Leadership Conference in Waikiki

Mike's battalion was holding a leadership conference for its commanders and staff this past weekend and a day before the event someone had to cancel and we were offered the spot. We gratefully took it and ended up getting to stay in at Hilton's Prince Kuhio hotel right across from the famous Waikiki Beach for 2 nights with all expenses included, even our meals! How could you pass that up?

(ps. i stole all of these pics from the hotel website)

Hotel view from the ocean

Lobby

10th floor balcony pool

Room very similar to ours

another view

There were some organized activities during the day on Friday--but we missed 2 of them because of our ultrasound appointment (and then Babies R Us pit stop). That afternoon they had a scheduled scavenger hunt that Mike participated in. It sounded like a lot of fun, but physically, running around Waikiki for 2 hours was out of the question for me. So Mike joined some of his single friends and went out "hunting". They came back 2 hours later sweaty, stinky and with some battle scars--apparently this scavenger hunt was serious business! I have included some of the random pics they took along the way.

climbing a tree...where the battle scars derived from

Cpt. Bair mimicking the Hilton Hawaiian statuered Ferrari in the Ferrari store2LT Fairweather and a lifeguard Obama T-shirt

Their team ended up winning 2nd place and they received a $50 gift certificate to the hotel restaurant. It's a fairly new place called Mac 24-7, and if you are watchers of Man Vs Food, you may have seen this place because it is known for its 14 inch pancakes. They even have a challenge to see if someone can eat 3 whole 14 in pancakes in 90 minutes. So far only 7 people have completed the challenge and Adam on Man Vs Food was NOT one of them. Mike seriously believes he can do this, and although i think it is sickening to think about, i've seen him put down some enormous amounts of breakfast food so I wouldn't put it past him. Keep a watch out for a future blog on this as I told him we could go back so he can try.

14in pancakes...although you can get whatever you want on them, this gives you a good idea of the size

Anyway, there were 6 people on Mike's Scavenger Hunt team, but they decided to let us have the gift certificate to the restaurant and we are really excited to have it because apparently it is not only known for its huge pancakes, but also has wonderful food. It was voted in the top 5 best restaurants on Oahu for 2009. One unique thing about the restaurant, which you can probably guess from its name is that it is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Here in Hawaii hardly anything is open 24 hours and especially not restaurants in Waikiki. I have always thought that was strange since Waikiki is such a tourist town and people are out all hours of the night. It really is difficult to find a place to seat you after 9pm.

inside

crazy pancake toppings

dessert or breakfast?

So it was a fun surprise weekend for us, and that's one more hotel we can knock off our list of places we want to stay before we leave...thank you ARMY!