Hawaii - day eight

Thursday was our last day in Hawaii. In the morning most of us rented bikes and rode along the coast line of Kapaa, which is the city we stayed in. One of the things I loved about Hawaii was that everything was beautiful. We saw a lot of different things, but I loved them all.

 

 

The rest of the day we just hung out on the beach by our house.

 

We flew out that night at 9:30 so we had to leave about six to return our car and get to the airport. We flew through the night at landed in Salt Lake just before 9:00 am. I didn't sleep on our first flight into Seattle, but luckily I was able to sleep for over an hour as we flew into Salt Lake. I was still dead tired, but life started as soon as I got home.

I was so excited to be home. I had the most amazing time, but I had never been away from my family that long. It was so good to be back to Matt and my kids!

Hawaii - day seven

 Kauai was a totally different experience than Oahu, and I loved them both so much! Because we were used to Utah time we were up early enough to watch the sun rise everyday. This was right from our balcony of our beach house.

Our house we stayed in was a perfect location because it was right on the beach and one block away from the city with restaurant and shopping. We walked to breakfast this morning and it was delicious and so much food. It fed us for two different mornings.

 Michelle, Meredith, Ellie and I went for a hike after breakfast. We hiked to secret beach. It was super slippery and muddy getting to it. Then hiking out was pretty steep, but it was totally worth it. It was one of my favorite things we did. I could definitely done more hikes to see amazing things like this beach. 

 

 

 It wasn't very secret because there were quite a few people, but it was absolutely beautiful!
We did our last dinner together this night. It was just a couple minutes from our house and it looked out right over the ocean. It was really loud and I was on the end, but the atmosphere was super cool. My hair was crazy frizzy from having braids earlier and then the humidity.

Hawaii - Day six

I still felt pretty miserable when I woke up on Tuesday, but we went to the store and bought me some dayquil. I really didn't want to miss out on the catamaran tour of the Napali coast. We had to be at the dock by 7:30 that morning and our tour was 5 1/2 hours. We had a little breakfast and lunch on the boat. We went snorkeling, which went way better this time around. I think the masks were better and I wasn't worried about stepping on reef because we were in a much deeper part of the ocean. The views were incredible. We saw probably 15 whales and a couple dolphins. They weren't crazy close, so I didn't get any great pictures, but it was awesome. There was a baby whale pretty close to us that jumped all the way out of the water, but I didn't have my camera out yet. It was actually fun to enjoy the boat without my camera.

 

 

 

 

Poor Melissa got crazy sick on the boat. She didn't see anything, but luckily was able to fall asleep for part of it. The crew on the boat were way cool and they made it a great experience. For most of the ride we were up on the top of the catamaran. We got crazy salty from the water splashing. Because it was winter, it was definitely not a smooth ride.

Hawaii - Day five

Monday morning we went swimming in the pool of our hotel. Marianne and Kathleen showed us how to do some swim aerobics, it was really fun. We hung out in the hot tub for a bit and then when and got ready.

 We island hopped to Kauai that afternoon. We checked into our rental property once we got there and then headed out to dinner. I got a terrible cold that day and was miserable. I couldn't get to sleep fast enough. I slept for almost hours that night.

This was our house from the beach. We were so close, it was awesome!

Hawaii - Day four

Sunday morning we woke up and went to and branch Sacrament meeting that was just a few minutes away from our hotel. There were hardly any people and a lot of them were visitors, it was crazy. I bore my testimony.

 After church we got ready and went to Hanauma bay for some snorkeling. I was not a natural and didn't love it, but it was really cool to try. I loved seeing the reef and the different fish. It wasn't a super warm day, so we only stayed for a couple hours. It was definitely a cool experience and an amazing bay to look at.

 

 

 

 

Hawaii - day three

Day three we started by exploring around our resort. This lookout point was so cool. I also swam in the ocean for the first time ever! I was a little surprised when I first jumped in how salty it was. It was cool to swim in the ocean, but I would prefer a pool.

In the afternoon we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and spent the rest of the day there. We ate lunch and then did a tour through all of the cultures. We went to a luau for dinner, which I did not like the food, except the fruit. I had no bad fruit on this trip ever. After dinner we went to a night show. It was super cool. I loved everything about this day.

 

Hawaii - day one and two

For Marianne's birthday she decided to go to Hawaii and took her sister and all her daughters and daughters-in-law. So I was able to spend the last eight days in Hawaii on Oahu and Kauai. It was the most amazing vacation! 

The first day we flew into Oahu and went to the Turtle Bay resort. This was the view from my window when we arrived. We got there pretty late so by the time we were all settled in we went to dinner at Lei Lei's, which was one of my favorites from the whole trip. It was beautiful. We sat outside right next to a golf course and there was a light rain. The food was delicious too. After dinner we went back to the hotel, which was withing walking distance, and went to bed.

 Friday morning we woke up early (since Hawaii is three hours ahead of Utah time) and went to the Laie Hawaii temple. It was so beautiful. We were going to do a session, but we didn't give ourselves quite enough time to get dressed. We did initiatory and then walked around the grounds for a while.The grounds were so different from the front to the back. I loved the cool trees behind the temple.

 

 That afternoon we went to see Pearl Harbor. The Arizona memorial is closed for renovation, but we were able to take a boat out by it to see it. You can still see parts of the original boat that sunk there trapping most of it's crew aboard. It was very cool to see. 

 On our way back we saw the Dole Plantation so we stopped there and took their Pineapple Express tour through the plantation. I loved this! They had so many fruits and plants that I had never seen and a few I had never heard of. We got to see a demonstration on how to cut pineapple and try some fresh pineapple. I also had my first dole whip, which was highly over rated.

Claire's First Birthday Party

 Claire's birthday was on a Tuesday and it was right before I left for Hawaii so we celebrated the weekend before. We had a party at K.Bell, which was a perfect place to fit both my family and Matt's.

 We had a few relay type races for the older kids. They had to race with a snowflake on their heads without it falling off. They also had a balloon between their legs and had to race waddling like a penguin. We played a game with a white balloon as a snowflake that couldn't touch the ground. The last game was musical snowflakes. We didn't have a speaker so this one was a little tricky. It was pretty much just crazy during these games and really loud, so they were short lived.

 Then we sang to her and did cake and ice cream. She wasn't quite sure what to think about her cupcake. She didn't really like her hands being dirty. Matt tried to feed it to her and she still wasn't super interested.

Claire "opened" presents next, all the little cousins were super helpful.

  I handmade her a snowflake pinata. It took a long time, but I was super happy with how it turned out. It was really sturdy too. All the kids got at least one turn to hit it three times. It didn't hold a lot of candy so I ended up just throwing candy out when it broke, but it worked great!

  Her party was a success! I actually enjoyed January this year too because I was party planning. I am going to like celebrating her every year!