Week 31: July 29th-Aug 5th...APA sucess and HAWAII adventures!

A day late again, however, this time.... I really do have a good excuse. Hawaii. Enough said, right?
This past week I was in Hawaii for the annual APA conference. I remember when I 1st began my program in 2010 when I found out that APA would be holding the conference in Hawaii in 2013 I said "I'm presenting at that conference...I don't know what, or how, but I will be". Sure enough, my poster was accepted and I was going to be presenting at APA. I hadn't been back to Hawaii since I moved back to the mainland in 2010 so this was my 1st time back since living there.
It was such a strange experience, to be vacationing in the place I used to eat, sleep, work, and study. So naturally, my 5 things for this post all revolve around Hawaii.

My 5 things:

1. I went hiking THREE times. I made sure to space out the hikes so that I wasn't doing 2 hikes in hopes of not upsetting my injury too much. I also made sure to do a lot of stretches before and after in order to avoid further injury. Although, I focused so much on stretching my IT band that I neglected other areas such as my calves and WOW after Koko Head, my calves we're soooo mad at me.

The top of Koko Head

On our way back down Koko Head

Sacred Falls

We did Diamond Head the first day we were there, then Koko Head on Friday and then Sacred Falls hike on Sunday. Still shocked we managed to fit in 3 hikes on our 6 day trip but I was pretty determined...obviously since the first thing we did when we got off the plane was head straight to Diamond Head before we even dropped off our luggage.

2. I got to see on of my closest friends, Lisa..my roommate from college. She is actually moving to Arizona tomorrow but was still out in Hawaii so the timing was absolutely perfect! I also got to see my old boss and some co-workers and other friends from college. I didn't get to see as many as I would have liked, but given the time length of the trip and the amount of stuff we did... I think we did pretty good.

3. I got to present at APA!! This was my first APA experience so it was pretty exciting in that regard, plus it was a goal of mine for the last 3 years so I am pretty proud of that.

4. I indulged in some absolutely delicious food. I had madea list prior to the trip of a bunch of my favorite spots for good eats that I wanted J to experience so we checked off as many from the list as we could in that time frame. Leonards, Rainbow Drive-in, Ezogiku, musubis, manapuas, plate lunch, chicken katsu, shave ice, Genke, and the list continues.

5. Explored parts of the island that were new to me too. It was J's first time to Hawaii ever, so I knew there were staple things he needed to see/do: Diamond Head, sunset cruise, Koko Head, Waiks, etc but I've done all those. It was nice to explore other areas and do things that were new for both of us like hiking Sacred Falls and visiting parts of North Shore in search of sea turtles which was a total success!

 I made sure we were respectful of the hono and stayed well enough away (thank goodness for zoom on cameras so I got some amazing photos!) We were literally, the onlys ones on the beach for miles. There were a few fisherman in the distance, but other than that it was only us and these beautiful creatures. This is not your every day Hawaii experience.