HAWAII--Day 2!

Day 2! Scott and I collapsed into bed at 8:15 that first night! Because of the time difference, and the very long day, we were wiped off the map! At 5:30 the next morning, we were wide awake! We thought it might be fun to run down, walk the beach and watch the sun rise on the beach! It was beautiful! We sat on the sand, watched the sunrise and watched a bunch of tiny crabs crawl across the sand.

 

We made our way back to our room and got ready for the day! I snapped this picture while Scott wasn't paying attention to me. Our view was incredible!

Our breakfast at the resort was complimentary. (Well, with our package it was! Otherwise, the breakfast was $40 per person...yikes!)

I will say, though, our breakfast was fantastic! We never felt like we had enough room to try everything. Every morning they had different foods. The only thing I was never brave enough to try were the kimchi sausages--definitely not a food found in my typical cuisine! A daily favorite was the guava juice and the lilikoi butter!

Day 2, Wednesday, was our day spent on Waikiki. We had several big things planned and then we had down time. The hotel concierge was a big help at guiding us where we should go and what we should see. Wednesday we wanted to explore around the area and get our bearings, and I am so glad that we got to see the "city" side of Hawaii along with the countryside.

Right outside of our resort was the statue of Duke Kahanamoku. He is a revered Hawaiian who really helped to keep Hawaii and it's culture alive. He is actually the one who really made surfing a sport and brought it to the mainland. They clear off the leis daily, and every day, more leis would appear around him.

When exploring what was within walking distance to us, we found the Honolulu Zoo and the Honolulu aquarium. Scott brought up seeing the aquarium more than once. If you really know Scott, you know that he loves animals, and he knows a lot about them. I could tell he really wanted to go, and I thought it would be fun, too! Watching him in the aquarium was almost more fun than watching all the aquatic animals! At one point, we got to watch them feed the fish for the day. Scott was front row, almost pushed up against the glass, watching them feed, and I had to nudge him to back up and let the group of children behind him see--haha!  (Although, honest review, the aquarium is pretty small and not a great use of money. It was cool to see all the animals native to the islands, though!)

We stumbled upon these "sea dragons". I had never seen anything like them before! They were native to New Zealand, and we both thought they were super cool!

The concierge at the resort gave us free tickets to the pink line of the trolley. It is considered the "fashion district" line, but it was free, and we were curious what else was around the area. The trolley was double decker, so we headed to the top deck to get a tour of the city. Our tour guide was really laid back and knowledgeable about the area--totally worth it!

We spent the afternoon on the beach. When we got back to our room to change into swimsuits, we found the cleaning ladies had taken our welcome leis and created hearts! Every day, they did something new in our room.

Feet in the ocean! Scott brought his watercolor paints and pad to paint some aquarium fish--a giant wave nailed us, and it totally ruined his sketch pad. It was fun to watch him in his element, for a while, though!

Our resort holds the farmer's market in Waikiki two days a week, and one of the days was Wednesday from 4-8. It was fun to hear live Hawaiian music, see all the local vendors, and get a fun treat! We found a booth selling malasadas--they looked like doughnuts, and they did not disappoint! We decided early on, that any chance of eating local flavors, we were going to do it! So naturally, we got a coconut, guava and chocolate bun to share! 

We ate dinner at the cheesecake factory, and that sounds a little less local, but we made sure to get local dishes (because they had just Hawaiian dishes). It was yummy and filling...but we had to get some cheesecake to-go! (It IS the cheesecake factory! And we got a pineapple cheesecake!)

Back at home, the kids had lots of fun playing IN THE SNOW!!...and with each other!

HAWAII--Day 1!

HAWAII! (Yes, that deserves to be a one word sentence, with capital letters and an exclamation point!) Scott and I went to Hawaii in April, and it was wonderful! Scott and I have been busy having and raising babies the past 13 years (and raising ourselves in the process). We have never done a big, fun vacation just the two of us. Hawaii has ALWAYS been the dream! We have dreamed about this vacation for years. It has seemed unattainable (for several obvious reasons).

Last November, we had just had an adult conversation and laughingly threw around "one day, when we are in Hawaii, we won't worry about that". I flipped to Scott and said, "why aren't we going to Hawaii??" "We aren't going to get there unless we just make it happen!"...so we decided to make it happen!

Our number one concern was figuring out childcare for 8 kids while we were gone. When we discovered that our Spring Break was the exact same week as Scott's mom's Spring Break in Iowa, we called and begged/persuaded/asked her to come out and watch our kids so we could make it happen! We called my parents and got them on board to watch the kids part of the week, and Lynn and Marilyn would come watch them the other part of the week! It worked out perfectly!!

We did some quick research and decided we had been looking forward to this for so long...we wanted to do this trip the right way. If it had taken 13 years for the stars to align so we could get away together--we were really going to get away! So we called a travel agent, and she set us up with all these packages and hotels--we just paid and showed up! It was so nice!

Months of planning and anticipation went into this trip! The morning we were set to leave, there was a giant snow storm in Utah! It caused a slight delay in my parents getting to our house--because the roads were so slick and the plows hadn't been out yet! So we hugged the kids that were awake, my parents, left letters and presents for the kids, lined the counter with 6 different lists, and we took off running. There were so many tender mercies that morning--one of them being my mother-in-law calling and mentioning a possible road closure on the route we usually took. We decided to avoid that route and go a longer one--we found out later that an 18 wheeler had overturned on the freeway, completely blocking traffic for hours! If we would have gone that way, we would have been stuck and missed our flight!

We couldn't go the speed limit the entire way there! Scott was much calmer than me, but we made it to the snowy, Salt Lake airport, in our shorts and light jackets (it was 80 degrees in Hawaii and 24 degrees in Salt Lake)! We made it just in time, parked and hopped on our shuttle to the terminal. When we reached the terminal I realized I forgot my wallet in the car--rookie mistake!! We had to ride the shuttle back around the whole airport! 

We made it through security, to a bathroom, in line to pick up a quick sandwich to-go, and then got to our terminal 13 minutes before boarding! It was such a stressful morning and such a miracle--all at the same time!

The flight there was pretty long! It was a 6-7 hour flight, and it was literally 6-7 hours! We ate, watched several movies, tried to sleep, listened to music. The best surprise was looking out our window and seeing the blue-blue water and the Hawaiian islands appear!

Navigating the Honolulu airport was a bit of an adventure, but we found our transportation, and we were greeted with a lei and a Hawaiian welcome!

The transportation dropped us right off at our resort! We stayed at a resort right off the ocean, and we stayed in an ocean-view room. We dropped our stuff off in our room and went right down to stick our feet in the sand and water and take in the beach--(snow to sunshine in 12 hours was a bit crazy!).

We walked the Waikiki beach strip. One of the first things I noticed about Hawaii were these incredible trees! These are Banyan trees. They are a species of tree from India that grow roots from the branches, and the roots implant, once they reach the ground. These trees are hundreds of years old and just so beautiful!

We washed off our sandy feet and went to a walk-up loft for dinner at the OMG (Oahu Mexican Grill). I'm a sucker for Mexican food! We got a Kalua Pork burrito to share, carne asada fries to share and then pinneapple soda, to top it off! It was seriously delicious!

It's a rule--you have to finish off Mexican food with chocolate! We found this chain, the Honolulu Cookie Company, that makes all their cookies from macadamian nuts! They have island flavored inspired cookies--guava, coconut, pinneapple...they were delicious!

The view from our room at the resort!

Back at home, Grandma Christensen brought lunchables for lunch and had a fun craft for the kids to do that afternoon!

After dinner, Grandpa and Grandma Bagley switched off with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen.