Tommorows Surgery, And Day One In Hawaii!

This is a view of the Lagoon in front of our Resort.  The Ko Olina Resort has 4 separate Lagoon's!!  But I believe ours was the best one!

Hey Ya'll,

Well, tomorrow is Walt's Vein Surgery.  He is having it done with a Local Anesthetic, instead of under General Anesthesia, but he still needs someone to be there with him, and to drive him home.  Of course I would have been there for him even if I wasn't needed!  The procedure is supposed to only take a short time.  When Carolyn, Walt's ex-wife had her Vein Surgery this Summer, she was even able to meet us for Lunch afterwards!  But still, if you will, keep good thoughts for him that there are no complications.

Now for getting started with our Vacation to Hawaii.  I will break it up into several posts as there is so much to say.....This trip, we decided to use the time we had banked from our Timeshare, and stay at the Marriott's Ko Olina Resort on the West side of Oahu.  We were so glad that we did.  The weather on the West side was so much nicer than any other area of the Island.  It didn't start to get sprinkily (sp) or rainy, until the last 3-4 days of the trip.  Which really helped keeping it dry, and the humidity way down!!  In fact, the humidity was the least I have ever had it there!

Before the trip, I wanted to try to do something about my Facial hair....sorry you younger gals, but unfortunately, as you age, you start to grow hair where you really don't want it....like on your Face!!!  So I bought a Facial removal cream at Costco, made by Olay.  Luckily for once, I followed directions and did a test on my forearm, to see if I would have a reaction.  I was only to test using the cream that would be placed directly on the skin, below the actual removal cream, which was supposed to help protect the skin.  Well....I had a fairly bad skin reaction to it!  It took about 4 days for it to disappear.  Imagine what I would have looked like, had I actually used it on my Face???

Now, the other thing that I wanted to do before leaving, was to put color in my Hair.  I haven't colored my Hair in almost 2 years.  Even then, I only used the wash in kind, that disappears in 24 washes.  And of course, you would think that after having the reaction to the Facial hair remover cream, that I would have done the test with it too???  Well, since I had used it in the past, of course I didn't.  Well, it caused my Scalp to break out really bad....I looked like I had a really bad case of Dandruff!!  You could see big patches of scales.  Luckily it started to clear up fairly quickly.  Within 2-3 days, it just looked like regular Dandruff, and it stopped itching.

All this before we had even left town!!  I also wanted to go with nice looking Nails and Toes, so I went and got a Pedicure with Gel, and a Manicure with Acrylic Nails.  I really liked them.  I wasn't sure that I would.  But even Walt liked them, so for now, I think that I will keep them.  I just went back today to get my Nails redone.  But this time, I had them shorten them even more.  They think that everyone likes their Nails super long.  But unfortunately, I can't type well if my Nails are much longer than an 1/8th of an inch!  And they had done the first set at somewhere between 1/4 -3/8th's of an inch.  I loved the look, but typing was horrible!  I guess that it was a good thing that I couldn't blog, it would have taken me forever to try to type it out!!  LOL

So, we left home on Thursday after Walt worked a half day.  We drove down to Sacramento, then left our Truck at our Daughter's house and took a small Limo to Oakland, where our flight was to depart from the next morning.

When we arrived in Oakland at the Hotel that we were staying at for the night, our friend Aggie picked us up and we went to a really nice family style Italian Restaurant.  I ordered a half order of Spaghetti, and I still only ate about half of it!!  I would have taken the left overs to our room, but we didn't have a microwave to heat them up the next morning anyway.  But we had a great time, and had a really nice visit with Aggie!  Walt really misses working with her, but she is really happy being "retired" and taking care of her Grand Kids!!

So the next morning, Friday, we took the Hotel shuttle over to the Airport to take off for Hawaii!!  We were lucky enough to get a great rate on First Class tickets, so we were able to fly fairly comfortably.  Walt really has trouble flying long distances (for that matter, any distance) in Coach class.  Even in First Class, his legs still wanted to stick out in the aisle!!  LOL  And before we knew it, the flight landed in Hawaii.

The worst part of that day, was getting on the stupid Highway going West, from the Car Rental company.  We rented a car from a company that wasn't directly on the Airport site, like we normally do, so it took us almost a half hour just to get on the Highway going the right direction!  Luckily for us, Walt took our GPS with us, so when we realized that the Highway wasn't going to be as easy to get onto as we had anticipated, we stopped and he got out the handy dandy GPS, and it eventually got us on the right track!!  We used it from then on!  LOL

Of course, I knew that once we were on the H-1 heading West, all we had to do was to continue driving West and it would end up at our Resort.  The Resort....ahh!  It was truly beautiful.  The photos on their website did not give a false impression.  It was even more beautiful in person.  And our Suite....we didn't want to leave.  It was perfect.

We had an end unit, so we only had someone on the one side of us.  And because of this, it gave us 2 separate Lanais!!  The main one was the whole width of our Living Room, and was large enough to have a table with 2 chairs and a chaise lounge with ottoman.  The smaller Lanai only had a table with the 2 chairs.  If we had the end Suite with the full 2 Bedrooms, instead of just the One Bedroom, we would have had 3 Lanais!!  As the 2nd bedroom had it's own Lanai as well....If any of our Children had been able to come with us, we would have opted for the 2 bedroom Suite for 1 week.  But since they couldn't get away, we chose the 1 Bedroom Suite for 2 weeks!!  And we are glad we had the extra time.  But it would have been nice to have them with us too.

So, now that I have made this a whole book just to describe getting to, and the day of arrival in Hawaii, I will leave for now.  I have things to get done, before I go to bed.  I have to get up early to take Walt to the Surgery Center in the morning.  So I am going to leave you with photos of our Suite and the views from it.  I will put more photos on later with other postings....we literally took thousands of photos between us, but I will try to keep my blog down to just a few hundred!! (kidding)  I hope that this doesn't over whelm you!  Till next time, if I don't get another post in before Christmas, I hope that ya'll have the best Christmas ever!!

Aloha My Friends :)

This was the area on our floor, that you could go relax in if you wanted to.

This was the Entry Foyer into our Suite.

And this was the view into the main living area of the Kitchen, Dining Room and Living Room from the Entry Foyer.

The full Kitchen.  The Laundry (room) was in the Kitchen behind the doors on the left side.  It was a God send!

And looking towards the Kitchen from the Living Room.  The Laundry (room) was behind the doors next to the Fridge.

And the Living Room, with the main Lanai through the drapes.

The main Lanai.

The view from the main Lanai.  We could see one of the Pools, the Mountains, the Ocean and a couple of the other Ko Olina Resorts.  

A closer look at the Ocean from the Lanai.

The Hallway with a small Desk leading from the Living Room to the Bedroom.

Looking into the Bedroom (and it's small Lanai), then on into the 2 Bathrooms!

Looking from the center Bathroom, with the large Bathtub into the Bedroom.

Looking from the Bedroom into the center Bathroom with the louvers open.

And last but not lease, a view into the main Bathroom.  It had a large Shower which we loved.  Since we both prefer to take showers!!