Hawaii Bucket List Update

I've made a good amount of progress on my Hawaii bucket list recently! My best friend Katie was here for a visit and I dragged her along to some of the activities I've wanted to do for ages. I don't think she minded too much, though!

This is Sacred Falls, which I hiked back in April. The trail is actually restricted but I've been told lots of locals still do it. The trail and the falls were stunning, and I'm still kicking myself for forgetting to put the battery back in my camera after charging it. I was forced to take all the pictures on my cell phone (although I'm grateful I had that)!

Katie and I got up way too early (4:50 a.m. -- major yawn!) to drive over to the east side of the island to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, the one day I finally went it was a bit of a dud compared to the brilliance I've seen in everybody else's pictures. Still, it was an experience. We went to Starbucks afterward to kill some time before the restaurant where we planned to eat breakfast opened, and I was aghast to see so many people up and about and so totally awake at 6 a.m.!

I didn't actually write this on the bucket list page of my blog, but I've been looking forward to breakfast at Cinnamon's, a restaurant in Kailua, forever. I got the guava chiffon pancakes and promptly removed that gigantic pile of nasty whipped cream. (I'm really not a whipped cream fan, strangely.)

Whenever we go to the North Shore, Jarrod and I always get ice cream at a little place in Haleiwa called Scoops of Paradise. It's soooo amazingly good that it's hard to pass it up in favor of a different dessert. But I had heard Ted's Bakery at Sunset Beach has the best pies and I finally (begrudgingly) drove past Scoops of Paradise to find out! Sure enough, the chocolate-haupia pie was delicious! (Haupia is a Hawaiian coconut pudding.) We ended up buying FIVE pie slices -- two to eat there (haupia-chocolate for me, haupia-pumpkin for Katie) and three to take home (another haupia-chocolate, macadamia nut cream and strawberry guava). By the way, I did actually eat the whipped cream atop these yummy pies.

Katie and I also did the mai tai sunset cruise on the Mai Tai Catamaran. I love sunsets and I love mai tais and I love hot shirtless bartenders!

This is Iolani Palace, the only royal palace on U.S. soil. We did the audio tour of the palace and it was so fascinating, especially since I've lived here nearly three years and have a small bit of knowledge on Hawaiian history. Apparently Iolani Palace had electricity before Buckingham Palace or the White House!