Onesto - I Almost Forgot!

I fancy myself a pretty big pizza snob. And whether you agree or not, St. Louis has a fabulous selection of good pizza. Not just good pizza, great pizza! This is something I feel passionate about and will argue anyday!

Tonight I helped a friend of mine, Rosey, with her wedding invitations. We decided to order pizza for dinner to help "motivate" us before starting, but when she mentioned Bellacino's I about crapped my pants (pardon the dirty word). That is certainly not one of the finer choices in pies around here, but I'll admit it's a step above Pizza Hut (granted a small step). I quickly begged her to reconsider and so she looked online for a pizza place near her house; something more like a mom and pop shop.

Well, she found just that: Onesto Pizza & Trattoria

It may be owned by the Racanelli's, but it's a far cry from that lazy New York pizza you get slapped onto a paper plate for you in the Loop. This little place had charm out the wazoo and the pie itself was pretty decent. If you're in South City and need a bite to eat, definitely cruise over to Princeton Heights and get you some family style food at Onesto!

Posting: Our Final Days in Kauai

We've been back in "the Lou" for about four days now and things are back to normal. Work is work, which is great, but I miss the sun and sand already. Before we left the island, we spent our last day down on the South shore, back at Lawai Beach. My mom and I went out for one last snorkel and saw two different sea turtles from before, a crazy-looking eel and tons and tons of fish. We also shared the beach with one of the two monk seals which was still sunning from last Wednesday when he first sailed onto shore. Unfortunately, we also shared a good 15 minutes of our last day with a crazy woman who alleged that everyone at the beach was too close to the seal, thus violating him, and wished that we'all go to hell. This of course ruined my day and I threw a fit. Thank God for the great time we had the night before when my parents treated us to a luau at the Smith Family Plantation or else I would have had horrible memories of Kauai forever! Okay, I'm being a little dramatic...

Anyways, at the luau, we took a little train ride through their gardens; it was unbelievable! I take that back. We took a little "trolley" ride through their gardens. Whatever you want to call it, the ride afforded us beautiful vistas through tree branches looking back towards the mountains.



After our little tour, we walked around the gardens before sitting down for dinner. My dad and my husband even played a little game of coconutball (it's like football, but with an unshucked coconut).



Once it was time to eat, we grabbed a table and waited for our turn to raid the buffet. Anyone who knows me knows that I loathe buffets, but this one was actually really good. Oh, and I hate pork, so pleasing me at a kalua pork buffet was pretty impressive. I loaded my plate and just about ate everything on it, save for some beans.



After "pigging" out (get it?) we were treated to a rather entertaining performance by some local kids. My little Canon didn't take very great pics without the flash, but my mom got some pretty neat shots with her monster of a Canon. Check out her blog for some bad-ass eye candy at http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/.

The plane ride home was uneventful, but long. I get extremely bored on planes and can't sleep well, if at all, so I was really relieved once we landed in St. Louis Sunday afternoon. Josh's parents picked us up from the airport and brought us home. Since we were exhausted, we really didn't get to visit with them much, but we'll see them this weekend at Josh's brother's birthday dinner and we'll be able to catch up.

Photoshop Wars

For fun, I thought I'd post some of the recent casulties of Kartono's and my Photoshop Wars:

Seven Days of Vacation Wiped-Out by Six Hours of Work

Well, today was work as usual. I can't even begin to explain how ridiculous my day was, so I won't.

Anywho, I'm over at my parents right now hanging out with Roxy the dog for a bit. I haven't edited any video yet and have not gone through the photos from our last couple of nights of vacation. As soon as I have, I'll get them up!

Josh is working on our taxes tonight, which is not fun. There are a lot of deductions we think we should get, but don't know if we should, and do we have the paperwork if we can deduct it!?! It's quite the way to relax after a stress-filled first day back to work...let me tell ya!

When I get back home, I think I'll read some of my book "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb (read a review of it here) which, unfortunately, I didn't get to read much of on vacation. I was a huge fan of Lamb's first two books and have not been let down by this one yet.

Last Day in Kauai - Booo

Well, we scrambled to to get all packed this morning, because I thought we had until 10:30 before we needed to check-out, but we really had to be out by 10:00. However, it wasn't hard to wake up this morning what with pee-wee football practice going on in the unit above us. I decided to wash our clothes today, but they weren't completely dry by 10:00, so we packed them anyways, brought them to my parents condo, and threw them in their dryer.

So, here we are...our last day. I think we're going to go back down to the South Shore for one last snorkel. I didn't get around to blogging last night, but I figure I have all night on the plane to wrap up the details from this trip and then I'll post on Sunday.

Until then!!!

Today We had a Whale of a Time!

Well, we survived our journey out into the Pacific and I'm alive to tell the story (I'm a bit woozy, but otherwise okay). The four of us had booked a boat tour of the Na Pali Coast after our timeshare meeting Tuesday, and that cruise departed this afternoon. We left from Port Allen on the South Shore and were supposed to head to the Na Pali Coast, but due to high winds and swells, we didn't. Instead we all got soaked and sick on the boat in an effort to make it there. I may be exaggerating a bit, but there were some pukers and definitely some wet cats. I did not lose my stomach, but my stomach was NOT happy.



The views of the island were amazing from the boat, and we saw multiple rainbows, turtles and whales.



The whales were really active and were a hoot to watch. After tooling around for 4 hours, the sun began to set and we were heading back to the dock. I couldn't get off the boat quick enough, but I think we all had a great time seeing nature in that habitat.



Earlier in the day, on our way there, we stopped at some of my dad's hot-spots. One of them being the infamous overlook that my grandpa insisted on stepping over the safety fence so that he could take a photo of the canyon beyond from the edge of the roadside cliff.



Another of them being an old pedestrian suspension bridge in Hanapepe. It looks creepy, but a closer look reveals the whole structure having a massive support system.



I can't wait for tomorrow. We hope to just take it easy at our resort like we did this morning and enjoy our beach and pool. I want to get some reading in, and Josh is already planning a nice, long nap on the beach. Tomorrow evening, we have reservations at Smith's Luau.

Ash Wednesday Continued...

So, my parents met up with us on Lawai Beach. Josh and I hung back and continued our leisurely activities of reading and listening to music while my parents went out for a snorkel. I guess this was my dad's first time out in the water since we've been here. When my dad decided to come in, Josh and I went back out to meet up with my mom to see if we could find any fish we hadn't seen yet. I don't know the names of all these little guys, but we definitely saw a ton of really cool tropical fish, and some of which we hadn't seen already.

Josh didn't stay out long this time, and so my mom and I went exploring as he went back to shore. We must have been out for another 20 minutes before I decided it was time to get out. As we were making our way back to the beach, I looked up and saw Josh videoing. I thought, alright, he's getting some footage here; we don't have any yet. But then when I looked up again, about 25 feet from the shore, and saw my dad taking pictures with my mom's professional Canon, I thought...hmmm.....what's going on here?!

I started to realize there were a lot more people on the beach by where we were settled than there had been and then it hit me - there were 2 seals lying on the shore not 15 feet in front of my dad and Josh! I immediately got my mom's attention and we swam back to shore as fast as we could. I have posted Josh's video on You Tube: Monk Seals

Eventually the monk seal rescue team showed up and roped off the mammals. You'd be suprised how stupid people are. With and without the rope, people were trying to walk up next to the seals. And we left my parents behind so we could go get some lunch.





After eating some burgers at Po'ipu Tropical Burgers, we headed back to Kapa'a so we could get ready for church. The little Lutheran Church we went to on Sunday was having an Ash Wednesday mass, and we wanted to begin our Lenten journey with the Hawaiians there! This was actually Josh's first experience with such a service. As was par for the course, the mass was phenominal!





After mass we just chilled out and watched the Top Chef finale. Much to my dismay, my girl Carla did not win...but at least the jack-ass from Finland/Germany didn't either!

Well, I'm burnin' daylight now, so I better get off this machine. Thanks for reading and I'll be back at it tonight.