Hawaii Update

You would think that being a stay at home mom for the summer I would find the time to update our blog…oh well. We have stayed pretty busy and its been great. We are getting to know Maui quite well (especially Justin who spends his time driving all around it). We have also had time for a few exciting adventures. May was very quiet. Justin stayed pretty busy with work that month, which was nice. We did find time to play at the beach and the pool and go on a few hikes. One in particular that we loved was the Pipiwai trail. There were quite a few waterfalls, a huge Banyan tree, a beautiful bamboo forest, and an enormous waterfall at the end. It was definitely the best hike I have ever been on.

In June Justin’s parents came to visit for a week along with three sisters, three nephews, and one niece who were all coming to stay for the summer. We ended up taking them on the Pipiwai trail. We also took a snorkeling cruise to molokini crater, which of course made us to decide to buy our own snorkel sets which we have loved using. There is such beautiful coral reef and fish here, but of course the best part is the sea turtles. They are so fun to swim with! I think we have seen a total of seven or eight so far. We were also able to go and see the Garden of Eden. This was a really beautiful garden with amazing views. They said that some of Jurassic Park was filmed there, which is pretty cool. June has also been full of beach days and pool days and, my favorite, shopping days! We are definitely spending more money than we should be, but hey, its Hawaii! Work was fairly slow in June and they began sending a lot of the sales reps back home. This of course left Justin with less installs to do.

This month should be better though because they sent the other technician to a different island so Justin will be getting pretty much all of the installs. Because of this we took a quick, much needed, anniversary vacation. I was pretty stressed out to leave my baby for two nights and three days, but it was worth it. Justin’s sisters say he did pretty good, though I know they didn’t get much sleep. We ended up hoping on a plane last minute and heading to Oahu. I never would have imagined that we would spend our second anniversary in Hawaii. Oahu was quite a bit different than Maui. There are so many buildings and even more people. Everything was crowded and expensive. It was so much fun! I forgot what it was like to be baby-less…so easy! We planned as much as we could last minute, but we werent sure what we were going to do for transportation. Renting a car is extremely expensive if you are under 25 and shuttles have to be planned ahead of time. We decided the public bus was going to be the cheapest and easiest…though not the quickest. Neither of us are bus savy, but we found a really easy way to find out which one to take. Google maps! Both of our phones have google maps and if you choose the bus option instead of car it tells you exactly what bus to take. Easy! Not that the bus was all that fun, but it was nice to spend 5 dollars instead of 40 for a taxi or 15 for a shuttle or a few hundred to rent a car. After arriving in Wakiki we had a few hours before we could check into our hotel. We spent a few minutes at the beach then decided to head to the Honolulu zoo. I’ve not been to very many zoos, but this was by far the best one I’ve been to. They make it so easy to see all of the animals. And they have the most amazing birds. I loved it. After checking in to our hotel we headed back to the beach for a few hours. It was nice to have time to swim and lay out instead of chasing a baby. After cleaning up we headed out for a nice anniversary dinner. We ended up going to an amazing place called Rum Fire. It was right off the beach. It was such a nice place with great food, I would definitely go there again. Plus they have these smores that are to die for. Coconut macaroons with bittersweet fudge topped with a delicious marshmallow. Seriously amazing. I want to figure out how to make them. It has to be fairly simple I think…it is just a smore. The next morning we went on a hike to diamond head crater. I thought I chose a hotel close to the crater, but as we walked there we realized the opening for the hike was on the opposite end. I think it took us about 45 minutes to get there on foot. We left pretty early and the hike was supposed to be fairly short so we figured we would have plenty of time to come back and catch our shuttle to the Polynesian Cultural Center at 12:30. The hike was easy (though I was already tired when we started because of the long walk there) and the view was beautiful. It was packed though. It wasn’t until we were almost to the top that we realized just how packed. We had to stand in line for probably a half hour to see the view from the top. Once we finally got there we had only a minute to get a few pictures and get out of there. We ran most of the way down and by that time it was about noon. The bus to the hotel was about 20 minutes away still so we just kept on running. If I was in any sort of shape it really would not of been so bad, but I only made it because of Justin. He was able to get us back to the hotel by 12:18. We ran inside to change out of our sweaty clothes and got to the shuttle pick up with one minute to spare. Luckily the shuttle was about five minutes behind so we were able to sit and catch our breath. The Polynesian Cultural Center was amazing. It was neat learning about all the different cultures. We also got to enjoy a delicious and entertaining Luau with a fantastic pineapple smoothie (in a pineapple). We got to take a tour to see BYU Hawaii and the Temple, which was beautiful. It would have been nice to be able to attend while we were there, hopefully we will get another opportunity. We also stayed for their evening show which included many different cultural dances and fire dancers. It was an eventful, but tiring day. The next day we slept in and after checking out we took a bus to Hanauma Bay. This was definitely the best place for snorkeling. At one point we were able to swim with hundreds of fish. We also saw three turtles. It was amazing. We spent a little while laying out (which I now regret because of my blistering sunburn…ouch!). Afterwards we went to Pearl Harbor. We should have looked into this a little more because we got there after they finished the last of their tours. We did get to go into the museums and look around though, which was neat. After looking around we went straight to the airport and headed back to Maui. We had so much fun and I am glad we did it, though I did miss my little guy terribly. I am sad to say that I have already purchased my plane ticket home to Utah. It will be nice to go back, but I have really loved this summer vacation. Hopefully we will get to have a few more adventures this month before we go.