Birthday Weekend Recap: This Is 29!

Well, this weekend sure was a doozy. I have had this birthday weekend recap posted slated since last week and I sure as shit didn’t think a fake missile threat would be a cornerstone of it. YEESH! But let’s rewind back to last Friday, my 29th birthday. We make a big deal of birthdays in our house and dedicate an entire 24 hours of surprising one another. It might seem silly to some, but birthdays were always a huge deal in our house growing up, so it’s a tradition we have had fun continuing. This year, my birthday happened to fall on a long weekend, which gave us more time to celebrate. Today I’m sharing the highlights if you’re interested 🙂

We kicked things off Thursday night at one of our very favorite restaurants, Opal Thai. A friend Dane met as a kid just moved here, so it was fun meeting up with him, telling him about life on the island and sharing some of the most delicious Thai food together. Dane even surprised me early with my big gift, which was a Maya Brenner necklace I’ve had my eye on for quite some time. He’s gotten really good at birthday surprises though the years, that’s for sure 🙂

Oh — and the dogs got me some beautiful pink roses! 😉

Friday was my birthday and we woke up early, enjoyed our coffee, went for a run and got ready to go parasailing! This was a bucket list item for both of us and something we were excited to check off before we set sail outta Hawaii. I’ll be honest, it was SO fun, but I probably never have to do it again. It was only 8 minutes, but it kind of felt like an eternity, especially when I could hear the clips and ropes squeaking. EEK! We booked through Hawaiian Parasail and I would highly recommend them if you are an adrenaline junkie 🙂

After our sail, we were starving, so we headed straight for Sweet E’s, a delicious breakfast and brunch spot on the island (more of our favorite brunch spots here) and chowed down!

We were stuffed and it was mid-late afternoon, so we headed home to let the dogs out and just kind of hang out at a beach nearby to our house. We got to the beach and I immediately passed out for a good 1.5 hour nap. I guess I was just exhausted. Either that or I’m just getting old, but I was ECSTATIC to be able to nap in the sunshine. We packed it in after that and headed home to get ready for our dinner out at Arancino. We loved going to The Kahala for special occasions since it’s a chance to get dressed up and have a romantic night out. It’s slightly pricey, but the food is SO good. I had carbonara and we shared a pitcher of St. Germaine sangria – holy cow! SO FLIPPING GOOD.

It was a really low-key night, which in retrospect was a good thing, consider Saturday was Hawaii’s fake missile messaging heard ’round the world. I’ll be honest – it left us both in a puddle of emotions and we laid low most of the day talking to family and friends. You can read our experience here.

We were both still feeling a bit shaken on Sunday. It’s a very weird, surreal feeling to see your mortality flash before your eyes, so I was still pretty worked up. Despite this, we decided to go forth with our plan to attend the SONY Open at the Waialae Country Club. It was the final round and we had really wanted to see Jordan Spieth finish, so we headed out the door and to the golf course. I’ll be honest – I was feeling a lot like…I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave the house. But I’m so glad I did. It was almost like going through the motions of life sort of allowed me to get back on track with some sort of normalcy.

It was so stinking hot, but we got there in time to watch Jordan play holes 12-18, grab some free beer and head home. Monday we headed over to the east side of the island so I could take some photos for an upcoming blog partnership I’m working on and catch some relaxation on the beach. It was a majorly relaxing day and it seemed like everyone had the same idea as us as the beach was pretty crowded. We both dove into some new books, kicked back and enjoyed a good 6 hour beach day, which is SO RARE. We are normally done within an hour or two. But it felt so nice just sitting and zoning out. We picked up some delicious salads from Ai Love Nalo for a super late lunch (their coconut bacon salad is FREAKING AMAZING!) before heading home to hang out and get ready for the week.

We were scrolling through Amazon before bed and stumbled upon a new-to-us series called “The Last Post” and oh my goodness… it is SO GOOD. Wee binge watched the entire first season. Has anyone seen it? We give it 10/10, despite Bill’s judgmental face in this photo…

Whew! I feel like this post was super duper long, but it was a wild 4 days and I wanted to recap it here for everyone who has been asking what the hell has been going on in our lives. I hope you’re all having a great week and thank you again for all the love and well wishes 🙂