If anyone reading this finds a brown Chaco, size 9 in the sand or marshy area of Hapuna Beach, it’s ours!

Yeah, the last full day of our vacation we were once again reminded of how things can take a turn in an instant when it comes to dealing with the ocean.

We decided to venture to a different beach on this day, one that’s been written up in magazines as a Top 5 beach in all the world. Hapuna is a favorite of ours and one we’ve been to on several occasions. We’ve always enjoyed ourselves here.

On this day, the waves were… big gigantic! Like, we’ve never seen waves this big in real life. The life guards were making announcements every 15 minutes warning us that they would close the beach if swimmers kept getting in. Local, experienced surfers and boogie boarders WITH fins were allowed but they were serious about the no swimming policy. It was just too hairy out there for the typical beachgoer. At one point, Dan decided to take out our boogie board and give it a try. Casey cried and cried having been denied the chance to go with him. With tears in her eyes, she watched him head out there, fins on, and slowly try to swim under the waves just to get out a bit. The water threw him back and spit him out onto the beach in less than 10 minutes. I’m exaggerating here a bit, but he did come back looking haggard and defeated. Even my super adventurous boy said it was too much.

After Casey recovered and played in the sand for a while, she decided to settle in with her iPad for a bit. This is literally the only time we’ve brought it out of the condo and for about 10 minutes we were glad we had as it had softened the blow of the no-swimming rule. Mike took off down the beach a bit to get some pics of the huge waves and the local surfers out in the distance. I was gathering up our things to make sure that nothing important would get wet as we had already had a few big waves come up to our spot on the beach (which was strategically placed at the back end for this very reason.) I didn’t see the big wave coming for us but Dan did and yelled for Casey to stand up, thinking she would hang on to her iPad as she stood and not just drop it onto the chair as the water came up and over it. It all happened so fast we didn’t notice the mishap till it was too late. Chaos ensued for the next several minutes as shoes, fins and a boogie board floated away into the marshy, buggy, centipede-filled weedy area behind us. Luckily, our only casualties were the iPad, some soaked towels, and Mike’s left Chaco. It could have been much much worse. Like, lost keys and wallet worse. The poor man looking for those items of his that got washed away had not found them 30 minutes later when we left. So, we felt pretty lucky as we drove home to the condo. A trip to the store for rice and this tech-gadget-aerosol cleaner brought Casey’s iPad back to life – a downright miracle we are super grateful for considering the impending 7 hour flight home.

After we recovered from that beach experience, Mike made us all a fabulous “Friskies” lunch at the condo. (We call any sort of leftover meal a Friskies Buffet) It turns out we still had some great food in our fridge!

After lunch, we were all clearly spent from the morning’s excitement as we traded napping for movies for more napping until it was time to clean up for our last evening on the island.

We saved the best for last as we got to witness a beautiful sunset in A Bay while waiting for our table at the Lava Lava Beach Club. It’s probably one of the most popular restaurants on the island, with a gorgeous view to boot. Mike and I enjoyed their mai tails and the kids had a couple mocktails while we got some great pictures. We toasted the New Year and our gratitude for another amazing trip to the island. Once again, this place brought my family together and helped us all relax and unwind from the stress and hectic schedules of 2019. It was a great last evening together!