Happy Birthday, Will!

Will turned 32 on Wednesday! We went out for a nice dinner at a new restaurant in our neighborhood that has already become a new favorite. But for the big celebration we took a day to get back to exploring our island home. There are two little islands called the Mokulua Islands just off the coast of Lanikai Beach, on the east side of Oahu. Lanikai is probably my favorite beach that we've been to, so we go there frequently. We always relaxed on the beach, looking out at the two little islands, wondering what it was like over there. We knew that one can rent a kayak or even a paddle board to get over there, so what better thing to do for a birthday celebration than kayak to the little islands! We started our day at Pa`ani Wai in Kailua to rent our kayak, tossed it in the back of the truck, and we were on our way!

We found a great parking spot and headed to the beach.

Here is Will checking things out before we launch off to the islands.

We took our time paddling. The island on the right is a designated bird sanctuary, so no one is allowed on the island, but we paddled around to check it out. The waves were wrapping around from each side of the island and crashing in to each other which made for an exciting paddle. It kind of felt like we were on a roller coaster! Then we headed to the larger island on the left. We pulled up our kayak and explored around the island.

A view of the smaller island while we were on the larger one.

In this area people had built rock towers, so Will made one, too!

The finished tower. Shaka, brah.

The tide was coming in while we were on the island, and this little tide pool was filling up. There were even mini waterfalls going in to it. It was so relaxing and we felt like we were at a spa. We spent a while here enjoying the view and ambiance.

We had to return our kayak before 4:30, so we had to head back. We were having such a fun day though that we couldn't let it stop there! We decided it would be a good night for dinner and a movie. Being that Jurassic World had just been released that was the obvious choice. We had dinner at a new place, Brew'd, which is a gastro pub with great food sourced locally! Then it was off to the movie!

Thanks for having a birthday, Will! It was a lot of fun to take the day to celebrate!