I took the kids to Norm and Melinda's house in Logan. They had just moved into their house a few days before (moving from California). I felt bad that it was such bad timing, but they said that they'd watch the kids while we went to Hawaii. They watched the kids for 10 days total. I still feel like we owe them for that! It was hard being away from them. I'd only been away from Kate one night before. Jack was only 15 months old and I'd never left him. I cried almost every day, but enjoyed spending time with Dave.
We drove Vaughn's truck pulling our trailer to Reno and spent the night. Derek & Meagan were living in San Jose for the summer. We were going to drive the trailer with their stuff in it back to Utah, and they'd move out a week or so later.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Early the next morning we drove the rest of the way to Derek & Meagan's house in San Jose. They took us to the Oakland Airport.
We flew into the Honolulu Airport. Got our rental car and headed to Waikiki. After driving around Waikiki lost for a little while (the palm trees covered the street signs) we finally found our hotel. We checked into the Royal Grove. It was a little mom-and-pop type hotel that Norm & Melinda usually stay in. It had a kitchen and it was only $60 or so a night. Our air conditioner didn't work so great, so Dave was a little uncomfortable. Overall it was a good place to stay. It was only a block to Waikiki beach.
This is what our room looked like.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
We hiked Manoa Falls. It was really pretty.
Then we drove on the Tantalus Drive. It was really pretty and windy and had lots of places to stop and look out over Honolulu.
Then we went to Walmart and stocked up on macadamia nuts to take home and breakfast food to eat in our hotel kitchen.Sunday, August 19, 2007
We went to sacrament meeting at the church in Honolulu. It was a neat church, the hallways and classrooms were outside.
After church we went to Pearl Harbor. We had to wait for a while for our tour to start.
We passed the time by enjoying some delicious ice cream sandwiches.
They take you on a boat to the USS Arizona Memorial.
Part of the USS Arizona sticking up out of the water.
Battleship USS Missouri and the Arizona Memorial
After visiting Pearl Harbor we checked into the Sheraton Waikiki. They upgraded our room to an ocean view room because they had to give us a room with double beds. It was a great hotel! They gave me a fresh flower lei when we checked in.
This is what our room looked like. It was great!
The view from our balcony.
Monday, August 20, 2007 and Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Dave had his conference these days. I spent the days reading on the beach and sitting on our balcony. After his conference got out for the day we tried heading to the North Shore, but the traffic was awful, so we turned around and two hours later made it back to our hotel. On Tuesday night we went to the conference banquet for dinner.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Dave did his presentation on the last day of his conference. I got to go listen. I didn't understand most of what he was talking about, but it was fun to listen to. His was definitely the most interesting presentation out of the session, though. He did a good job.
After the conference we headed over to Windward Oahu (east side). We stopped at a beach by Makapu'u to check out a Lost site. We couldn't figure out what was filmed here, but it was pretty.
Dave trying to figure out what was filmed here.
We took a little hike to a lookout on Makapu'u Head. This is looking north.
Looking toward Kaohi-ka-ipu Island (the little island) and Rabbit Island (the bigger island)
We hiked to a lighthouse on the tip of Makapu'u.
We tried to find the perfect beach to stop at. We drove all along the windward side and finally stopped in Kailua Bay. We swam for a little while. Lots of people were kayaking. It looked fun, but it was getting late so we didn't do it.
We headed back toward Waikiki on the H-3 interstate highway. It was an amazing road that goes through the beautiful, green Ko'olau mountain range. This highway cost $100 million per mile to build and took 37 years to complete (16 miles long). It is elevated high above the ground. Pretty cool...
The H-3 tunnel
We checked out of the lovely Sheraton Waikiki and into the Royal Grove Hotel. This time we had a room with air conditioning that worked better.Thursday, August 23, 2007
Dave and I got up early and made it to the Diamond Head entrance as soon as it opened. We watched the sun rise as we hiked.
A little ways up Diamond Head
At the top, a little winded, because we hurried. We wanted to beat all the Japanese tourists to the top.
View of Waikiki from the top of Diamond Head
After we hiked Diamond Head we went back to our hotel and showered. Then we headed to the North Shore. We stopped at Papa'iloa Beach and checked out the beach site from the tv show Lost.
They were filming Lost while we were in Hawaii, but we were never in the same place as them.
There were some guys at the beach site making it look like something had just blown up.
A little way north of Papa'iloa Beach was Turtle Beach. We stopped and watched a whole bunch of turtles swimming. It was hard to catch a good picture of them.
Then we headed around to La'ie. We stopped at the temple and looked around.
Then we had lunch and went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We checked out most of the islands and watched their presentations and we watched the canoe parade. The Tongan drummers, the Samoan tree climbers, and of course the fast-hip-moving Tahitians were the most entertaining.
We walked across the parking lot to McDonald's and ate dinner before the evening show. The show was great, especially the Samoan fire dancers.
Friday, August 24, 2007 -- Sunday, August 26
We got up early and headed to Hanauma Bay to do some snorkeling before we had to catch our plane. We didn't take any pictures because we left our camera at the hotel. There is a lot of crime at Hanauma Bay. The snorkeling was amazing.
Somewhere between Hanauma Bay, checking out of our hotel, dropping off our rental car and the airport we lost Dave's drivers license. Okay, so actually I lost it somewhere. We didn't notice until we got to the airport and we had to get our IDs out. Thankfully they let Dave in the airport using his University of Utah student ID card. I didn't want to fly home without him...We flew back into California and Derek & Meagan picked us up. We spent the night at their house. The next morning we helped them pack all their stuff and furniture into the trailer. Then we drove back to Utah. Luckily Dave didn't get pulled over. I even tried driving the truck pulling the trailer for a little while. It made me a little nervous, so I'm glad Dave drove most of the time.
We drove back to our basement apartment in Bountiful and spent the night. The next morning we went to sacrament meeting, then headed to Logan to pick up the kids. We were so excited to see them, and they were excited to see us. It was a long 10 days without our kids! A fun 10 days though... Maybe next time they can come to Hawaii with us.
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