Aloha

Jason and I got back on Friday morning early from a week in Hawaii! It was fabulous! We went for our 4th anniversary! The trip was perfect! The weather was amazing and we got to do some really cool things! McKenzie stayed with Nana and had a blast too! We missed her like crazy though!

We arrived in Hawaii Saturday the 3rd in the afternoon. Since Hawaii is 6 hours behind our time we were really tired after flying 9.5 hours. By the time we landed I was so sick to my stomach I just knew it was going to be awful. We made it to the rental car place and to the resort. I was in the bathroom when Jason came in a frantic voice and asked me if I had seen the laptop. I told him No! So we quickly put together that our laptop was left on the plane! So back to the airport he goes and off to bed I go. I do not even remember him coming back. (Delta had our laptop! It was amazing!!) He says he was gone almost 2 hours and I thought it was just minutes! It was 6 pm when I went to bed for the night so needless to say we were up about 3 am! We opened up IHOP Sunday morning! It was walking distance from our hotel! Very fun! Sunday we stayed at the resort, The Hawaiian Hilton Village and tried to learn our way around there. It was so big. I could not navigate it alone. Sunday night we had dinner at the resort in an Italian Restaurant...my favorite!

Monday-We took the rental car all over the island and spent the day sightseeing! It was really fun...all except for the hike to the top of Diamond Head! For those of you who doesn't know...I am NOT a hiker! I really don't care about getting to the very top and seeing a view. I know that is crazy but I guess I am just lazy!

Diamond Head-was disappointing to me. The big "hole" part was neat but all the vegetation was dead. So we hike to the very top about a mile up with two 100 stairs staircases and look out over all this dead grass. I am sure if it was green grass the view would have been much better!

After the hike was over...Thank God!

Yes, we made it to the top and have the
picture to prove it!

One of the staircases

View from the top

Ocean view and a cute lighthouse!

On the way up

Pearl Harbor-from Diamond Head we went to visit Pearl Harbor. We got there and walked around the outside monuments. We did not realize until later in our trip that we had missed the big thing to do at Pearl Harbor...the museum that you have to take a ferry to get to. We were bummed that we missed the best part. The monuments and torpedoes were cool though!

Dole Plantation-The Dole Plantain was the best part of the outing to me! It was so fun to see all the pineapple and how it grows. There was the biggest gift shop ever there. Pineapple anything you could think of. We rode the Pineapple Express...a little train that takes you back through the pineapple fields so that you can see how pineapple is grown. It was really fun. We had lunch there and Jason was so excited because you could drink a never ending cup of pineapple juice! The garden there were beautiful also! Super fun!

The North Shore-has the prettiest beaches and it is also where shaved ice originated! So we had to try one!

The sand in Hawaii is like crushed rock. Not
so nice on bare feet!

Squinting into the sun!

Monday night for dinner we ate at a revolving restaurant. Neither of us have eaten at one of those. It was really fun! Our seats were perfect for the rotation of the sunset over the ocean.

Tuesday: Jason got this wild hair that we needed to go scuba diving while we were in Hawaii. Neither one of us have done that either. So I agreed, loving the water, I thought it was be awesome and that was a huge understatement! Jason and I were the only two on the boat who were not certified divers. That meant that the most we could go down was 40 feet and we had to have a guide with us at all times. The first dive site we had to just snorkel because the rest of the divers when down to a wrecked ship but it was 60 feet deep and we could not go down that far. However, the water so clear that we could see the ship while we snorkeled! Very cool! The second dive it was our turn. We had to go down 4 feet in the water and do a few skills and then we were ready for the deep...40 feet! We were basically swimming on a coral reef. If was beautiful colors and everything was moving just like you see on the Discovery Channel. Then out of no where where two huge sea turtles, just swimming along! We swam with them for a little while! The fish we saw were gorgeous. They were such beautiful colors! We were under water for 35 minutes total. It was such a fun day! It was a long and exhausting day, probably one of our most favorite parts of the entire trip!

The moon was still up when we left to go

scuba diving!

The pep talk on the boat!

The view from the boat!

This is the prettiest water I have ever seen!

Tuesday night we went to Ruth's Chris for dinner for our anniversary! It was so yummy. When Jason called to make the reservation they asked him if he was celebrating anything special and he said yes, my anniversary. When we got there, there were rose petals on the table. It was so sweet. They also gave us chocolate covered strawberries!

Wednesday: We hung out at the pools at the resort today. There were so many pools! One of them had water slides. It was the kiddie pool but we used them too! They were so fun. The kiddie pool also had waterfalls and a tunnel into another pool. It was really fun! Wednesday night we went to Germaine's Luau! It was great! Those dancers can really hula! The food was really yummy too! Hawaiian food is good!

Thursday: We spent a few hours in the morning by the pool and then we headed back to the airport for home. The airport was very hot, no air. The airport in Hawaii is also all opened maning that most of the walls olny go about halfway up. So birds are just flying all around the airport. Very interesting! The flight home felt like forever. We flew 8.5 hours direct home. However the flight was very bumpy the entire way. The fasten seatbelt sign was on the whole time. I was so ready to touch ground. Upon landing, Jason and I had two cars at the airport. So, I headed to Nana's to get McKenzie and Jason headed right upstairs to his office to work. (We park in his office parking lot and ride the shuttle to the airport.) We were very tired this weekend. Not sleeping Thursay night and then getting used to the losing 6 hours all at the same time was tough.

It was a fabulous trip! We had a great time! I can't believe that we have been married 4 years already. Time goes by so fast. Thank you Love for the trip of a lifetime!