This is the last day of the photo challenge #SquareUps photos share with it featuring the word “Up” ~ I went through my photos and had a few in mind and so here is what I decided to share. We were able to travel to Hawaii last year in February. We made it there and back again before the shutdown and some day I would love to go back. Here are a couple more photos I wanted to share. 😀
This was at a luau as you can see he is Up in the tree getting some coconuts!
The rules of the challenge for my friends who will read this post wondering what am I doing? I have to format my photos to be square. Thankful this is easy to do before I post them. I edit them into a square shape for this photo challenge hosted by Becky B ~ The Life of B blog. She has these wonderful photo challenges throughout the year every quarter. This challenge for Square “Up” was for the month of January. You could post a photo every day, or every week, or whenever you can. I decided to join right on the last day. The next Square photo challenge will be in April. Here is the last photo I will share for Upright and Upbeat!
This was in Honolulu and we ate at this wonderful restaurant right on the water! Upright masts and ahhh, so beautiful!
I hope I met the challenge correctly. I made all my photos “square” and I love the theme “Up”. I had fun looking through my photos when these popped up and I thought what a fun way to finish out this month!
I know I could have shared 31 photos for all the days of January, but I am afraid that would take me too long. So I guess I am joining with 3 photos for the last 3 days. Lol 😀
Thank you for hosting Becky and including us all on this fun #SquareUps photo challenge. I hope ya’ll enjoy!
Weekend Coffee share is a time for us to take a break out of our busy lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new). Please grab a cup of coffee or tea and share with us!
Welcome to my weekend coffee share and I am sitting in my daughter’s apartment not far from the cafe where I took this photo of my coffee in Orcutt, CA. It is so beautiful up here on the coast with the best weather! The high’s here are in the low 80’s and at night cools to the 50’s. We went for a cool morning walk this morning as it was foggy with the marine layer which has been rolling in each evening. Such a nice relief from home which is in a heat wave this week! Crazy, we picked a good week to visit.
My daughter can’t come home and visit as they still have restrictions on traveling as she is in the military and not allowed to venture fair. Not worth detailing all that out but since we are just over three hours away, it is not hard for me to take some vacation days which I need to use anyways and we just drive up and stay with her and this visit we did some shopping for my grand kids and put together care packages which will thankfully be delivered on my grand daughters birthday! I am SO EXCITED WE were able to get that all together yesterday.
On our way to Pismo Beach. I like how the clouds leave a shadow on the hills!
Today we ventured out and traveled up the coast to Pismo Beach. I took some photo’s I will share and a short video of the Pacific ocean and some pigeons that thought we had food for them. 😀 In Pismo Beach they have this AMAZING cinnamon roll shop which is thankfully open for take out only. It’s called Old West Cinnamon Rolls, and oh my, we bought an original, a pecan and one with cream cheese frosting and then split them up to share! ❤
My son and daughter Pismo Beach pier. Cinnamon rolls in that box!
After we cut up the cinnamon rolls and began to eat them my daughter says we should have taken a photo! Darn it all, I wish I took a photo but my hands were so sticky even though we had plastic knives and forks I couldn’t get my phone out and didn’t want to stop eating them to be honest. So DELICIOUS! I was able to get some photos of the beach after cleaning up!
Pretty clouds and view!
A small pier which is closed to people. Plenty of pelicans on the pier!
It wasn’t too crowded thankfully as you can see not very many people on the board walk to the pier. The pier is closed but the beaches were open and you could see people kept their distances from each other which is good. There were some surfers too. There were plenty of shops and restaurants open. Masks are mandatory everywhere in CA so we always wear them on all outings. The restaurants here in California are all serving outside with all the tables with umbrella’s or easy ups to block the sun. I feel really badly for all the business’s so it seems this is working pretty well. All the fast food joints that have drive thru’s are drive thru only and the other ones like this cinnamon roll place only allow 4 customers at a time into the building and there are plenty of lines out the door waiting to buy food. These are crazy days but it seems to all be working! I always carry wet wipes and we always wash up when we get home. It was a FUN morning!
The pigeons were being fed by some people nearby and thought we had food too! Nope!
After enjoying our cinnamon rolls and walking around a bit we then headed up the coast to a small farm that had some goats and chickens, cows, typical farm animals – Avila Valley Farms. You could buy food to feed them but what we went there for was the farms store. I bought some raspberry pepper jelly, honey which is from a local beehive and some peach salsa. I wanted to get unusual items to try as they are all made locally. There was so much to choose from, fresh produce, my daughter bought a bunch of items that she needed so it was a fun stop. We bought fresh artichoke’s and are cooking them up now as my daughter and I LOVE FRESH artichokes. (The men in my family won’t touch them!) We boil them and eat the meat off every leaf and then devour the heart! YUMMY! We are having a salad with these beautiful, delicious artichokes.
Guinea Pig FUN!
Jyn is so adorable!
Rey so pretty!
Thank you for joining me on my weekend coffee share adventures! We are traveling during the week as I will be working Saturday and Sunday night shift so we travel home tomorrow. I thought since I missed last weeks coffee share I really wanted to join in this week. I am so happy to be able to visit with family and spend time with them really fills my heart and makes me so very happy! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and if you are sharing coffee I will make sure to stop by and join you.
Waikiki Beach, Oahu. You can see Diamond Head off in the distance on the right!
I had so many photos to share I decided to make a second post about my travels to Hawaii with my hubby and my daughter. She packed our vacation full of fun adventures which I just loved! I shared a photo similar to the one above but I was turned a bit to the left in my previous Hawaii post which is here. It is fun to use the panoramic setting on my camera, and I thought this turned out rather nice. I also wanted to share some fun photos from Pearl harbor and the museums and Memorials we saw there. We were blessed with absolutely the best weather!
Pearl Harbor, USS Arizona Memorial. The museums had some amazing models. I didn’t exactly know what it looked like under the Memorial. This really shows what is sunk in the water entombing 1,102 Marines. History pauses you to honor those fallen soldiers when you visit Memorial’s. I have been to many and I always pay my respects.
After visiting the USS Arizona we went over to the USS Bowfin Submarine. It was pretty busy with full ferry’s of people going over to the Arizona, but by the time we got to the submarine, no one was in it and we were able to get some good photos. A few people trickled in but it was nice to be able to view without the crowds! The sun came out finally as it was rather overcast when we visited the Arizona.
My daughter in the submarine. We were surprised at all the small bunks. I am amazed people could be in such tight quarters under the seas. Haha, me on the submarine!I can’t believe how polished all the brass is and how shiny and pretty everything is in this photo, including my daughter! 😀My daughter in action! Haha! Great photo! It really is a pretty day! I can’t thank my daughter enough for this vacation! My hubby in action! My two Air Force loves, Veteran hubby and Major Daughter! So very proud of them!
We went to the air museum they had there and this type of jet was at Nellis AFB, Las Vegas where my husband served. So I had to take a photo of them, such dedication, so very proud. She is now in the Space Force, isn’t that crazy? She will help develop this branch of the service being right there as this all unfolds. I find it all very fascinating and interesting! I do not know too much about it all, but she has been briefed by Generals and what she tells us is very interesting. 😀
Waikiki beach, what a beautiful place! ❤
I hope to return to Hawaii someday even though it is an expensive adventure. If I am never able to return then this will end up being a trip of a lifetime. I wanted to share like it is since we had never been and I do not know if we will be able to return. Thanks for visiting and enjoying my Hawaii trip with me. We had a blast!!
Weekend Coffee share is a time for us to take a break out of our busy lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new). Please grab a cup of coffee or tea and share with us! What’s been going on in your life? I’ve been very busy traveling!
Above is Hanalei Bay, Kauai and I can say that it has to be one of the greenest places I have ever had the pleasure to visit. I know many people have visited and I am so very happy I can say I have finally been to Hawaii! I have a lot to share, so grab a cup of coffee or tea and I’ll go through some photos. I took so many, I don’t want this to be a zillion photos so I’ll choose carefully. I can’t believe how busy I’ve been. My sister came to town from Idaho and she was here to see her son and help take care of my horses while I was away on my trip. She stayed long enough for us to enjoy many trail rides before she headed home. Hence why I’ve been away. It’s been a whirlwind of travel, visiting and then getting back into the groove of life! What has been happening in your world? I am hoping you are having a wonderful week into this weekend! 😀
My view from my window in Kauai. I am in the jungle, so it seems. What a beautiful place! ❤My daughter booked a movie tour where we road a bus to all these incredible sites where many movies have been filmed. The tour guide was amazing! A lady on the tour bus graciously took this photo of us, so kind!
It’s funny but I have it in my head about how long I want to write my posts and about how many photos I want to share and I stick to this kind of guide I’ve created. I know I don’t need to be exactly the same from post to post but I am struggling a bit as to how many photos and how much to share! Kind of silly really. I know you can read much faster than I can write and here I’ve just written a paragraph of nothing! But it weighs on my mind. So bear with me as I gather my thoughts. I think this will be one of my longest posts with probably the most photos. I think I will keep sharing and labeling the photos with a sprinkle of words in between. How is that coffee? need a refill? I also have shared on other social media and so this for some will be a repeat of some of my photos!
This is on Poipu Beach, the other side of the Island. We stayed in Princeville. We had dinner here and it was great to travel almost the whole Island!I just LOVE this photo of my daughter and I ❤Beautiful ocean, beautiful daughter! The falls behind us, I can’t remember what movie was shot here. There has been close to 100 filmed here and ads and TV shows too! The weather is amazing here, super sunny and beautiful one minute with clouds rolling through hourly with rain! No wonder it is so GREEN! Another movie stop at this jetty.
We then traveled from Kauai to Oahu. It is a very short flight and oh what a different Island! It reminded me of California where I live to be honest as there is a lot more people in Honolulu, definitely more traffic than Kauai. We went and ate at Restaurant 604, with a beautiful view of Pearl Harbor bay. Even though traffic was worse on this Island, it was not as bad as CA traffic and we went to the Dole Plantation, the North shore for amazing shrimp lunch and a Luau on the West side of the Island. We went to Waikiki beach and ate a breakfast at Cinnamon’s, an amazing restaurant with the best pancakes and Eggs Benedict! I need to go on a diet, I ate so much and had such great food! 😀
My first ever bloody Mary. They are famous for their’s so I had to try it and I didn’t know it was spicy. I enjoyed it actually! This is at Restaurant 604!Sipping my bloody Mary watching the sunset! Gorgeous! Waikiki Beach, where we ate at Cinnamon’s! YUMMY!Food truck lunch that Guy Fieri visited on his TV show Triple D (I’m a huge Food Network FAN!) The food AMAZING! Lemon pepper shrimp and Garlic Shrimp, at the North Shore. ❤Experiencing our first Luau! Great food and great entertainment. We did SO MUCH in 5 days!
I have decided to dedicate another post to Pearl Harbor and the photos I took there instead of cramming everything into this single post. We had such a blast, and I have to thank my daughter from the bottom of our hearts for this absolutely WONDERFUL vacation. It was much needed and she did an awesome job planning everything. We owe her so much, just indebted to her generosity and her LOVE for travel. She makes traveling even better as it is her passion. I so enjoyed everything we did and I am also very grateful she doesn’t mind keeping the traveling short. I know we could easily spend 2 weeks in Hawaii and visit other Islands but with my horses and work I find it difficult to be away much longer than 6 – 7 days at one time. This time away was PERFECT!
Saying Good-bye to Oahu, Hawaii!
Thank you for visiting and having coffee with me today as I reminisce about my travels. I had so much fun sharing, I hope you enjoyed. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Mylife-and-Horsestories 