Shopping, Shopping, Some Swimming, and More Shopping

Today was a trip to the swap meet. Remember how I didn't run yesterday so I was supposed to wake up early today to do it? Well I did. I woke up a lot last night actually, this condo is just not good for my sleep pattern. I miss the days when I could sleep anywhere and sleep through anything. Eventually I woke up and stayed up, went for my run, showered, and headed out with Mom and Dad to go to the swap meet. We drove all the way there, just to find out that the location had been moved. I ran into McDonald's really quick to figure out where it had been moved to, and then we headed off to the real swap meet.

Can I tell you how much I like getting good prices on things? It's fun. There were a bunch of booths set up (not as many as the one on the big island though) but a lot of them were repeats. There were wood carving booths, jewelry booths, toy booths, shirt booths, sarong booths, and then a few specialty booths that weren't repeated five times. I walked around to look at all the booths and then went around again to actually buy things. The sad part was that I wasn't super excited about really anything that was there. There was nothing I had to have or REALLY wanted. The first purchase I made was a map of Hawaii done on canvas with a picture in the background. The coolest part of the picture is the frame, but the frame is $60 so that was a no go. I also bought a ring. It's silver with three plumerias around the band. I remember looking at them last time I was in Maui so I figured it was okay to get one this time. I bought a super pretty pearl necklace that's got 6 strands of pearls and can be worn in 3 ways. The first way is a twist, or just as 6 strands, or the long way that turns it into 3 strands (if you don't follow that, it's okay, just don't worry about it). That was my super deal of the day. The lady told me it was $55 so I went to other places and found the lowest price was $35. I came back to her to tell her what I could get it for at the other place, hoping she'd go lower, but she was really sad when I told her it was $35 and told me that she'd give me that price. I didn't want to talk her down because I could tell that that was a low price so I took it. And then I bought two bracelets made out of jewel nuts. Dad hardly bought anything, and Mom didn't buy as much as I would have expected. But, I guess that just goes to show you that the swap meet wasn't all that great. Fun, I won't lie, but not like other times we've been. Maybe that's the problem... there's nothing we REALLY want from Hawaii because we've already gotten it.

After the swap meet we went to the cannery mall because Mom wanted to watch the kids hula competition. Well, that's not what we saw. We caught the tail end of a hula show and the kids never came out. It appears that we were given some wrong information. But as long as we were at the mall, we decided to look around. The mall was small and the only thing we ended up getting was some flip flops for Dad (his very first pair). After walking the mall we headed across the street for some lunch. We went to the Aloha Mix Plate for lunch because it was supposed to be authentic Hawaiian. I wasn't too impressed, but it filled me up, so that counts for something.

After going so many days of early morning, going non-stop, going going going, we finally had to take a break. After lunch we came home and napped. I was out for about 2 hours, but Dad was out for like 4. Holy Moley. We went back down to the cart shops by our condos, but didn't get anything. Again, it was kind of sad and disappointing that there was nothing that we really wanted. Well, that's a lie. Once Dad finally woke up, we went back down and he got two of those aluminum old school pictures he likes (again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it).

After cart shopping we suited up and went down to the beach. Never mind that our condo is right on the beach, we got in the car and drove 2 minutes to a different beach. Don't ask me why. Anyway, by time we went in, it was around 7pm. When we got in the water, it was a little cooler than I expected, but once we got in and started moving around, it was nice and warm. It was pretty cool to be able to swim in the ocean while star gazing. We didn't last too long because it was getting dark pretty fast and Mom kept worrying that I was drifting too far away. Never mind that I've had at least 18 years of swimming experience, but whatev'.

Cutting down on the swim time ended up to be a good thing though because while we were in the water I remembered that we were supposed to go to Hilo Hattie's today but because the naps went so long, it didn't happen. I'd tried on a dress twice and really like it, but it's $40. With the 20% discount, it's only be $32 and so I had been debating for a while if I actually wanted to get it. I don't know, I guess the longer I'm on vacation, the more easily I spend money or something because I decided today that yes, I wanted to get the dress. So we quickly came home, showered off and Dad and I headed down to get the dress. I walked in, grabbed the dress and was ready to go. One of the workers looked and me and noted that I knew exactly what I wanted. I admitted to her that I'd already tried it on twice, so yeah, I did know what I wanted. She rang up the dress and it scanned as $19.99, so with the discount it was $15.99. WHAT!?!?!?! That totally made my night. I was so excited. How does a $39.99 dress just ring up $19.99? And it's not like I noticed the mistake and just kept it quiet, she noticed the price difference too and was just as surprised as I was, but she decided that it was just on sale.

By time we got back from our last shopping trip of the night, it was 9pm and time for dinner. So dinner, a little t.v., some blogging, some packing, and that's the end of the day. I'm still excited about my amazing buys and especially glad that they're things that I will wear when I get home (unlike most of the stuff I bought on past trips that were so Hawaiian that I felt weird wearing it off the island).