Photo Glimpse – HAWAII

Each week I try to give you a quick photo glimpse into the non-crafty side of life.  Well this week it’s a not-so-quick glimpse, because I’m sharing tons of pictures from our trip last week to Hawaii!!  So sit back and enjoy…. and be grateful it’s only this many – I narrowed it WAYYYY down for you…. ( remember, on any picture in any post, you can click it to get a bigger view)

We stayed on the island of Oahu – it was perfect!!

Here is the peninsula outside of our hotel – I love that it was out away from all the hustle and bustle.

Since it was built on a peninsula, every room in the hotel had an ocean view.  Talk about amazing!  Here I am trying to catch up a little on emails and blogs while sitting on our little balcony:

I think most of you know I’m LDS, so it was great to visit the Hawaii temple while we were there:

 We vacationed with Trevor’s sister and her husband, and met up with Trevor’s niece and her husband who are going to school at BYU Hawaii – they gave us some great tips on where to eat and things to do.  We did great about eating at local places the whole trip – – –

We spent a day at Pearl Harbor which was an excellent exhibit – very well done memorial.  I really learned a lot and enjoyed all the presentations.  My grandpa is a WWII vet so I took lots of pictures to bring back and show him:

Right after that we went to a huge flea market – I was told it’d be great (which is was!) but no one warned me there would be bolts and bolts of festive fabric for $2.75 a yard – wowza!!  I bought a bunch and alread wish I would have bought more….

Eating was a must – besides all the amazing meals, we were always grabbing various treats.  Here’s a coconut cracked open at a roadside stand, and delicious Shave Ice (with ice cream in the bottom!)

Our hotel had lots of fun things, including hot tubs that overlooked the ocean and  free ukelelee lessons in the lobby – the lesson was 5% lesson and 95% stories from our cute instructor, but still way fun:

 We did a couple of hikes – both over railings of trails that said do not cross – but tons of people were down below so we ventured out as well.  The first was at the “Here to Eternity” beach where that movie was filmed.  At the edge of the rocks were huge sea turtles – it was great fun to watch them:

The second one was a trail to a famous lighthouse, but we veered off the trail down the side of a big cliff on lots of switchbacks to some amazing tidepools down by the ocean’s edge – it was amazing.

We attempted surfing with tips from Trevor’s niece and some boards we rented from a roadside sign – it was alright, but we found out that boogie boarding was way funner for us amateurs:

We also spent a day at the Polynesian Cultural Center, which was pretty fun.  We learned lots of native games and dances and saw the funniest show of my life.   At the end of the day was a big Hawaiian Luau and then a night show performance.

And I thought I’d leave you with this gem of a picture – the native dude could climb to the top of the coconut tree and they have a spot for tourists to try.  At the time I was all “quick, I got up, take my picture!” but looking at the picture and how I’m one step off the ground is pretty funny.  Good thing I have a harness on – I’d hate to fall!

We’re already talking of going back someday (and taking the kiddos so they can experience all the fun stuff) – it was a great trip!!!