Annie has been super excited about coming to Hawaii, and from the minute we told her about this trip she started to make plans for all the things she wanted to do while here. The most pressing items on her agenda? Dancing the hula with a real hula girl, swimming in the ocean, and drinking from a coconut. (If you’re thinking she’s gathered most, if not all, of her knowledge of Hawaii from watching Lilo & Stich, you’d be right.)

Upon landing yesterday and setting off for where we’re staying we passed a stand on the side of the road selling coconuts to drink from. Annie noticed this and lit up.

“Look! Coconuts! We have to stop! Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaasssse!”

Since we had just landed after many, many hours of travel – and since we expected these stands to be on the corner everywhere here – we told Annie we’d grab a coconut at a stand nearer to where we’re staying after we checked in and unpacked. Annie accepted this and kept her cool as the coconut stand rescinded into the distance.

Unfortunately, as we continued on our way we didn’t see another single coconut stand! Annie didn’t seem to notice (likely confident in her old man’s promise that there’d be coconut stands everywhere), but I was sweating buckets because it looked like we’d passed the only coconut stand on the island. I sweated even more after we unpacked and Annie asked if we could now go and get a coconut.

Luckily, Heather and her mom soon returned from a trip to the local super market with groceries and – duh, duh, duh – a coconut!!! Annie was beside herself:

sooooo excited about her coconut
THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!!

“Open it, Dad! So we can drink it!”

I told her “No problem,” but it only took me a few moments to realize you can’t exactly use a can opener on these things. After smacking it in vain with a spoon, I eventually broke down and googled how to get a straw inside. Within minutes I had the coconut ready, and Annie was gracious enough to let me have the first sip:

trying coconut water
You can see she’s VERY interested in my reaction.

It tasted to me very much like coconut water from the store, but sweeter. Next, it was Annie’s turn. She giggled uncontrollably until she took a sip:

trying coconut water

Her reaction? Not exactly rapturous:

doesn't like coconut water
“So this is how people felt when they tried New Coke.”

When I asked her if she wanted another sip she said, “No,” and slid the coconut back over to me. So I finished it. Later she told me she expected milk to come out of the coconut, not water, which explains her reaction!

Oh well. The coconut thing may not have gone as she hoped, but she’s going to see her number one and two wishes come true this week. Daddy’s got it covered.