Aoki's and beach fun!

Jen, Jelisa, and Shellee at Aoki's

Holding the surf boards on the top the car

Walking out to boogie board

Waiting for a wave

Boogie boarding

Jen

Castles Beach

Jen:)

Jelisa

To: Shellee, From: Jen and Jelisa

Our ride--Grant's car

On Monday, we went to Hale'iwa with Grant to pick up a shirt for Shellee and get snow cones yet again. We went to the North Shore Surf Shop to pick up Shellee's shirt which unfortunately wasn't ready yet so we set off down the road to get a snow cone. Grant told us that Aoki's Shave Ice is better than Matsumoto's which we didn't think was possible, but we tried it out anyways and...it was better! How that's even possible I'll never know? I'm in love with the snow cones here! Grant wanted to walk down to the Volcom shop to look around so we did and as we were walking along the bridge, we saw a turtle! We got sick of shopping so we made our way back to the car and went home. We wanted to go to the beach so Grant said he'd go with us and we decided to bring boogie board/surf boards to possibly learn to surf a little (which we didn't). I had the pleasure of sticking my arm out the window to give the boards some stability against the wind which was quite hilarious and made my arm go dead, but all part of the experience.

It's been a little stormy the past few days so the water had sticks and tons of sand and seaweed which we hadn't experienced since we've been here. We did get in and swim and I got out the boogie board because I haven't done it in ages and really wanted to go try it out again. Well, I wasn't as successful as I would've hoped--my skills are a little rusty in the boogie board area, but it was still really fun! We each took turns on the boogie board while the others swam and the salt was killing my lips for some reason. I told Shellee that and she said, "Oh I've got chappers back at the boat" not really even thinking which we busted up laughing about! For one, we have no boat and for another she called chap stick "chappers" which just made the whole thing sound even more hilarious! For the Hoopes family, they know all about Shellee's shortening of words, but for the rest of the viewers, Shellee condenses words. For example, she calls peanut butter "peanut butt", turtles "turtes", Gilmore Girls "Gilly's", water "wat", Logan "Logger butt", Butter Fingers "butt fing", etc. The waves were quite strong that day which caused some malfunctions with our swimming suits as we soon learned that the waves not only knocked us off our feet, but also knocked our swimming suits off. Jen had quite the swimsuit disaster which we're still laughing about! We stayed out until the sun was going down and then headed home to eat dinner. The day was enjoyable and we were happy to get back in the ocean after a few days of bad weather.

Later that night, we went over to Susan's house (the lady we met in Turtle Bay who has been our tour guide and great friend) to get directions to Waikiki. We stayed there for about an hour as she told us all about the things we need to see and directions everywhere. She gave us maps and bus times and we had a lovely chat with her and her husband. As we were sitting there, a gecko ran up the wall and Susan told us that the gecko's here change colors with their environment like a chameleon which is so cool! We love Susan so much! She's been so good to us and it's comforting having her live close by in Turtle Bay.