Made it.

The flights were uneventful. For my 10 hour Sydney - Honolulu flight, my seat was double booked and there were jokes that the guy and I would have to sit on each other's laps. When that mess got figured out I ended up with a whole row to myself. As soon as that seat belt sign was off, I laid myself across the seats and tried to sleep. I arrived in Honolulu and my friend Nguyen picked me up and we surfed.

I grabbed the rental car (sweet talked myself into an upgrade) and bought myself a new pair of slippers.

 Hawai'i in a Jeep, how touristy.

The forecast doesn't look amazing while we are here, but 90% of the time, they are wrong 50% of the time!

Then of course, we hit the beach.

That is the plan for the next few days, beach, beach, beach! On something completely unrelated, there is no high fructose corn syrup in New Zealand. So now we are making a conscious decision to not buy anything with HFCS in it. Hydrogenated oils are out as well.
Now we are staying with out friends Joel and Gina. Here is a picture of them with one of their kids.

Off to the beach!