Belated Mele Kalikimaka!

I know I am way late at posting our Hawaii trip but better late than never! Obviously it was an exciting trip announcing our new baby and all but that was just part of it. We absolutely loved our trip to Hawaii. We saw beautiful scenery and experienced new things that were just amazing!

This was one of our first views of Hawaii from the plane. Its so beautiful even from the air!We first went to Maui. We stayed in a condo complex that was right on the beach where we saw whales and this beautiful rainbow that we woke up to one day. It was so pretty to see it just disappear into the ocean.

The day after we arrived, we made our way to a couple of beaches that were very pretty and I must say, a nice break from the winter storms back home!This video cracks me up! The waves were starting to get bigger and bigger as the day went on and I think the boys were starting to underestimate the strength of them... Watch this video and keep your eye on Jordan who is standing on the left...

I promise there were no camera tricks in that disappearing act!! By the way, Terry, was this
BEFORE or AFTER you belly flopped onto the sand??? :) Let's just say, the boys keep things very entertaining!

We took a drive around the island one evening and here are some of the pics we took. It started getting dark so they aren't the greatest quality and they definitely don't do the island justice. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Jeremy and I had decided before hand we wanted to spend a day just the two of us. We drove around the island a little bit and we went to a blowhole. It was a long walk for my prego belly but it was really pretty once we got to it.
We stopped by a little local town tucked away in the mountains and Jeremy got himself an iced coconut.
We walked down this little trail that led us to a very pretty secluded beach.We went down to Lahaina later. They have a street full of shops, a lot like Main Street in Park City. We stopped at an information booth and decided at the last minute to go on a Sunset Cruise. It was a fun little getaway for us. It was so pretty to be out on the ocean and watch the sunset. But the coolest thing was to watch all the whales that we saw. This is one of the videos that we took of the whales. There is a good tail flip at the very beginning and then its a little shaky and takes a little bit to get to the other good parts but its cool to watch.


Our very favorite part of our trip in Maui was our snorkelin g excursion. We took a boat out to a couple different islands and we snorkeled. On our way out to the first island, we saw a couple more whales that got really close to the boat. It was really neat. We saw a baby whale on the back of its mom. So that was exciting. The first island was really pretty. There were fish all over and the coral was really pretty. The second island was so much fun. We were just kind of snorkeling around and there was really pretty coral to look at. We stopped for a second to see if everyone was still with us and Jeremy stuck his head back in the water to just look around and there was a sea turtle swimming right under us! So we all put our masks back on and followed it for a while. It was so neat to see it in real life. It was a perfect day for me and Jer. We saw more whales, swam with a couple of turtles, on the way back in the really shallow parts there were turtles all over and they even put up the sails on the boat, which Jeremy was really hoping for. So it was really fun for both of us!


Our next stop was Oahu.
We had a lot planned for Oahu and it was a lot of fun. We went to Pearl Harbor first.Pearl Harbor was cool. We have a plethora of pictures, courtesy of Jake and Julie, so if you want to see more of Pearl Harbor, we have the whole museum on our camera! There were so many interesting things there. I can't believe having to live on that submarine the way that they did. It was pretty cool.

Our next stop... The Polynesian Cultural Center. But, you can't go to the Cultural Center without a ride on the Pineapple Train! Yes, we went to the Pinapple farm so Becky could ride on the train since we never boarded the Sugar Cane train in Maui... I mean, we went to the Pineapple farm because we all really wanted to (wink wink).

Pinapple Picking 101: Pinapples don't grow on trees. To pick a good pineapple the eyes should all be the same size, color doesn't matter and you twist the top and it comes right off! Who'd a thought we would learn the most on our trip at the Pineapple farm?!

Now on to the Cultural Center...
We spent the rest of the day at the Cultural Center. It was fun to go around and learn the different things of the different islands. I was actually quite surprised to learn that a lot of the islands still live the same way they did years and years ago. We got ourselves some pretty sweet tatts...don't we look just like a tough couple. Yes, that's my mean face. I think I need to work on that a bit but Jer on the other hand...he's pretty much got it down!So at each little village, they do presentations. This particular village, they did dancing. And it just so happened to be Jeremy's birthday... what a coincidence! So of course we didn't let him go the whole day without embarassing himself... take a look for yourself.


We ended the night with a luau... Jeremy and I were sitting across from his dad. We decided that this picture of him should go in the Websters Dictionary under Tourist. This picture says it all...
This is the famous Waikiki Beach.
This was the view from the roof of the condo we stayed in. The view was great! We were just a house away from the ocean and then these beautiful trees and mountains on the other side. Its a shame the house had cocroaches, ants, spiders, and who knows what in the couch bed.... ugh. Those who know what its like to have to go to the bathroom multiple times in the night when you are pregnant may sympathize with me when I did not want to get up in the dark and go into the bathroom just to find cocroaches... so I woke up Jeremy everytime I had to go so he could check it out. What a sweet man I've got!

And this was our last day at the beach before our arrival back home to the bitter cold, which I must say is lasting way too long. This beach was beautiful! So relaxing and so quiet. Even with hotels all around it, no one seemed to know about it or we just went on a really good day. We did a little bit mostly just relaxed and hung out. I do remember something about Jake's swimming suit revealing a little too much skin while doing the chicken fights with his brothers while we were in the water...and as a result my mother in law laughed so hard she....well I won't say. But I'll tell ya, we sure laughed hard about it!


Well, that was our trip in a nut shell. Looking at all the pictures sure makes me miss it even more!