Hawaii was GREAT

(So my disclaimer up front is this is going to be a long post. I was thinking of trying to break the trip up into a few posts, but it's just easier this way. Enjoy!!!)

Our vacation started with a quick detor to drop the kids off at my parent's house. While there I realized that all of our confirmation stuff had been left at home. In the process of Brandon trying to get all of our confirmation numbers he learned our hotel had been cancelled by the travel company we had made the reservation through. The funny thing is Brandon had just talked to them the day before we left and re-confirmed out arrival date and such with them. There was nothing we could do while at my parents house (time difference and all) so we went to bed and got up bright and early to catch our flight. (We had a different hotel for the first night in Hawaii and felt pretty confident we would have everything worked out by the time we needed the hotel that had been cancelled.) After meeting up with our friends Randy and Viv, a really long flight, a couple of movies, reading magazines, and a quick snooze for Brandon we made it to Oahu.

My first fun moment of the trip happened fairly quickly. We were at the car rental place waiting for our car and I noticed a family who rented a Mustang convertable. At first I was jealous because I kind of wanted a convertable for the trip but by watching them quickly realized how unrealistic it would have been for four adults and all our luggage. This family consisted of Mom, Dad, and two daughters one of which required a carseat. For twenty minutes Viv and I watched them try to fit all of their stuff in the convertable. You know it's bad news when the stroller won't even fit in the truck of the car when it's empty. Now I thought the frustration between spouses I saw on the launch ramp at the Marina was bad, but these two were right up there. Needless to say they got everything in the convertable with the trunk stuffed, the stroller in the back seat with the girls and a big suitcase behind the front seat of the car. Because of the suitcase only Mom would fit to drive the car and even then it looked like she was kissing the windshield. That meant Dad got stuck holding another good size suitcase in his lap as they drove off. Having a convertable would be cool in Hawaii but its not worth going through what they did.

After getting to our hotel for the first night, and finding out nothing had been resolved regarding our hotel situation for the rest of the trip, we headed to dinner and then to bed because we were all exhausted.
Thursday was our first full day in Hawaii. We started the morning by finding out our reservation had been fixed and we now had a hotel room for the rest of the trip. (Funny enough Randy and Viv had no issues with their room and we booked at the same time.) For the rest of the day we went to a lookout point, had beach time at Lanikai Beach, went to see an old house of Randy's and went to another lookout point. Brandon got a little to close to the waves for me at the second lookout point and I was a little concerned he might get carried out to sea by one. I'm glad he knew when to run away.

Friday we started kind of early to get to a couple of places before going to the Polynesian Cultural Center. On the way there we stopped at Byodo-In Temple (a replica of a 900 year old Japanese temple), the Laie LDS temple, and spent the rest of the day at the PCC. The entertainment was great and the pineapple drink and delight were amazing!! I'm so glad we went.

Saturday we went to get our snorkel stuff, took a surf lesson at Waikiki, snorkeled at Hanauma Bay, and went to a beach front restaurant for dinner. If you are in Waikiki and want to take a surf lesson, I have the best surf instructor for you. I really thought surfing would be really hard and he made it so easy. Granted all we did was get up and head straight to shore, but it was a lot easier then I thought it would be. If I lived on the coast I would definitely take up surfing.

Sunday was designated our North Shore day. On our way up we stopped at the swap meet. It was great shopping and Viv and I definitely tried our husband's patience. We wanted to shop a little bit more then they did, but they were sports and hung in there with us. We then went to the Dole Plantation. The fresh pineapple and pineapple juice was to die for. I love pineapple and never knew pineapple juice could taste like that. It's amazing what being fresh can do. We then continued up north and first went to Turtle Bay. We left there and planned on spending pretty much the rest of the day at Waimea and/or Sunset Beach. Well both were pretty crowded (by that I mean no parking) so we took the opportunity to go to Motsumoto's. Brandon had been raving about it since we planned this trip and I can say that the shaved ice was pretty amazing. We finished there and tried our luck again at Waimea. We found a parking spot and spent the rest of the day there. After the boys and I jumped off the cliff, Viv and I were hanging out on the beach while the boys snorkeled. Randy came running up and said they saw a sea turtle. I looked for Brandon and he was swimming away from us. The guys kept swimming with it for the next 10 minutes or so. And then it was all they could talk about for the next little while. We stayed there until after sunset and headed back to the hotel. I really enjoyed Waimea.

Monday was unfortunately our head home day. The boys started out the day by doing a little boogie boarding at Waikiki while Viv and I got packed up. We checked out of the hotel and headed to Pearl Harbor. All Brandon had wanted to do the entire trip was go to Pearl Harbor so I was a little disappointed when we got there and all the tickets to get to the Arizona memorial were gone. We walked around a little bit and were getting ready to head over to the Missouri when 4 tickets became available to head over to the Arizona on the next boat. So many emotions were felt being at the visitors center and memorial that there is no way to describe it. I am so so happy that Brandon pushed to go to Pearl Harbor and him and Randy talked to the desk person one last time. After getting back to the visitors center and taking Brandon's picture with our boat captain (you'll have to ask him about that story), we headed over to the Missouri. After seeing the inside of the ship and walking around it, I admire the service men who live on those ships. If their living and sleeping quarters are at all like what I saw, I know I wouldn't be able to survive. My favorite part of the Missouri was seeing where Japan signed the surrender document and World War II was ended. As we were leaving the Missouri was saw our 1st and only rainbow of the trip.

After a little bit of last minute souvenir shopping we headed to the airport and our vacation came to an end. It was so much fun and I can't wait to go back. Brandon and I have a long places to travel list, but this one might get bumped back up closer to the top. Next time we'll spend a lot longer!!