Vacation

I have had Hawaii on the brain for weeks. That's because, in just nine days, we are going there. Finally!

This trip has been in the planning for a long time. You see, our five-year anniversary is coming up, and both Dan and I are sort of in love with Hawaii, you could say, so we decided to use this "milestone" anniversary as an excuse to make another trip. (It's been four years since the last time. And no, I don't expect you to pity me. :))

This time we are headed to the Big Island. It's going to be very different from Kauai, which is the only other island we've visited so far. At first I wasn't really getting on the whole volcano bandwagon... it just seemed too touristy and not that fun. But now, after doing some research and learning more, I am totally stoked about it. In fact, I think that very well may be one of the highlights of our trip.

We're also planning lots of down time for just sitting on the beach, snorkeling, ocean kayaking and eating the local produce. I think I have mapped out almost every fruit stand on the island. And if you think that's weird, when you've tasted a delicious avocado that's the size of a football (not even kidding) or a local, perfectly ripe starfruit, you'll understand my fixation. ;) We'll have a kitchen in our condo, which will have two benefits: 1) saving money, because eating out in Hawaii is not cheap, and 2) letting me go crazy cooking with ingredients I could never get my hands on in California. :)

The other reason I'm so excited is because both Dan and I are coming down off of several very insane months at our respective jobs. So we've not seen each other much. And I, for one, am very excited about having a whole week without briefing deadlines or Dan's Blackberry going off every five minutes. (I still need to work on convincing him to leave that thing at home. Dumb phone/e-mail/internet/evil addictive device.)

Nine more days. Nine more days. Nine more days...