Valentine's Weekend, Part 1

First let me start by saying, Stephen is terrible with surprises. He always wants to tell me ahead of time what it is. It’s a good thing I have a stronger will and tell him not to tell me. The whole day yesterday he kept saying to me “You want to know what we are doing tomorrow? I really want to tell you.”

So today, a Saturday mind you, Stephen made me get up early and told me we were going somewhere. So we head up to North Shore area, Waialua to be exact and we pull into this parking lot and I see a farmers market and I think “um, what’s the big deal, we go to the farmers market all the time, what’s so special about this one? Then I see the sign (I have provided a blue arrow so you can see what my eyes were drawn to)




That’s right, chocolate mill! Does my man know me or what! So this place was the old sugar mill (FYI they don’t make sugar in Hawaii anymore, outsourcing I guess) that they now use for these little cute shops. First we went to the soap factory, very cute. We bought a sample packet of their different scented soaps plus a bar of peppermint soap I really wanted.




Then we walked over to the coffee/chocolate mill. It wasn’t quite what we expected. You might have noticed on the sign it said “free mini tours”. Well this is what the tour consisted of; a man came up to us, showed us the coco pods



Then the beans



Then walked us outside and pointed at a tree 50 yards away and said “That’s the coco tree”. The coffee part of the tour included him pointed to the drying boxes and saying “That is where we dry the coffee beans”. I think I would call that a micro tour. But we did get free samples of coffee, and let me tell you, Hawaiian coffee is really good. And we bought a dark chocolate bar for me and a milk chocolate bar for Stephen. And it was very good chocolate. Also included here is a picture of Stephen being silly, which in case you didn’t know, he is all the time. (He tries very hard to keep up a serious persona but I do my best to reveal his true self, which is that he is a completely goofy dork/nerd)




Then we went to the famers market and bought some produce. We bought some peanuts to make homemade peanut butter; we’ll see how that goes. We also bought 2 coconuts. The lady put a straw in one so we could drink the milk. Yeah, coconut milk, not so tasty as you would think. When we got home Stephen smashed it open with a hammer and gave a chunk to Lilo (who is currently outside gnawing on it). Oh, also at the farmers market, we bought some Ahi that a guy was selling out of the back of his truck. Stephen is going to grill it for dinner tonight. Stephen has another surprise for me for tommorrow, I'll see if I can keep me from telling me what it is till then.