who needs sleep, anyway?

mere hours after getting home from our epic eras tour outing, the three of us were in the car heading right back the way we'd come - but this time, our destination was LAX for...this:

the bean and i hadn't gotten home from sofi stadium until after 1:30am.  while i scurried around trying to get myself packed as quickly as possible, the bean was resigned to staying up all night in order to watch a livestream of BTS' suga closing out his solo concert tour with a final show in korea while also getting packed for the trip.  absolute madness.

at this point, we only had a couple of weeks left before the new school year started so we were doing our best to squeeze in as much fun as possible.  i wasn't at all sure that we were going to be able to fit in any kind of a big summer getaway this year, but somehow the hub pulled off the impossible and off we were for a week in our favorite place.

we always rent a car despite the exorbitant parking fees everywhere, because while we love waikiki and hanging out at the beach we also really enjoy driving around the island.

because our flight was so early, we'd arrived right around lunchtime.  and after mulling over our options, we decided to hit up one of our most favorite holes-in-the-wall:  kyung's seafood in honolulu.

kyung's never disappoints.  the freshest sushi and sashimi and ice cold soju slushies were a fantastic way to kick off our visit to paradise.

while our go-to place to stay has been the moana surfrider for years, this time around we decided to try something new.  the "pink palace," also known as the royal hawaiian, is just down the street from the surfrider and was our home for the week.

look, i brought taylor to hawaii with us!

the cool, comfortable beds in our room were really inviting and we all ended up taking some well-deserved naps.  the hub and i woke up before the bean and decided to take a short walk just across the lawn to the international marketplace, where we hit up our favorite island vintage coffee for a pick-me-up.  i was pretty excited to have my first island latte of the trip:

when we got back to the room, the bean was awake.  we were all hungry again by then, and so we headed downstairs and over to duke's for one of their delicious cheeseburgers.

of course, duke's was poppin'.  we cruised around the dining area a few times looking for an available table with no luck.  the hub had us hang out in the waiting area while he went to try and sweet-talk the hostess into giving us a spot us and came back to report that we could be seated immediately as long as we were okay with sharing it with another family.  hell yeah, we were. bring on the cheeseburgers.

when we got to the table, we smiled and introduced ourselves to the family of four that were our stablemates.  and when i sat down, the mom looked at me and said "do you make cookies?"

<insert record player screech here>

after my initial shock, we started chatting and it turns out that i'd done cookies for her son's first birthday...in 2015.  she found this blog while googling for information on run disney races and actually ordered cookies from me twice.  absolutely wild.

we all had a great time having dinner together - trading ideas for things to do while in o'ahu, sharing disneyland tips for their next stop on their vacation, marveling at the craziness of randomly finding each other after all these years.  i don't know if she still reads the blog, but if so...hey gurl hey!