Kona 2010 - It's my birthday!

Ok, let's back up a couple of days.

And, yes... I know how friggin behind I am on getting these posts done, but I've been too busy playing Words with Friends to occupy my time :D

As I mentioned in my previous post, there was a serious hangover situation after the K-Swiss party. That had me a bit worried because at the party I was introduced to Bree who is the Director of PR at the Mauna Lani and she had invited us to an *exclusive* party at the resort for the Monday night. Fortunately, that hangover was nothing that a Humpy's burger couldn't fix. I felt friggin FANTASTIC after that.

So Maggs and I headed up to the Mauna Lani that evening expecting a pretty high-end experience. Our expectations were well exceeded. The place, no surprise, is gorgeous. And the dinner? Holy hell! I didn't know that buffets could ligitimately be AMAZING!Being that it was Canadian Thanksgiving, I was originally a bit bummed out that I was missing out on turkey dinner. The dinner made up for it. The dessert made me glad I missed Thanksgiving.

Did I mention the dessert buffet had pre-scooped ice cream? PRE-SCOOPED ICE CREAM! All you had to do was go to the freezer and grab your scoop. Or two. Or three. And there was every topping for brownie sundaes you could ever imagine. Nom nom nom!

Maggs, of course, made sure she took advantage of the free beer situation. We're pretty sure she actually had 7, but there were only 6 empty bottles available at photo time. Not surprisingly, I was NOT partaking in anymore drinking. I'm done til next year ;)

The next day is a bit of a Hawaiian blur. Maggs and I pretty much just hung out doing whatever. That's what you do in Hawaii, right?

Birthday morning I got my run done and then we went to Lava Java for breakfast. That was my first official sit down at the place and I'm so glad it was after everyone was long gone from Ironman week. It was delicious, despite the fact that they didn't have waffles that day - don't they know who I am? I even got a birthday cake! Err... cinnamon bun cake thing.Tawnee decided my boobs should have a starring role in the picture.

BIG THANKS to everyone who came to hang out... Maggs, Tawnee, Bree, Kerrie, Super G, ML (still don't know why Kerrie & GG would bring that guy) & the hooligans at the other table that included Belinda & Justin Granger (I share a birthday with Justin).

After breakfast, I took Maggs to the airport and had the day all to myself so I decided to drive up to the Mauna Lani to spend the day in heaven. Tawnee found me shortly after I got there and we hung out with a couple of friends.

Matt went Honu hunting and then Larry did some shots of Matt - I supervised them ;)

After some frolicking on the beach, we decided to head to the pool. Not just any pool though.The pool we were heading to required using the free beach cruisers from the hotel and a short ride down the road.That's right. a 3 lane lap pool! Not that I did any swimming in it, but I watched some people swim while I baked in the sun some more. Apparently someone still had Xterra Worlds to train for... what was he thinking?Then it was back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. Looking out the window we realized that we were minutes from the sunset so we booked it down to the beach to get some pictures before dinner.And who came to the birthday dinner? Oh just a few of the best in the world! Only the best for D ;)Also there were Tawnee, Larry, Bree from the Mauna Lani, Holly Bennett & Wendy Ingraham. Not bad, eh?

After an amazing meal, I had to speed down the highway to get on my 9pm flight. I thought leaving the island in '08 was hard. This year was a stab in the heart. I CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR!!!