The kind of post my mom would scold me for

It is after 10 pm and I have to be at work for 9 tomorrow. But here I am blogging because I am an adult and I pay rent so I do what I want.

I saw someone post an article earlier today that said something like "15 things couples do when they leave the honeymoon phase". I skimmed it and it made me think of the days when Joe and I were in the honeymoon phase, but more specifically it made me think of the day we left the honeymoon phase. (and just to clarify, I'm defining the honeymoon phase as that time in a new relationship when the couple still feels the need to put on their best selves around each other. Not the literal honeymoon phase where the couple has just gotten married and is still enjoying the perks of - well, you know...)

Anyway, sorry for the long parentheses. Where were we? Oh yes.

The day Joe and I left the honeymoon phase, or in other words: the day we broke the fart barrier. Everybody knows that when the fart barrier is broken, all other walls come tumbling down. It's impossible to go back to the honeymoon phase once gas has been passed between two lovers.

I can say with a mix of pride and shame that I was the one to break the barrier, but it was Joe's fault that it happened.

I think we'd only been dating a month or a month and a half when it happened. Joe was over at my house and we were just messing around in the living room. Somehow we started steam-rolling each other. Then Joe got the bright idea to turn himself so that he was steam-rollering me from top to bottom instead of side to side. As he did so, I said "No don't! I'm really gassy!" (which in itself, was a first in the relationship for one of us to even admit we had gas). But instead of respecting my womanly dignity of not farting in front of men, Joe just got this look in his eye that said "Oh really??" and he began to focus his steam-rolling efforts around my abdominal region (I was lying face-down, btw, otherwise that would have really hurt).

He didn't have to try for long before the demon was released. At first it was funny because of the noise it made and the fact that when I laughed, it came out in time with my laughs. But then Joe got a whiff of the monster and jumped across the room so fast you'd have thought someone released a stink bomb - oh wait...

I was rather embarrassed and worried that it might have been a deal breaker, but thankfully Joseph was able to see past my stench and he learned to love me for who I really am: a smart, talented girl whose farts should be taken seriously. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he only did it so that he would finally be allowed to fart around me. I later found out that until that point, his stomach used to hurt so bad from holding in the gas when he was with me too long.

So if there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you should break the fart barrier as early as you can in a relationship in case there could be health risks associated with holding in your gas for too long. If you truly cared about your loved ones, you'd let them fart around you.

Hawaii 2014 - the rest

I am not the kind of person to go on a holiday and have every day scheduled down to the minute of things to do. So before we left, Joe and I made a to-do list of all the things we'd like to do while we were there. Then as each day came we'd look at the list and see what we could check off that day.

14/25, not bad! Had to save some things for next time ;)

I think we did a pretty good job with our list! The first half of the vacation was really go, go, go for us and we did a lot of things. But for the last half we started winding down and did simple things like exploring along the beach or exploring the areas around the turtle bay resort. Nice and relaxing, I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

As you saw in the Day 1 post, L&L was the first thing we crossed off the list. After that, we crossed off Shark's cove - which I didn't expect to happen right away. The first morning we were there, we went to Kuilima beach at Turtle Bay Resort to explore. While we were exploring we actually bumped into a friend of Joe's! After chatting for a bit, he told us he was going to go to Shark's cove that afternoon and invited us to come along. We borrowed two pairs of flippers from him and had a great time. We even saw a sea turtle!

Hooray for underwater cameras!

The last thing we crossed off our list was to visit Junior Ah You and eat at his restaurant, Tita's Grill. Junior was my parents' bishop when they were in Hawaii and us kids got to meet him when our vacation rental flooded and we needed a place to stay. He's a super cool guy, plus he played for the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL! And the food at his restaurant is delicious! 

Ah You hungry?

My favourite item to cross off the list was the hike up Diamond head crater. It's a pretty easy hike, but the most difficult thing about it was definitely the heat. Joe and I were smart though and we brought ourselves lots of water as well as a papaya to eat at the top of the crater. When we got to the top though, it was pretty crowded with people, so we took some photos, enjoyed the breeze and made our way back down. We didn't have our papaya until the end and it was soooo worth it. The only thing that could have made it better was if we could have kept the papaya cold in Joe's backpack. Oh well. 

Here we are at the start of the trail!

The trail in all it's glory.

I love how you can see Joe up ahead like, "Are you coming??"

At the top! So sweaty... 

I've considered making a video for this trip like the one I made for my Australia trip back in 2010. If I do, it probably won't be for another month or two... For now, just enjoy the pictures!