Last Day (for a while) With My Man in Paradise

Well, the day had to come when Levus and I would have to part ways once again.  Reality always comes sooner than you would like.  It would have been nice to stay, but I have many responsibilities back here in Missouri and Levus has things to take care of back in Hawaii before we tie the knot, get hitched, attach the ol' ball and chain.  My last day there was amazing, and of course made it even harder to leave.  We went back to breakfast at Koa Pancake House because it is close to base and we knew how to get there.  Levus had chocolate pancakes, and I had more corned beef hash (nomnomnom).

At Koa Pancake House
Tell me if that isn't the most amazing smile you've ever put your eyes on.

After breakfast we drove one last time up to Bellows AFB to hang out on the beach and swim in the very blue water off of the very beautiful white beach.  It was surprising to see how crowded the beach was out there, especially on a Wednesday afternoon.  We tried to find a spot that wasn't too congested.  The waves at Bellows are big, and although it is a popular vacation destination for people in all branches of the military to bring their family and children, most everybody ignores the advisory and swims in the waves anyway.

Despite the warning, many people still brave the wave.

We swam for a while.  The salt water makes your eyes hurt after a while, and swimming in waves that big also takes a lot out of you.  I didn't sleep but about two hours the night before because I generally can't sleep before travel.  Between the exhaustion in the waves and the lack of sleep, I was hoping to catch lots of Z's on the plane back and sleep my ride away, but I wasn't that lucky.  While we were swimming we saw a tiny jellyfish swim by us!  It was the first time I had swam WITH a jellyfish!  It was so cute and tiny.  Both of us kinda wanted to touch the tentacle to see how bad it really hurts, but neither of us wanted to take the chance to find out.  I'm sure that we will both have a chance while we are living there between the ocean swimming, beach investigating, and open water swimming that I want to do.  After a while we both sat on the beach to relax.  We ended up getting too much sun (both of us were burnt, Levus more than me) because we neglected to apply any of the sunblock we had packed.

We went to a little Mexican restaurant in the town right outside of Bellows called Serg's Mexican Kitchen.  The food was GREAT there (although the service really wasn't) and it got us thinking that instead of going out to eat after the wedding it might be fun to to a grill out of some fresh fish to make fish tacos and other fresh island foods to go with it.

We are thinking for the menu:

• Fresh fish from the fish market as well as shrimp all cooked on skewers on the grill
• Fresh fried homemade tortilla chips
• Fresh salsa homemade salsa made with ingredients from the farmers market or Foodland
• Rice and beans purchased from the bulk section at Down to Earth organic market
• A "wedding cake" (not the tiered kind, but something small like a tiny sheet cake)
• Fresh fruit drinks with blended fresh fruit and Ginger Ale/Sprite/or Ale8 if we can get some there