Life of Larisa or LOL

The last time I rode a horse I was in Mexico and seventeen.  So riding a horse in Hawai'i at forty-four definitely seems like a NEW activity.  Aloha Friday started off with a fun ride on the North Shore at the Turtle Bay Stables .  The path we rode on meandered alongside the ocean, beside the golf course, through the forest, by locations where several movies have been filmed (Pirates of the Caribbean, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Hunger Games, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked), and Kawela Bay---home to a large amount of cute Honu (green sea turtles).   Our hour long tour of the beautiful grounds at Turtle Bay was wonderful.  We really lucked out on good weather (it has been raining all week) and having a great tour guide in Raul.  Since we are still in a pandemic, Jennah and I enjoyed the horseback riding adventure as the only two on the tour.  We still social distanced and wore masks (which was quite cumbersome with a helmet, reins, and of course trying to take iPhone photos

Week two of the new year and I managed to taste something new, sugarcane rum straight from the distillery.  Just down the road from Schofield Barracks, in the farm land of Kunia in Central O'ahu, there is a rum distiller.  There are acres of sugarcane planted and harvested for unique Hawai'i rum. For Isom's birthday we ditched the kids and spent the early part of Saturday afternoon sipping four unique flavors of rum.  Before our multiple shots of rum, we went on a tour of the grounds that included the sugarcane garden, picnic area, distillery room, and the tasting room (unfortunately the bottling room was closed on the weekend).  Not only was it a fun birthday excursion, but it was a fun way to sip something NEW. I had been wanting to go on the Ko Hana Rum tour for quite sometime.  When our friends recently went on the tour, I took it as a sign to stop saying I want to go on the tour, and actually book the tour and go on the tour.  I headed to the Ko Hana Rum website, made

2021 has arrived, like it or not, ready or not.  After the craziness of 2020, I decided to make a new goal, (52 new goals to be exact) of trying new things.  Last year we all experienced a series of new things.  "New normals" that started with online school for our kids, variations of working from home for us parents, Zoom cocktail hours for socializing with friends, FaceTime visits with family...you get the picture.  We all had to find a way to make new things work during this new time of Covid.  Admittedly, some new things working out better than others.  I guess this is where my idea to take on a more challenging new approach to 2021 started to evolve.  I first considered going the route of several of my hiking friends and incorporating 52 New Hikes for 2021...a really great and enjoyable goal to be sure.  As I sat down to compose my "new hike" list, my mind began to wander...to food.  That's it!  "52 New Restaurants"...and then I remembered I live