A Week in Paradise...Wish You Were Here

My husband, Kevin, and I just got home from a week in Paradise...aka Hawai'i. We found a terrific rate out of Oakland through Delta (on Alaska Airlines!) for $300 each round trip! Holy Smokes!!
We have some very dear friends who live on the Big Island (Hawai'i) and we haven't seen them since they moved there....around the same time when we moved to Klamath Falls, OR. They were our neighbors in a very unique So Cal neighborhood.

There were 11 homes on our street (Via Olorosa) and we all moved into our brand new neighborhood in January 1987 -all of us with a couple of little kids and great hopes and dreams for the future! We all raised our kids together on the same street for 20 years, all our kids played AYSO and roller hockey in the street (the Whiners and Crybabies were the two teams) had a lot of great times, consoled each other during bad times, had a LOT of block parties and spontaneous 'almost every night bbq's' in the middle of the street and nearly nightly cocktail hour with a portable firepit all year round...that's a whole 'nother story...and have stayed close and in touch since the last of us moved to Hawai'i in 2007. One family moved to Trabuco Canyon, one moved to San Clemente, one moved to Mission Viejo, one moved to Oceanside, two (us) moved to Klamath Falls, and one moved to Hawai'i. a few still live there...a couple lost their homes in the housing market downturn and drifted away and didn't stay in touch- but most of us, we are still connected! Some have gone to their eternal home sooner than they should have- RIP Nico and Richard- but the rest of us are still around!

So we flew to Kailua-Kona (apparently you have to designate every city in Hawai'i because they repeat the names on every island) and were met by Rich and Aarah, our friends! They drove 1.5 hours to meet us with amazing plumeria (me) and Ocean Vodka (Kevin) leis to greet us!

Then, they immediately took us to one of the best places in Kona- the Canoe Club Restaurant.

This is the view that greeted us in Kona on the Big Island! Amazing! Thanks for the tip, Art Sayles!
I took this picture from our table. It was 79 degrees when we arrived. Yah. We were freezing our asses off in Klamath Falls....so this was wonderful!
I had the most delicious quick fried calamari salad with Liliko'i dressing ( made from passion fruit-very sweet!) and Kevin had a bucket of peel n' eat sweet shrimp. Yah, no pictures because we scarfed it down so quickly! The Mai Tai was also fantastic (I had...um, two?? or three) and Kevin had Red Ale (some local Hawai'ian delicious blend). 
We also stopped here on our way to the airport when we were leaving....this is the picture I took when Kevin was trying to call Delta to move our seats for more legroom...isn't this great? Oh, of course, more Mai Tais on the way out, too...

I think it was about 80 degrees here....
Aloha!