UCLA beats USC!!!

Awesome effort from UCLA, on both sides of the ball, even in the pouring rain. (I swear the rain was only coming hard when UCLA would get the ball.)


Lots of SC fans, but blue still dominated the crowd.

Not a whole lot to say here, just gonna enjoy this victory!

Yoda hanging out with a Triceratops

Proposal - How it Happened

Went through some different ideas in my head...

from the "probably not" ideas, like at a UCLA game.

to the more likely ideas, maybe at our favorite restaurant in Pasadena (Gale's Italian), or at Disneyland which I was heavily leaning towards.

So, Disneyland, cool.

During fireworks? During world of color? At the castle?
Who takes pictures? Should I ask one of those Disney photographers?
But how do I let them know? Will it give it away for Sophy?
Maybe I'll just ask a friend to secretly follow us? Ask a couple friends to invite us to go to Disneyland?
Lots of questions.

At the same time, i was thinking that maybe Sophy would prefer less people around, maybe just at home would be good. I kept going back and forth on different ideas everyday for the last couple weeks. At one point, I even thought maybe I should do it at work haha.

But going back to the Disneyland idea, our passes expire in December so it had to be before that. The other day, Sophy suggested we go in November, picked an exact date and everything, but I really wanted to do it before then. This morning, she said, how about we go to Disneyland on Friday? I was thinking, "Perfect!"

Cut to this afternoon, on the way home, I started thinking, if I did it tonight, she definitely wouldn't expect it, and it could be a nice simple proposal without too many people involved, something we could share between the two of us (and Sheldon and Lui)...so I thought to myself, I ask tonight!

In order to get some flowers and sort of get the dogs prepared, I needed to get Sophy out of the house. I started talking about what to eat for dinner, suggested several places, and asked if she could go to pick up some food for us, but she wouldn't bite. We finally picked a place, at which point she says to me, "I'm gonna move my car, can you go pick up the food instead?"

Not going well haha.

I suggested a different place, and that we go out to eat instead.

She was in the room reading a book so I took advantage of what time I had and went outside to pick a few flowers. Any other time, she would kill me for this, but I figured since I'm proposing, we could spare a few flowers. I put them on the floor in the middle of the living room, then I moved them near the front door, then I moved them to the kitchen, then back to the living room.

I called Sheldon and Lui over, and I tied a couple of my ties around their neck.

I told Sophy to get ready so we could leave for dinner.

When she came to the living room, I was there waiting with Sheldon and Lui, and that's what happened.

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Btw, special thanks to Melizza for getting the inside info on Sophy's ring preferences...and definitely to Manuel for going with me to pick out the ring, especially since I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, or what I was looking at during ring shopping haha. Luckily for me, he seemed to be the ultimate expert on this stuff.

Day 4 in Maui - South Maui and more snorkeling

On Day 4, we went a little further up the coast to Napili Beach where they had The Gazebo, a very popular breakfast place. Sophy and I split an omelette and these White Chocolate Macadamia Nut pancakes, good stuff.

This restaurant is near Kapalua Bay, which I believe is to the right, where they supposedly have pretty good snorkeling.

After breakfast, we headed for South Maui to seek out some beaches. Sorry, I actually didn't take any pictures of the area. But it's definitely a lot more quiet than West Maui. Wailea in South Maui has the really fancy resorts like Fairmont, Four Seasons. Everything is just so grand. They also have these nice big homes on the beach, whereas West Maui has the resort areas, and the locals probably live in smaller houses or condos.

Here's a view of South Maui.

We stopped at Po'olenalena Beach, Chang's Beach, and Makena Beach. There was barely anyone on these beaches in South Maui, a big difference from Black Rock in Ka'anapali. So if you like that sort of thing, South Maui is the place for you. Snorkeling was okay, but there was definitely more fish at Black Rock. The sand at Makena Beach was also a lot finer than that in Ka'anapali.

For lunch, we left Wailea and went to Kihei where we stopped at Eskimo Candy Seafood Market and Cafe. They sell fresh fish to take home and they have various seafood dishes to eat for relatively cheap. Had the fresh Ono fish n chips, another highlight of the trip. Apparently fresh Ono is $19.99 a pound. 

After South Maui, we went back to Ka'anapali to do more snorkeling at Black Rock (just a really convenient place and lots of fish). 

For dinner, we went back to Kimo's because we got a coupon for a free Hula Pie! haha

Day 3 in Maui - Snorkeling in West Maui

On our 3rd day, we decided to explore some of West Maui and go snorkeling. We had originally planned to go up the coast and see some more sights, and we did a little, but not nearly as far as we had planned. Further up the coast, there is the Nakalele Blowhole and the Olivine Pools, both of which looked really cool from the pictures. Unfortunately, didn't make it that far.

At any rate, we rented some snorkeling gear and began the day at Black Rock, a beach in Kaanapali right behind the Sheraton hotel.

This was my first time snorkeling in Maui...okay, this was also my first time snorkeling in general, so I wasn't sure how this was gonna work out, but as it turns out, I love snorkeling, who knew?

Anyway, Black Rock in Kaanapali. This was a pretty popular snorkeling spot.

Snorkeling here was great in the morning and afternoon. There was very little surf, and the water was the clearest, most blue I've ever seen. Morning visibility was obviously 10 times better than when we came in the afternoon, and unfortunately, that's when I took these pictures.

The coolest part about Black Rock was seeing these humongous sea turtles that swim right next to you, and even kinda brush up next to you sometimes. Granted, some of you divers and more experienced snorkelers have probably seen way cooler stuff, but being my first time, I was pretty happy with what I saw haha.

The water is actually much clearer than it appears, but I think my camera water bag was fogging up a bit.

Another cool thing is seeing the school of fish that swim basically right next to the shore. Didn't quite get a picture, but that's pretty neat.

After this, we attempted to go to Kapalua Bay, where they supposedly have really good snorkeling. Had a really hard time finding where to go and where to park. We moved on to Honolua Bay, which was also supposed to have good snorkeling, but the waves were coming in pretty hard, and it wasn't all that pleasant.

We decided to head back and grab some food at Local Food in Lahaina. They had some spam musubi, Kalua Pork, and Shoyu Chicken. The pork was probably the best thing here.

From here, we decided to go back to Black Rock for more snorkeling. Saw the turtles again, along with more fish. Turns out I love snorkeling, who knew?

For dinner, we went to Leilani's on the Beach which is right next to Whaler's Village in Ka'anapali. View was great, food was great, and Hula Pie was even better.

Kimo's Famous Hula Pie - Dark Chocolate cookie crust, macadamia nut ice cream, rich fudge sauce, macadamia nuts, and whipped cream. So if you're following my Maui blogs, you know we ate at Kimo's on our first day. Well apparently, this Kimo's pie was first made there, and is now at various restaurants.

Day 2 in Maui continued - Southeast Maui Past Hana (Kipahulu)

As I said earlier, after the Road to Hana, you can go either of two ways: you can go back home the way you came, or you can go in a loop around Southeast Maui and get back to where you started. I recommend the latter as you'll pass through the Seven Sacred Pools, and a couple more waterfalls, but by no stretch is it an easier drive than the Road to Hana.

But here we go, heading back...

From what I've read, Venus Pools seemed like a nice place to stop at, though it's supposedly a 10-15 minute hike, and at this point, we were pretty tired, and the idea of any type of hiking didn't sound so great. 

We did, however, stop at Wailua Falls (Mile Marker 48). A very nice waterfall with a pool below. Right before we stopped here, the rain was coming down pretty hard, but started to clear up in a couple minutes.

Getting to the pool is obviously doable, but it wasn't easy either.

Finally, at Mile Marker 42, you arrive at part of Haleakala National Park which has the 'Ohe'o Gulch aka Seven Sacred Pools. Because of the rain, the water in the various pools looked a little murky and also due to the rain, the park was prohibiting swimming in the pools.

Last waterfall we stopped at was Alelele Falls (Mile Marker 39). This one required following a trail to the waterfall. As we walked on, turns out there really wasn't much of a trail, but we followed a path that would start, then disappear, and continue on. After close to 10 minutes, we caught a glimpse of a huuuuge waterfall.  

The path died, and in order to reach it, we had to cross the knee deep stream. I attempted to do so, when I slipped on a rock in the stream, in my flip flops (great idea) and stubbed my toe pretty badly. At that point, it started raining really hard, and we decided to head back. Walking back, my toe was in ridiculous pain, and bleeding. I took a picture of it for you blog followers, but I think I'll hold off on posting it haha. Long story short, we never made it to the waterfall.

You can sort of see a path in these trees.

The point where I attempted to cross was probably a bit further upstream from here.

After some of the nicer stops, you drive on unpaved road for maybe close to 20 miles and when it is paved, it's rough pavement. The lanes for the most part are pretty small as you'll see in some of the pictures.

And that's a small car...

Some expansive views of Haleakala.

About 10 hours after starting the Road to Hana, we made it back to Kahului, where we ate at Da Kitchen Cafe. Great food, and not overly expensive. We tried to fried spam musubi and one of their specialty loco mocos. This stuff was good, but before we left for home, we got some food to go and I had the Garlic Shrimp Fried Rice. Probably my most memorable dish of the trip. It was awesome, though I have no pictures.

Anyhow, that was the second part of our trip to Hana. All in all, we left Ka'anapali (West Maui) around 6:30 AM. It takes a little over an hour to get to Mile Marker 0 on the Road to Hana. We made it Da Kitchen Cafe in Kahului probably about 5:00 PM. Even after the rough drive through Southeast Maui, I'd still recommend it. I think some of the more expansive views would have been nicer too if it wasn't such a cloudy afternoon.

Up Next: My first time snorkeling