Carolina Is Trying to Get to Vegas Baby!!!

Carolina Is Trying to Get to Vegas Baby!!! 1:18pm
Hey Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Dudes and Chicks, Kittens and Punks, Family & Friends!!!

The Dallas Mavericks are hosting a contest with Coca Cola and the House of Blues called Rock the House and the grand prize is this ---->

One (1) year supply of Coca Cola products
Two (2) tickets to a TBD concert at House of Blues Las Vegas
Hotel accommodations for two (2) nights in Las Vegas
Roundtrip airfare for two (2) to Las Vegas
$150 in spending money

All contestants had to submit a video singing a favorite karaoke song...Please go here ------>

http://www.nba.com/mavericks/sponsorship/rockthehouse_vote.html

and VOTE FOR ME!

My fabulous camera-chica, Stephanie, helped me do this. (no offense to any of the AWESOME cameramen I know) :) The song is Mr. Brightside by The Killers. Go ahead and laugh…I don’t mind in the least…especially if it gets me to Vegas Baby!!! ;) The video is completely ridiculous. I'm sure that I will be getting alot of crap over the years to come, but it's VEGAS BABY!!! so go ahead and laugh and hopefully, be entertained as well.

Even if I don't get to Vegas, still might get the chance to sing at the Dallas Mavericks vs. San Antonio Spurs game on March 4th...so that's pretty sweet anyways!!

VOTE

If you're in a super rush, you don't even have to watch the videos...just vote for me...#1 :) How easy is that?


VOTE

I love you all...and if you don't feel the same you probably already deleted this when you saw the subject! ;)

much love,

Carolina

One last thing...If you could forward this to...um...EVERYONE YOU KNOW :) ...that'd be GREAT!!!!

ALOHA!... Part 3

February 1, 2009 Day 4:

First of I’d like to say I have the most amazing Momma and God Mother, Carol…due to me not having direct deposit, my funding during the trip went kinda haywire…but where there’s a will there’s a way…And man do we have so WILL!!!

I woke up to the sun shining…it’s warm and wonderful! It’s also SUPER BOWL SUNDAY! Whoo hoo?? HA! No, it’s cool.

*Quick back story…I tend to take vacation during either January or February due to the fact the NBA and NHL teams have their All-Star Breaks somewhere around then and therefore, I usually have a couple of more days where there’s no games. This was also the perfect excuse to boycott/leave the country during Valentine’s Day. (Which I am SUPER cool with.) But the last couple of years I’ve “escaped” during Super Bowl time…last year I had a blast watching it en espanol in Costa Rica!

So although our plan was to try surfing again, plans changed. Because of the time difference, the game would be starting right around lunch time. So we decided to head to Senor Frogs. Yes, once again we played tourist. It was fun. We had this Criss Angel-look-a-like waiter named Nick from Delaware.

And thus we were entertained for the never several hours! :)

*One of my favorite places in Nassau is Senor Frogs to Just. Have. Fun. The one in Waikiki is still in America…and therefore, under the laws of America. Watching “kids” between the ages of 18-21 have a crazy good time does not happen here. We made our own fun. And it was all good. Just warning ya…not every Senor Frogs is the same. :)

Anyways, we headed back to the hotel for a MUCH NEEDED nap.

We woke up around 8 p.m. and then mayhem ensued!!! My fabulous camera-chica, Stephanie, and I made a video. Not just any video though. I’m trying to win a trip to Vegas, courtesy of the Dallas Mavericks. The goal was to “Rock the House” (of Blues) by karaoke-ing it up. Here’s what was submitted. The song is Mr. Brightside by The Killers. Go ahead and laugh…I don’t mind in the least…especially if it gets me to Vegas Baby!!! ;)

*Someday I’ll post the “blooper reel”…it’s way more entertaining…well to me and Steph anyways. ;)

After a quick shower, we got all dolled up and headed back out on the town in search of dinner...with some cool stuff along the way.

Mosaic wall of the visitors center...

Pretty Hibiscus...

Probably the Coolest Apple Store Ever!...

We ended up at Doraku Sushi.

This place is owned by the son of Behinhana…so we thought hey, lets check it out.

After the awesome food, once again we were exhausted…so back to the room it was…good night! :)

ALOHA!...Part 2

January 31, 2009 Day 3:

It’s another beautiful day in Kailua. Portuguese sausage rolls and chocolate croissants from Elvin’s Bakery for breakfast. (yum)

So no days have been really planned out. It’s just kinda go with whatever we feel like doing at the moment. Today we decided to head to Waikiki Beach.

After finding a (temporary) parking spot, we were ready to hit the beach! Man there’s a lot of people out today…duh Carolina, it’s a Saturday. Lol Anyways, we get to a stand on the beach with a rack o surfboards and that’s where we met Zack from Peru.


Zack would be our surf instructor for the next hour. This took a little coaxing to get Steph to join me (as this was her first time) but she soon realized it was totally worth it! :)



After the super brief “pop-up” lesson on the sand…we were off and running…errr, make that paddling! ;) The hard part of surfing is not the actual “standing on water” part…it’s the paddling…and we will still feel the pain in the days to come. But I gotta say, it hurts sooo good! :)

The waves today were tiny but it was still great. Steph even got up on her first try! Please enjoy the slideshow…yeah there’s about a hundred pics…you don’t have to look at them all. :)

We had such a good time (and workout). Did I mention…surfer boys are never a bad thing to look at. ;)



*only one casualty occurred…I somehow stepped on something (Steph thing urchin) and it won’t come out of my LEFT foot…must stop and get Neosporin and band-aids STAT!

Then we “ran like the wind” back to the car, as it began to rain…not cuz we were afraid of getting wet, but because we were afraid of getting a ticket or the car towed…trust me, if it was gonna happen to anyone…it would most definitely happen to us. We made it back to the car (with the meter flashing ZERO) and decided lunch would be good.

On to the Hard Rock Café Honolulu we went! (yes I know it’s “touristy” but we’ve already been through this in the New York and Vegas postings…get over it, I dig it!) lol


We had a great lunch and yummy drinks…and had fun conversations with the waitress, merch guy, and the manager…Stephanie talked him in to giving us the kama'aina discount (locals’ discount)…um awesome. :)



We left Honolulu and headed back to Kailua. Along the way we stopped and took in the sights.





There was a railing and then this...




past the chicken and pigeons was this...



I could soooo watch the water all day long with no worries. :)

We then decided to another couple of hours before the sun started to set back at Lani Kai beach. The plan was to enjoy the peacefulness like we did the morning before. Well that didn’t exactly happen. There was a group of about 4 or 5 little boys playing something that looked like either pirates or knights…either way, they had swords. :) They were cute but slightly less than silent. But then we had the pleasure (or misfortune) of watching the “1,2,3 Girls.” This group of about 6 girls decided it was necessary to have pictures of them on the beach jumping (at the count of 3). A couple of pictures would have been sufficient, I’m quite certain, but NO they kept on for at least 30 minutes. Oh yeah, we mocked them (we even thought about running and jumping in to get in a shot)…but we weren’t the only ones. Lol Slightly annoying, but still, I was on a beach, and all was right in the world. :)



After a slight issue of being locked out of the apartment, I decided that we would head back to Waikiki and get a room for the night…we were still pumped from surfing earlier and want to do it again tomorrow.

***Guess who else is NOT COOL…hotels.com. The phone operators have no clue what about what they’re talking about. Still waiting on a refund from their idocracy. Give your money to someone else.***

But whatever, we got a room and cleaned up and made our way down to “the strip” about 2 blocks over. Warn out and tired but once again hungry. So you can totally laugh at this I don’t mind…we ended up at that traditional Hawaiian eatery known as The Cheesecake Factory.



HA! Yeah I know there’s one in Dallas, and no I’ve never been there, and no there's no palm trees in front of the one in Dallas.

It was good and they had a live band complete with ukulele. :)

Whoo hoo! I made it to midnight tonight. Yay…and good night! ;)

ALOHA! Part 1

January 29, 2009 Day 1:

I woke up at 4:15 this morn to finish packing (which I procrastinated on and most definitely over packed. But I figure, since I have to pay $15 anyway…I might as well take everything that I might want in the next 6 days with me). So I turn the corner to get on the highway and I find one of the remaining patches of ice on the roads and swerved and skidded. Did I mention its 21 degrees outside? I am glad to be leaving this crazy cold weather! Yeah, I know it’s January and WINTER, but ice on the road is NOT conducive to my happiness. ;)

I get to my window seat (which I luckily stumbled upon yesterday) and get comfy and drift off as the Hawaiian music plays over the P.A.…

I got to sleep for about FIVE hours! (Getting to sleep for 5 hours straight is not a common occurrence for me.) It’s awesome!

I awoke just in time to see Ratatouille (1^st time, pretty cute). At the moment I am watching Good Will Hunting on my ipod. In a bout an hour, I will be landing in Honolulu, Hawaii. I will be spending the next 6 days my best-est friend on the entire planet (of 27 ½ years) Stephanie. I can’t wait!

I arrived at the airport and Steph and I headed over to Thrifty Car Rental to pick up my car for the week…or so this was the plan. If you value my opinion in the least please DO NOT EVER rent a car from THRIFTY CAR RENTAL. They are sooo not cool. Somehow their computers were jacked up and they kept refusing my form of payment. So not only embarrassing, but also super frustrating after waiting in line for roughly 30 mins…with no A/C.

So Stephanie & I’s first adventure of the week would be heading back to the airport to find a car…any car at this point. Well it turns out not ANY car…the only other place that happened to be open at the time were just plain ridiculous with their pricing. Luckily, Steph’s boyfriend, Ed was near by and saved the day by taking us to a place that rents to “locals.” Success! And we were on our way.

***NOTE***

For those of you first time visitors of Seizin’ the Day the following blog posting will and does contain pictures of beverages and food…along with other things…go ahead and laugh…it’s what I do. ;)

Back to the story…

After arriving at Stephanie’s apartment, in Kailua, and getting a quick shower, we (Stephanie, Ed and I) set off down the road to a place called Lucy’s for dinner.

There were a couple of fruity adult beverages involved...

I had some of the best coconut shrimp ever…

It was a good dinner.

We continued down the street and decided to get some ice cream. (unfortunately there is no picture of my birthday cake ice cream, in a sprinkled waffle bowl…but trust me it was delicious…well the 4 bites I ate were before I decided I had had enough. ;)

Wandering back to the apartment I had the “pleasure” of meeting Lucy their cat and their roommate Brent.

It’s about 10 o’clock and I am exhausted. Ya see, there’s a 4 hour time difference between Dallas and Hawaii.

See ya in the morning. :)

January 30, 2009 Day 2:

Last night the sky opened up and the rain came pouring down hard! But thankfully it was done by the time the sun came up.

The first stop was to Cinnamon’s (apparently Rachel Ray has enjoyed this place as well) where we had way too much food for breakfast. The Portuguese sweet bread French toast was pretty darn good.

We then headed back to pick up Ed and off to Lani Kai Beach we went. I can honestly day that if I was to live here in Kailua, I would make this beach a mandatory part of my everyday routine.

Back to the apartment to pick up Brent and we were on our way down the Kam Highway on a very scenic route towards North Shore. (Steph and I had two of the craziest backseat drivers/singers ever!)

Thanks to Brent, we stopped at a Mac Nut Farm…as in they have everything you could possibly want with macadamia nuts in them. Yeah, I made a purchase or two. :)

Lunch time was upon us and there’s several shrimp trucks along the way to North Shore, so of course we had to stop. We ended up at the Romy Shrimp truck/farm.

***Side note: I’m not big on seafood, but I do have a fondness for shrimp…mostly of the coconut, fried or grilled variety…oh yeah, they also always come to me sans HEADS and LEGS.

So we ordered and found a picnic table in the shade and waited for our order to come up.

And to my surprised, what I was about to consume needed a little more preparation…by me. As in, I had to de-shell, head, leg them. EWE! (one of the many reasons I don’t cook lol)

Anyways, I sucked it up and did it…when in Rome right? Nana would be soo proud. :)

After a hand washing, it was back in the car, heading towards Sunset Beach. So pretty.

But there was definitely a “kick” to this current. Notice the signs…

…but of course that didn’t stop me from getting in. I was told I should probably leave the sunglasses with the towels. Did I? Course not. Did I lose them in the ocean? You bet it did! Lol No worries though, I stopped buying expensive sunglasses years ago. ;)

The water felt amazing. And then I met a set of waves that decided that I was to be pounded into the beach…yeah that’s me in there somewhere under the current.

Thanks Brent for the pics…but thanks a lot (she says sarcastically) for the help up! ;)

Obviously, I survived!

The sun was close to setting on Sunset beach so we got back in the car (this time with an added bonus of SAND…everywhere)!

Next on the agenda was Matsumoto Shave Ice…

…where I decided to go with the Creamsicle/Ice Cream combination…

and Steph with a more colorful option. Sooo good!

Did a little shopping in the nearby shops, then back to Kailua we went.

After a (much needed) shower, Steph and I did dinner at a little Italian place called Lia’s. Good stuff.

Goodnight…yeah it’s only 9…but I’m tired! :)