fool. It was a little chilly in the morning, and as the boat got further out in the sea, the choppier the waves became. I guess in order to lessen the impact of hitting waves head on, the Captain (so wonderfully named Kirk) would slam on the brakes-very jerky. After about 2 hours of seeing dolphins race under the boat, flying fish glittering ahead and cormorants dive from the air into the water, I began to feel a little funky. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. By the time we stopped to snorkel-the part I was the most excited about, I felt so sick to my stomach I wanted to be air lifted back to my hotel room. The captain and darling crew had been sweetly checking on me and the handful of other sickies, and suggested we get in the water because it somehow helps you feel better. "Yea right!" I thought, I was freezing, (ok, not freezing, but colder than I should have been off the coast of Kauai) and bobbing up and down in the water sounded like torture. Against my wishes to stay put, James practically dragged me off the boat into the ocean, I was cold and some of the saltiest water got into my mouth and increased my sick feeling by 47 points. He convinced me to put on the snorkel mask, I saw one fish and realized I'd soon be feeding him my breakfast off the side of the boat. I crawled out, wrapped a damp towel around me and stayed put for the next hour. There was a little girl crying about how sick she felt across from me on her mother's lap and I wished there was room for me too. After we started back to the dock, a 3 hour ride, many of my fellow sufferers were feeling better, I on the other hand continued to get sicker and lost count of how many times I threw up around 8. Then the scariest part happened, I still don't know if it was from dehydration or what, but my hands became so tingly, my wrists became numb with my fingers stuck around my little paper sack and my ankles felt like they were paralyzed; I couldn't straighten them out to walk. I started freaking out, my speech was a little slurred, I was crying to James and a crew member that I couldn't feel my feet, and I couldn't walk. This only lasted about 10 minutes, and happened briefly once more, but still. They put me in the very back of the boat, which is supposed to be the least bumpy and there I remained, panicky, numb, sick and my least favorite=cold. I soon realized least bumpy also means most splashy. The crew had given me an ice bag to put on my neck ( I guess you can numb your gag reflex back there or something..?) and I was constantly being splashed with cold ocean water, as though some horrible, wicked child was hiding with a water hose behind me, spraying my head. The captain found a little group of whales and as I listened to the crowd ohh and ahh at the sight of their fins and tails, James tried and failed to hold me up to see but I didn't care if King Triton and Ursula the Sea Witch jumped out of the water, all I wanted was to be off that damn boat. Which finally came, the crew was so darling, and caring for me, even though James considered throwing me overboard to end my misery, having them help as much as they could was so comforting. When we docked, everyone moved aside to let me off first, it was raining and we still had to take a winding road back to the hotel. There is nothing like relief from agony. 

More to come :)