Aloha!! What a Deal!

On Valentines day Jon and I went to Hawaii just the 2 of us. How did we pull that off you ask. Well, one day in January Jon was asking my parents about their master bathroom (they haven't been able to use their shower for over 3 years due to it leaking and tile being ripped out) and what their plans were for it. I guess they were quoted a large amount of money to rip out the remaining tile in the shower and bathroom floor, fix the shower so it wouldn't leak anymore, and re tile the shower and bathroom floor. They just kept using the money for other things. So of course Jon's brain starts thinking of a plan for them to get it done. So here's the deal. My parents would buy all the materials and Jon would do all the labor for their bathroom (rip out tile, fix shower problem, re tile, put in new shower fixtures, new shower door, and probably a few other things). For payment my dad would use some of his frequent flier miles and hotel points (my dad travels all over the world for his job so he has lots of frequent flier miles and hotel points) to fly Jon and I somewhere and put us up in a hotel for 4 days. Oh and one more thing they would also watch our kids. We wanted to go on a weekend my dad would be home to help with our kids. Our first choice was Mexico, or some island in the Caribbean. Only a few hour flight from Atlanta. Those places were booked up on the weekend we could go (Presidents weekend). So our next choice was Hawaii (it was winter so warm weather was a must for me).

So here it was Valentines day. I dropped Talmage off at Jon's parents house (When Jon's mom found out about our trip, she insisted on watching Talmage (our 4 year old) which didn't bother my mom since she would be watching the other 5). in the morning and then dropped Hayden (my almost 2 year old) off to my parents house (the other kids were at school). From their Jon and I drove to the airport and got on our plane for an 8-9 hour non-stop flight to Oahu, Hawaii. It was a long flight but with no kids crying, hitting, whining, bugging, yelling, it was quiet and relaxing. We arrived in Hawaii about 9:30 pm their time (there is a 5 hour difference) so 2:30am our time. By the time we got our rental car and checked into the hotel it was after 11:00 pm (4 am our time). Luckily time was on our side since we only had 4 days. We only stayed on Oahu.

The next morning we hiked up Diamond Head the Volcano. The views were gorgeous.

Diamond Head Views from Diamond Head light house and Honolulu

The ocean, the green mountains, Honolulu city buildings. The only thing we didn't see were whales. A tour guide who was there said they don't come by until the afternoon. From there we went to Hanauma Bay. The #1 snorkeling spot on Oahu.

The water was chili. You would think being in Hawaii where it is warm all the time the water would be warm but no such luck. I guess the Pacific Ocean is quite a bit colder than the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea. Once we got used to the water (about 10 minutes) we snorkeled. We saw lots of different kinds of fish, lots of correl, and we we even saw a sea turtle.

Hanauma Bay

From there we headed back to the hotel and checked out the hotel. We stayed at the Hilton. It was a big hotel that had 3 different hotel buildings and between the hotel buildings they had shops and restaurants and a big pool. Our hotel was right on the ocean. They also had penguins (yeah I know penguins). They are the type that like warm weather. Our hotel every Friday and Saturday put on shows. We saw some of the show and afterwards we watched the fireworks they do over the ocean while we sat on the beach. It was real cool.

On Saturday we went to Pali Lookout (basically looking out on the other side of the island not the big city of Honolulu side). That place is supposed to be very windy most of the time. There was no wind for us.

Pali Lookout

Then we stopped off at a park on the beach and took some pictures.

Then we headed over to the Hawaii Temple. We walked to temple grounds and went in the visitor center. The grounds were so amazing and beautiful.

After that we went to the Polynesian Culture Center. This place is owned by our church and most of the workers attend BYU Hawaii next door and work at the Center to pay for college. This place is divided up into 6 different Polynesian islands (like Tahiti, New Zealand, Hawaii, Figi, Tonga). At each area they put on some type of show all about their Islands culture, and most of them had some sort of dancing or music. They also have an IMAX theatre which they had a movie on Correl. It was very interesting. We bought the Luau package so for dinner we went to a Hawaiian Luau. We were greeted with flower leis and we ate the yummy Hawaiian food. I really wanted to eat real Hawaiian food once on our trip poi and all. The pork and chicken were my favorite. The desserts weren't anything to brag about. After the Luau, they have a night show where all 6 islands come out one at a time and do a dance native to their island. It was a fun show. I liked the fire twirling and throwing best.

Sunday we went to Pearl Harbor. We walked through the little museum and watched a movie about the events that happened on that day. It was very well done and I learned a lot of things I hadn't known. Then they took us on a boat out to the monument. The monument is directly over the USS Arizona, the ship that sunk that day and where most of the casualties occurred. The bodies still lie in that ship. It was very quiet and peaceful.

After that we headed off to the Dole pineapple plantation. Their we took a train around some pineapple and other fruit and sugar can fields. While on the train they gave us a background of the Dole family pineapple story. Basically they are not sure who brought the pineapple to Hawaii. But Dole bought all this land (the place where we were touring) and grew pineapple and had a shipping plant there. Later they moved the shipping plant to Honolulu (where all the other shipping ships are so they could ship them out easier). Then they ran out of space to grow pineapple so Dole purchased one of the small Hawaiian islands for pineapple. The only people living on this island were the Dole employees and their families. Then Dole died and someone sold some of the island to other people. They never said if the rest of the island still grows pineapple or not. We had a pineapple ice cream.

Then we were off to the North Shore to watch some surfers. The North Shore of the island is basically the only place on the island that gets real big waves. We saw a few surfers but really enjoyed watching the wind surfer. It looks like a surfer flying a kite.

On Monday, we hiked to Monoa Falls. It was a big waterfall running down lava rock. It was beautiful. The hike wasn't too much fun. Lots of rocks towards the end of the hike.

Then we went to what is called The International Market Place. It is basically a whole bunch of individual stands of people selling souvenirs (You know the ones like in Mexico, and the Bahamas that you can wheel and deal). It is by far the cheapest way to go to buy things like T-shirts, jewelry, nick knacks, Hawaiian dresses etc. Since we have lots of kids to bring things back to we didn't want to miss this place. We browsed a few gift shops the days before just to check out prices to see if what the market place was offering was a good deal. After that, it was time to get to the airport and return our rental car and get on the plane for our 8 hour flight. We arrived home Tuesday morning Atlanta time (still in bed asleep Hawaii time). We had a great time and were able to do everything we wanted (except see a whale). The best part was the weather. The few weeks before we arrived it was windy and rainy and chilly. While we were there it wasn't windy at all and only rained 2 times. Once while we were driving back to our hotel from the Polynesian Culture Center and that only lasted a couple minutes. The other we were at Pearl Harbor and it rained for 5 minutes. It was sunny and upper 70s low 80s.
Oh, I almost forgot there was one bad thing about our trip. Dumbie me left the camera battery charging in my bedroom outlet. Of course we couldn't have a camera that takes AA batteries. Luckily, our digital video camera has a camera still shot mode on it (not sure of the quality of the pictures I just downloaded them on the computer). After snorkeling, we were driving back to our hotel and we happened to pass by a Radio Shack. So Jon went in and what seemed like forever and something like $80.00 later came back with a battery (of course they don't come charged) and charger. The only good thing was the battery was on sale (we could have paid $100) and the charger wasn't just for this camera but for many other types of cameras as well as video cameras and maybe even other things. Of course they don't sell the chargers individually at Radio Shack (ya know it is only a shack and not a mansion in size). So if anyone ever loses their battery charger I bet I can hook you up. If I wasn't in Hawaii or on some other awesome vacation, I wouldn't have worried about it and just used the camera mode on the video camera but since I probably wont be going back (at least not to that island) it was worth the $$.