Day 7

We took Aaron to work in the morning as usual, then we spent most of the day at Waikiki. We were thinking of just walking to the beach down the street from the apartment, but since we had some last-minute shopping to do anyway, we decided to swim at Waikiki again. The waves seemed bigger than last time we were there. A bunch of people laying on the beach got soaked by some huge waves that went a lot farther onto the sand than anyone had apparently anticipated. Ashley decided to swim with me for a bit this time, even though she didn't really want to get her hair wet. The waves foiled her plans, but we had fun anyway. I swam alone for a bit while Ashley attempted to make some sand castles, but of course the waves would have none of that either.

After rinsing off at the little outdoor beach showers, we walked up and down the strip again, getting the last of the souvenirs for people. We stopped at Cheeseburger in Paradise again at some point, where I had a Cheeseburger in Paradise and Ashley had crab cakes. We also shared cheesy fries again. Ashley ordered a soda in the collectible color-changing mug to give to Aaron since he misplaced his the last time we were there. We were going to buy some souvenir snacks from one of the many ABC Stores, but the prices were a bit ridiculous for the amount you were getting. We figured it would be way cheaper to just have Aaron take us to the Commissary on the Marine base, and we were right.

Once Aaron got off work, we went to the Commissary and stocked up on plenty of goodies, most of them containing macadamia nuts of course. Then we went next door to the MCX so we could get a few more last-minute souvenirs. Aaron had to be up crazy early for a Marine hike, so Ashley and I went to dinner while he got ready for bed. We went to a local Kailua restaurant called Kalapawai Market Deli, which turned out to be surprisingly fancy. We shared a tomato bisque soup with cheese panini and a stuffed chicken breast in a tomato and red pepper sauce wth egg noodles and zuchini. It was all quite delicious. For dessert, we had a pie that was just like pecan pie, only with macadamia nuts and served ala mode. This was right up there with the Häagen-Dazs Big Island Dazzler as far as local desserts go. Sooo delicious!

Then we had to face the daunting task of packing all of our clothes and newly-acquired souvenirs. We ended up having to leave both of our beach towels behind, but other than that, we managed to cram everything into the bags.

Overall, our Hawaii vacation was absolutely wonderful! We hope we can do something similar to this again while Aaron is still in Hawaii. A special thanks to him for making the best parts of our trip happen!