An Evening In Tuscany

OK, so this might not exactly qualify as a "travel post" but I thought someone out there might be interested in this event I went to this week. I was very excited when my friend asked me if I was interested in going to a Mystery Dine Around Event hosted by the Chamber of Commerce.  I had never heard of it before and it sounded so fun to me!  So three of us signed up and had a girls night out. 

My friend tells me that last year, the event started at the Yacht Club, then they were bussed over to a museum in downtown Hilo, then taken to separate restaurants.  After a special dinner, they were bussed back to the Yacht Club for dessert.  I was amazed that this fun event was actually in my backyard!

So, we all looked forward to this special night... my only complaint was that it was on a Wednesday. But I sucked it up and had a blast!

Before I tell you about our night, let me just send out a BIG THANK YOU to my awesome Mother in law who was our designated driver and baby sitter for the night!  She picked all of us up and told us to have a good time.  She's awesome.

OK now that that's out of the way, we headed to the Naniloa Hotel on banyan drive and checked in at the crown room.  We were then guided to grab our first drink (champagne) and then take a prom picture.  We opted to take a group photo to commemorate the night.

After we got our photo, we headed to the lobby, where they were serving appetizers and more wine.  Now I'm no really a wine girl, so I stuck to white wine.  Here's a couple of the appetizers that came our way.  Don't even ask me to try to identify them.  But they were GOOOOOOOODDDD!

Here you get a glimpse of our prom shot. LOL!

They also brought out several platters of antipasto.  Everyone loved it!

Here's another appetizer featuring my favorite- Hamakua Mushrooms!

Can't have a girl's night without a selfie!

After a few drinks and a lot of pupus, we were herded to wait for the "buses" that never came.  Instead, we followed the crowd to the hotel next door... Hilo Hawaiian.  This was our view of the sunset.  We were feeling pretty good by then.  Good thing I didn't fall down!

We were assigned to go to Florence...

 We actually ended up with people we knew on our table!  But I forgot to take a picture of them.  Next time.  Here's what everyone got... Chiopino (hope I spelled that correctly).  It was very tasty!

After dinner and more wine, we headed back to the Naniloa Crown Room for dessert.  They also had a live band and dancing.. but we were only interested in the desserts!  I had to try one of each...

 After that, we realized how old we were... and how we couldn't talk over the loud music. LOL!  So we called our designated driver about 9pm and waited outside.  I really thought I'd be suffering the next day but I was not sick at all!  I would totally do this again!  If you have the opportunity, you should definitely sign up!

Staycation Part 2: More Hilton Waikoloa Village

This trip, we were very good... woke up early and went walking.  Some days we went to the gym and some days we walked around the resort.  Mom wanted to take pictures everywhere!  I think I was her personal photographer...

She wanted a shot near the ocean..

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Along one of the smaller pools, there are all of the chinese zodiac animal statues.  I think this is the "ram" statue, mom is a sheep, so she wanted a picture by it.  

Here we went behind the waterfall.  I like how this picture came out!  The one the professional photographer took wasn't that good. I think we got lucky on the lighting. 

This is the Grand Staircase at the Hilton.  Took mom's picture so you could see just how "Grand" it is.

She looks so tiny!!

When you stay at the Hilton, you can request a photo session (free) with their photographer.  She took us all over the resort.  I think this is the one mom actually picked.  I can't remember if she got one photo free or if they had to pay for it. Sorry, I'm junk.

 The lighting was horrible during the shoot... The shadows really ruined the picture... 

 

After the photo shoot, we headed to the main pool for swimming.  My hubby was finally able to join us at the hotel, so everyone was finally together!   After some swimming, I had food on the brain.  While the rest of the family ate at the cafeteria near the pool, my hubby went to find us those awesome nacho fries we had last time.  It wasn't as good as last time though.  Still ono- look at all that bacon!

Here we are just hanging out..  Cousins!

 

I finally got some down time of my own...

On our last day together, the girls wanted to re-live our sinking ship experience from last year.  LOL!  They really really wanted to do the paddle boats again. I didn't want to go this time, so we made my brother go with them.

After only one time around, they were bored and wanted to get out...  

After the paddle boat ride, they wanted one last dip in the pool.  We decided to go to to the small pool instead.  They had fun with Uncle Paul!

The girls decided to do some water dancing...  They were pretty good I must say!

After the pool, we checked out and headed to Pine Tree Cafe for lunch!!!  I must've been so hungry that I didn't take any pictures!  I'm junk.  I will try to do more food posts in the future.  We also headed to Mrs. Barry's cookies cause my mom likes those cookies. I didn't try them, but my mom swears by them.  So you may want to check them out if you are in Kona.  After that, we said our goodbyes and my family left for the airport.  We then had a long ride home to Hilo.  Looks like this might be an annual thing?  I don't mind.. nice to spend time with family!

Stay tuned, we are heading to Sin City soon!

Mini Staycation- Hilton Waikoloa and Other Big Island Adventures

My apologies... this is a very late post.  We met my brother and his family back in July at the Hilton Waikoloa again this year and had a blast!  Mom decided to join us this time, so I took some time off to spend time with her and my brother before my family could meet us.  It was so nice to see my nieces again!  See the little one?  She's such a ham... had to wait to take this selfie until she could pose with Gigi (the cat).

That night, we went to eat at the pizza place at the hotel.  It was pretty good!  Though, one of the pizzas was a bit spicy for me.

This one was more my speed. I think it was a mushroom w/truffle oil?  Pretty yummy!  I would recommend it!  Plus it was just outside our tower!

Just clowning around after dinner...

My niece thought that it was so funny someone left a stone under the dog to make it look like poop.  SMH!

My older niece is quite the crafter!  She crochet these items for us.

My bro relaxing with the young one..

The next day we headed down the Hamakua coast to the Vanilla Farm.  I've lived on this island for 17 years now and have never gone there!  It was a nice experience and totally worth it if you have the time.

We had the lunch- which was delish!

They offered us ice tea or lemonade with vanilla- I am a hardcore tea fan, but I actually liked the lemonade better!

After lunch, we headed to the actual farm where they had a talk and we got to see the actual orchid plants.  Had no idea vanilla was from an orchid.  Again... DUH.  I guess I need to get out more.

Here's the actual plant. Pretty cool how it climbs like a vine.

This was the dessert they served us.  Rosalani ice cream (super awesome!) uses their vanilla and they added this sauce on it that was awesome.  Forgive me, but I think it was lilikoi?

After the vanilla farm, we headed to Hilo to pick up my daughter who finished school for the week.  We told the girls about twisty cone from K's Drive Inn, so we stopped off before heading back to Kona. It really hit the spot on that hot day!

We had grand plans to go eat at Pine Tree Cafe for dinner, but they closed by the time we got to Kona.  Boooooo... So we took the girls to Macaroni Grill for dinner.  I think everyone was still full from the ice cream cause we didn't eat all that much.

Ok that's a lot of pics for one post, so I'll split this into two.  Check back for the rest of our staycation!

Staycation- Hilton Waikoloa Village

Before I get into our Hilton Waikoloa visit, let me just share with you how the whole Hilton stay came about... We actually had planned to go to Kapoho and rent a beach house for the holiday weekend.  I had invited my brother and his family to join us since they were flying in from LA.  I thought my nieces would love to stay there since it was right on the water and often had turtles swim through the area.  Well, the week before, Hurricane Iselle hit the Puna district and tore into Kapoho.  Rather than risk going out there, we opted to meet my brother out in Waikoloa where they had one night booked.  We extended their stay and joined them for the weekend... it worked out quite nicely!

After a busy week at work, I managed to pack a few things and we headed to the other side of the island to meet up with my family.  Before hitting the road, we stopped at a local Okazuya to pick up some breakfast and lunch.  Here's our breakfast plate to share on the road... Yummy!

We traveled on the new Saddle Road and got there in no time!  My brother had decided to go to the City of Refuge, so we had some time before they met up with us.  We were just happy to be there!  To give you an idea of just how big the Hilton Waikoloa is.. you can choose to walk, ride a tram, or ride on boats to get you around the resort.  We mostly walked or caught the tram.  Here's me an the hubby on the tram.

This is one of my favorite views of the resort.  Their lagoon area is so pretty!

 So after meeting up with my brother and his family, we had a bite to eat then headed straight for the pool!  If you've never been to the Hilton Waikoloa, you have to check out their pools.  They have three pools around the resort, but the main pool- Kona Pool was all the way across the property from where we were staying.

I gotta say... one of the best purchases we've made is this underwater camera.  The one we bought is a Nikon, but I'm sure there are other good models out there. Definitely worth the money for tons of fun.. Check out all of our pictures!

One of the things that have been hard to do with this camera is take underwater selfies.  My husband seems to have gotten the hang of it.

Me on the other hand.. have not. LOL!  I have waaaaay more embarrassing ones that won't hit this site, but you get the idea.  I was making a mad face.

One of the highlights of the pool is this huge slide.  I didn't go on,  but we watched the kids have fun coming down.

 I waited with my niece who didn't want to go. She's such a poser!

They had tons of fun on the rings. I think my brother got some exercise towing them around.

 Finally got a good pix of Akemi in the pool!

After the pool we decided to head to the Queen's Marketplace for dinner.  Although staying at the resort is awesome, the food can get costly, so we often left the property to eat.  We ended up at the Macaroni Grill which is one of my faves and something that the girls would all enjoy.  My niece drew an incredible likeness of my husband.

The next morning, I went to go find some coffee while the hubs went running.  I guess my Barista does latte art!  So cute!

While discussing what we were going to do that day, the girls entertained themselves by building a fort out of their couch/bed.  FYI- they didn't have any more rooms with two double beds, so their room had a king sized bed and a pull out sofa bed.  The sofa bed was not so comfortable... for the adults anyway.

After breakfast, we headed for the pool.  This time we started at the smaller pool that was closer to our room.  The adults didn't go in this time... just chillin by the pool.

The Kohala River pool was much smaller but just as fun for the girls.

After the pool, everyone started to get hungry.. so we tried to find some food and ended up at the Lagoon Grill.  It was mostly burgers and salads but they were pretty darn good!  I got the mushroom and swiss bacon burger.  And oh, by the way.. the mushrooms were Hamakua Alii mushrooms.. my fave!  You can check out their farm and purchase a large bag of mushrooms at a discounted price.

So we decided to share the burger and the chili cheese fries with the works (works includes sour cream, bacon and jalapenos).  Please note, we ate most of the fries, gave the rest to my brother, who then used the girl's leftover fries and had Round 2!!

So after we ate, we had to rest a bit.  While my brother went to go get more sun screen, we checked out the lagoon.

One of the things everyone wanted to do was rent a paddle boat... Here's the highlight of the trip... We decided that me, my husband, and the three girls could fit in the paddle boat.  Well, I guess we need to lose weight cause after we had gone to one end of the lagoon, we started sinking!!!!  It was sooooo funny!  I couldn't stop laughing.  My daughter was panicking and yelling.. "We're gonna die out here!".  LOL!  So we made it to the other end of the lagoon and let out two of the girls.  Good thing their mom was watching us and met us there. She was cracking up too.  Then we took the boat back to shore and got out all the water.  After that, the young one didn't want to go back!  So the parents went out with their older daughter (shown here).  I will always remember that story!!

On their last trip out, a turtle swam under their boat!  The girls got so excited, they jumped out and went to get a better look.

After several spins around in the paddle boat, the girls wanted to play in the sand.

 After the beach, they had an ice cream break and then we headed to the Kona pool again.  I must be missing some pictures, but I managed to find this one.. It's me.. chillin by the pool and shopping on ETSY!  hee hee.

Guess who was tired!

We finally managed to get the girls out of the pool.  We told my brother to take my sister in law out for a nice dinner while we watched the kids.  So we took them back to Queen's Marketplace for dinner at the food court.  Here they are waiting for the tram.

 And after dinner  picture taking time!

Here's me being silly with the girls.

And my favorite picture of the night.. LOL!

The only drama on this trip was when my daughter lost her glasses.  My husband made several trips to the pool to see if they could find it.  After we met up again with my sister in law, she must've said something that jogged his memory, so he headed back to the pool to check one more time.  Here's my daugther after she found out he found it!

 On our last day, we ended up just eating breakfast and checking out. I think everyone was exhausted and needed to catch up on sleep.  Here we are leaving the Hilton.  

After the Hilton, we made our way to Costco (no more costco on our side of the island) and then lunch at Pine Tree Cafe.  My brother stumbled on them when they went to the City of Refuge, so they wanted to go back to taste their lunch menu.  It it a local favorite!  If you have a chance you have to check them out.... so ono!

Then we headed back over Saddle to check out the Imiloa Astronomy Center. Got to see one of their Planetarium shows and the exhibits.  The girls loved it!

 

My brother and sister in law were trying to take a selfie with that floor mural but the girls kept photo bombing them... LOL!

   I guess everyone had a great time.. already planning for next year!