Life of Larisa or LOL

Summer break is officially here for our family.  My oldest just completed three years of Middle School and had his "Aloha Ceremony" earlier this week.  My youngest just completed two years of pre-school and received his "Certificate of Graduation".  My two boys are in a summer of transition!  Next month they will be in the final days of freedom before heading off to High School and Kindergarten.  So we are enjoying the here and now before homework, school schedules, and extra curricular activities swallow up our time.  Our first hike of summer---Kolowalu Trail, is in the back of Manoa Valley.  The trail head starts down a private access road (more like a driveway) at Alani and Woodlawn Drive.  Those who are familiar with the Manoa trail Pu'u Pia, will know the area and that Kolowalu branches off to the right of the trail that leads you up to the summit of Pu'u Pia.  Since I have done Pu'u Pia twice---once with a Firefighter escort out and once all o

O'ahu is an oasis in the middle of the Pacific that contains numerous outdoor adventures for all skill levels.  If you are a water lover, there are countless beaches for you to swim, surf, sail, fish, or relax at.  If you are more of a land dweller, there is a trail (official or unofficial) that can be found in just about every part of the island--- including the middle of the city .  Today, we took a mini hiking adventure right off of the Pali Highway...minutes away from office buildings, apartments, churches, and temples---proving there are natural gems hiding where we least expect them. Kapena Falls was the location (or so I thought) of our mosquito ridden photo shoot/hike today.  I stumbled across this mini trail via Instagram.  There I was just scrolling through waterfall photo after waterfall photo when someone was finally kind enough to mention the name of the waterfall they were at---Kapena Falls.  That's what I read and researched.  I had not heard of this, so

This weeks Thursday trail took us up Round Top Drive, better known as Tantalus.  Recently we explored the Pu'u Ohia and Moleka Trails, also near the top of Tantalus.  The last on my Tantalus list to be explored was the Manoa Cliff Trail.  Mud, mainland-esque forest, bamboo, plant labeling, Diamond Head and Ko'olau Mountain views...not to mention hiking on a cliff.  Sometimes the cliff is a gradual (not scary one).  Other times the cliff is an "oh crap" one (as in don't think about the "Hazardous Cliff" warning sign that mentions possible death).  Ah, O'ahu hiking---always keeps you on your toes! This week my hiking partner and I were on a limited time schedule due to summer school pick up.  But...we had to squeeze in a hike before the mid day pick up time!  We decided on Manoa Cliff because I knew we could do part of the trail in the small amount of time we had...and who doesn't love a little adrenaline rush in the morning (better than

If you hike O'ahu trails with any frequency, you make a mental list of trails that are  1) your favorite  2) your least favorite  3) easy  4) challenging  5) great to take friends/family that visit  6) long  7) wet  8) picturesque 9) must do 10) EPIC  For me, Pali Puka falls under the category of EPIC.  It also, until this past Sunday, fell under the category of "must do" on my hiking list.  I'm so happy and lucky to have checked this one off the list.  If you have never heard of the Pali Puka trail, please take a moment now to Google, YouTube, look up Instagram hashtags for this hike...   Right?!  Now that you are back from your Internet field trip, you are thinking 1-my pictures are nowhere near as good as other pictures out there from this same trail and 2-I'm crazy. Both are true. And now I will type up my extreme words of caution, my disclaimer, my warning... This hike is NOT for those who have a fear of heigh