fresh pineapple & steaming mugs (or seven)
of Kona coffee for breakfast, yes please :)
I heart you Kona coffee
I really,
really heart you...
This trip marks our third visit to Hawaii—it
goes without saying, but we LOVE it here!
the aquamarine of the ocean, the surf, the
sand, the 75 degree ocean water, the slower pace, the diversity, the cuisine,
the tropical climate…
we totally dig “the
aloha,”
which is hard to describe, but it’s the lifestyle, the friendliness,
the kindness…
the ocean is everywhere…
morning walks with
the love of my life don’t get any better than this…
naps in the sunshine are commonplace here;
will be taking a page from this guy’s book, yes indeed…
the yummiest second breakfast ;) a girl could get...
@ the Moana
Surfrider with Shawn & Tracy…
out on the veranda, ensconced in the elegance
of classic Victorian architecture...
the sound of the ocean lapping on the
shores…
We spent the afternoon driving the island. A lot, a lot of driving…
It felt like a crime to be cruising in a car
instead of playing at the beach, but this is a necessary evil when one is considering
moving to an island...
Nevertheless, in
true Matt & Danielle fashion, we made a time of it—rocking out to the Beach
Boys with the windows down… bantering over which way the ipad was telling us to
go ;)
Prior to today, we were thinking of taking up
residence on the leeward (West) side of the island… specifically, the
up-and-coming city of Kapolei… mostly because we could afford decent sized home
there…
It was nice, reminded me of California and its
beach towns. Yea buddy…
But then (insert drumroll music please) we
drove across the beautiful Pali Freeway (Ahem, yes, this freeway is in fact
beautiful) till we intersected the Nuuani Pali precipice and the Windward coast
unfolded…
Oh my, did the Windward coast unfold—to a region
so green and lovely that it could be an island sibling of Tahiti. It was instantaneous love… ;)
Thirty seconds in, I turned to Matt, “Now this feels like an island paradise.”
As we descended slowly down the serpentine
freeway, we tried to take it all in—the dramatic ocean views, the rugged
mountains, the lush valleys… our excitement perceptibly growing.
The towns, with their old Hawaii feel, did not
disappoint. Funky little Kailua is lined
with million-dollar houses next to tarpaper shacks, antiques shops and
bed-and-breakfasts… The incredibly scenic Kaneohe Bay is spiked with islets and
lined with gold-sand beach parks…
That scenery… and that genuine, old Hawaiian,
beach-town feel, did us in…
We never went back to the Leeward side.
We weren’t sure what we could afford on the
Windward (east) side, if anything?!?
Allow me to expand on that last statement, to
share with you my latest valuable life lesson.
The bullet points are this:
è Do
not treasure treasure.
è Super-abundance
can lead to loss.
You see, the hubby & I have been having
some fun ongoing discussion about life…
About what is most important to us? About what distracts us from those most
important things?
When we moved to California five years ago
there were things I thought I wanted… things I think the Lord allowed us to
have so that I would, in turn, learn that those things don’t satisfy. And not only do they not satisfy, they can
also entangle…
And so, though this lesson is new, though my
progress is slow, though I have moments of relapse and must remind myself of my
bullet point lessons, I am ready…
Ready,
for the things I thought were the good things to be replaced by the things that
actually are the good things…
Ready, to trade in some of the supposed “good
life” things—things like cars, houses and material things—for actual good
things….
Ready,
to live simpler; to shed the distraction and maintenance that “much” requires…
Ready, to stop accumulating an overabundance
of earthly treasure.
Ready, to send my treasure on ahead to heaven...
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