Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Five- Hilo

I know what you're thinking.

When will this guy shut up about his Hawaii trip?

I understand where you are coming from. But I must press on for my posterity's sake.

We started off the day by visiting the famous volcanoes. Everything was a bit different than I imagined, but once I got past that, I loved it.

See! This is me. Loving. It.

The family took a cute little group shoot in front of all the smoke.

My sister Nika (sometimes known as Ne-Ne amongst about 45 nicknames) took special offense to this sign. It would be tough for anybody to go without food. Even NeNe.

One of the best things about looking at volcanoes is when you get to practice your modeling poses. There was a lot of smoke popping out of random locations.
This tunnel was made from hot lava running through it several (thousand?) years ago. Now it is a pretty sweet cave. Also in this picture, NeNe the butt scratcher!
Inside of the cave, I got my drunk face on.One rule about family vacations: There is always time for one more group photo. Always. Even if it is in some place that you won't remember when you are blogging about it three weeks later. Even if it is just in front of some trees. There is always time.
My favorite part of the volcano experience was hiking down to the bottom of this crater. Mostly because there were only four of us who did it.
Next up, we went to a Hawaiian pizza joint where we played Connect Four and I built this awesome tower from building blocks. It's pretty cool, right? Right?
That is one proud architect right there.
Then came the pizza. As you can clearly see, Nika tried to swoop in for a bite of my delicious veggie pizza. I quickly reminded her about the "Don't Feed The NeNe" sign and how it was my job as her big brother to teach her about following signs and not eating when we are not supposed to eat. So she didn't get any pizza.
Afterwards, we visited the magestic Akaka Falls. There was an old lady in the parking lot blabbering about how the falls is named after her family and that you can find two naked ladies near the falls if you look close enough. Sure, crazy lady, whatever you say.
Here I am next to the good ol' Akaka.This is a picture of me with the improv group Second City, who performed on the cruise ship. They are (L-R) Mike, Deanna, me (duh), Piero, Jen, and Rance. I was lucky enough to be called on stage and have them perform a five minute musical about everything I did that day. (Rance played the part of Cody) It was probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Not only were these guys hilarious, but they were also really cool people. Big ups to Second City!!!

Here is a pic of Bria and Amanda doing the stanky legg on the dance floor. The three of us hit up the dance floor nearly every night we were on the ship. Usually, there weren't too many other people dancing with us. But we had a blast every night. I really miss being able to shake my money maker on a nightly basis.

Oh Boy...

One week from tomorrow,I will be embarking on a road trip across the United States. I have to say I am a little worried about the challenges the weather might bring. Especially after watching this clip.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

McMardi Gras

WARNING: This blog post is not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach. This past Saturday night, Jake (my roommate) and I embarked on a challenge. This challenge was epic, It was gigantic. It was really stupid. We ate fifty McDonald's Chicken McNuggets each in one sitting.

The idea came from McDonald's recent promotion of 50 McNuggets for $9.99. While watching the commercial we decided it would be fun to try and eat all fifty. Originally, there were more of us who wanted to try the challenge. In the end, it was just me and Jake. (PS- Thanks to Sarah for sitting through this and taking all the pictures. It takes a real friend to endure watching something like this in person.)

Here are all the McNuggets next to the sauces we ordered. Mark ordered 50 for himself but has ate them sporadically over the past few days. Smart man.

I think this picture marks the beginning of the challenge. Jake seems to be eating a McNugget, while I am texting someone. Guess I got off to a slow start.

Here I am eating McNugget #1. These were simple and carefree times, right here.

Jake was focused and tore into his first two boxes like a madman.

Since we started the challenge at about 1:45 a.m. I called upon my good friend Diet Coke to keep me going through the night. With all the boxes open, you get a good sense here of the mess we got ourselves into.

Jake made his way through the third box by trying out some of the sauces.

This McNugget was probably somewhere between #11-13 for me.

Soon enough, the weight of the challenge began to set in.

And it was not pretty.

After finishing my second box, I started to get my doubts.

I started to get sad, too.

So I decided to do some lunging...

...and stretching...

...and some twists. That seemed to help me get through the thirties.

Meanwhile, Jake's final box had brought him to the couch. Lesson #1 of the McNugget Challenge: The last box will always bring you to the couch (or worse).

Eventually, Jake arrived at McNugget #50 after just an hour into the challenge. (I was somewhere just past halfway at this moment.) On his face you can see the joy, the relief, the regret, the sickness. It's all there.

Here are McNuggets #32-33. I started eating them two at a time to get through the thirties.

Here is Jake, once he finished. A picture is worth a 1,000 words. I don't think I need to say much else.

Me with a mouth full of Nuggets, probably around the end of my fourth box.

Soon enough, the challenge sent me to the couch, as well. It got really late and Sarah went home so there are few pictures of my last box. That is a good thing. That final box was about as low of a moment as I had ever had. Each Nugget tasted like a poisonous sponge doused in grease. I needed three or four bites and a sip of water to get each one down. Somehow, I had to finish.

Finally, at 4:00 in the morning, there was only one McNugget left to eat. #50. That cursed wench. Did I savor it? No, I did not.

Here I sit with my prize. A golden wad of fat and cholesterol. I finished the challenge, and I suppose I feel semi-proud. But not really proud.

The five empty boxes of the finished challenge. My advice to you: DO NOT TRY THE MCNUGGET CHALLENGE!!! EVER!!!

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Four- Maui Again

Maui Wowi!

I really just wanted to say that.

Moving on...

Day 4 began with a trip to Lahaina when we happened to see this big dead swordfish. Of course, being a tourist, you have to get your picture next to stuff like this. It's the law. Now when you looked at the picture above, you may have thought to yourself, "Cody, that does not appear to be your family. Who are you standing with?" Well, I'll tell ya. This is the Thacker family (minus Mom and Dad) and they are in definite need of a Paper Badge shout-out. My actual family had one extra person than seats in their rental van and the Thackers had one extra seat than people. So I rode with them. The entire trip. And it was awesome. They adopted me into their family and we did like a million awesome things on the trip that my actual family never did. So there. To sum things up, I had a great family vacation, I just spent it with a different family than I was planning on. Go Thackers! You guys are great!!!

In Lahaina, we sailed out into the ocean in the ReefDancer, a submarine-ish boat which is kind of like that Finding Nemo ride in Disneyland. Only it's real. It is the perfect alternative for anti-snorkelers like myself.

This is what our boat looked like on the inside. Yea tank tops!!!

This is what it looked like when we looked out the window. Yea unknown fish!

There were two scuba divers who would find creatures and bring them up close to our window...

...like this little sea urchin.

The best part of the whole ride happened when one of the divers brought this seven-legged octopus up to the window.
It was really cool. We also saw a few turtles, but I was never able to get a picture of them.
Suddenly, just when things appeared to be going so great, the heptapus attached himself to the diver's face. The diver tried his best to pull the beast of himself, but it was too late. He was doomed. We watched in horror as the heptapus slowly began to suck the diver into his cavernous belly. It was in that moment I remembered something I learned in Mrs. Bowter's fourth grade class: An octopus is your friend until the bitter end, but beware of the heptapus, an enemy to all of us.
Okay, back to reality. Here I am posing next to my trusty steed, the Yellow Submarine.

I took a few shots of the surrounding area from the boat.

Que lindo!
I could make up another story about this sunken ship, but this post is already becoming the longest blog post ever made.
Here I am @ Bubba Gump's doing my best running while sitting pose.
View from Bubba Gump's. Second only to the view from BK Lounge in Logan.
And here I am standing in front of the view. Hey there, champy.

Next, we visited the Iao Valley and Needle Point. The Point is being covered by a tiny branch in the picture. (I am a GREAT photographer!)

Here is it up-close and sans branch.

Look what else we found! Rafiki's tree! Major success!
Here I am with one real sister and two adopted sisters standing in front of the Need. Can you tell which sis is which?
Maui is really really pretty. Like wowi pretty.

Here are two of the real sisters. They are wowi pretty too. Finally, my real sisters, my adoptive sisters, a friend of a sister, my second Mom and I all posed for a picture in front of the Needle. (Who is a mountain, not a sister.)