Hawaii

We're back! Actually, we've been back since Sunday night but I have been lazily readjusting to life and have taken my sweet time to upload these pictures. This is only half of our trip since the other half are on Andrew's work laptop that I cannot access (he's been a busy guy since we returned).

We had a wonderful trip to Hawaii and Keegan survived--I should say, Mom survived because Keegan didn't even miss me. Grandma said he was so happy all the time and so adaptable to all situations. And when I first saw him he looked at me like, "Who are you?" Luckily, he seems to remember me now and we've gone back to life as usual.

Here are a few pictures of our trip which do not include our visit to Pearl Harbor, jet skiing, Waimea Bay, Matsumoto's Shave Ice, BYU-H, the Laie Temple, the Polynesian Cultural Center, our resort in Ko Olina and the luau there, or Paradise Cove where we swam with turtles.

Haunama Bay -- it was so beautiful. We got there by 7:45am and it was still packed. Andrew enjoyed at least 3 hours of snorkeling here while I got burned on the beach. :)

Diamond Head was beautiful and a bit steep of a hike but since it was pretty short it was more of a sprint than anything.

Makapu'u Point. This is the lighthouse from 50 First Dates--Andrew had to have a picture with it but I would not let him go around the No Trespassing fence--I'm a buzz kill, I know. :)

Another feature from 50 First Dates. This is the real Hukilau Cafe in Laie by BYU-H (they used the name in 50 First Dates but not the actual cafe).

Maunawili Falls. This is not yet the falls but on the hike there. I even jumped off the cliff here. Okay so it was way shorter than the one at Waimea Bay and it was not into the ocean. I am lakes and rivers girl, what can I say??

Andrew body surfing at Pounders in Laie. The natives advised the girls not to try this so we happily watched Andrew on this cold morning. :)

Of course no trip to Hawaii would be complete without a visit to Bubbies, right? The names of this stuff were quite unusual. The cake in this picture was called Multiple Orgasm--I know you're offended mom. And of course our gracious host and tour guide, Melissa (Andrew's sis who goes to BYU-H) recommended we try the Mochi. Andrew is intent on opening his very own Mochi shop here on the mainland. :)

We kayaked on the ocean. I've kayaked in rivers and loved it. This was a bit more daunting but we still had a great time.

Waikiki Beach at Sunset. We took a long stroll down the beach to get to a restaurant and stopped for a quick pic here. Waikiki was nice but very packed with people!

Ok here's our little touristy excitement--this is the Black Pearl under construction. Apparently they are filming a 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The only returning actor is Johnny Depp--thank goodness. The boat was being worked on right next to the resort we stayed at. We found this information out from the driver who picked us up to go jet skiing. The guy was just filling in for the day and actually works as the sound director for Lost & is working on the new Pirates movie. Of course being a faithful Lost viewer I had to discuss my frustration with the show. And of course the guy divulged nothing--as I expected. But it was exciting nonetheless.

A special thanks to those who gave us advice on what to visit on our trip. We enjoyed every minute of our trip!!