Hawai'i

I'm not going to go into every little detail of our trip, because I imagine that gets a bit tedious for you readers.  So here are some of the general things we did, and a whole lot of pictures!

We arrived late, Hawaii time, and my parents picked us up and took us straight to the hotel, telling us that they thought we'd be happy with our room.  When we got there, we discovered that we were on the 14th floor, the very top!  My Mom had some doughnuts, which I scarfed down (along with a few chocolate-covered macadamia nuts) and then we pretty much headed to bed.  We woke up early to this view from our balcony:

And because we had no kids with us and it was super easy to do, we threw on some clothes and headed to breakfast at Cinnamon's.  I got French toast and Craig indulged in their specialty, red velvet pancakes with a white chocolate glaze.  I may have stolen several bites of his!

It's like chocolate cake for breakfast.  But better!

Walking back to our hotel, it was still early so we had this great view of the Hilton Hawaiian Lagoon with Diamondhead in the background, and hardly anyone else around!

Most of our trip was spent like this.  Get up when we wanted, get breakfast where we wanted.  Wander to either the beach or the pool or do whatever activity we had planned for the day.  Figure out where we wanted to eat for dinner.  Repeat.  It was AWESOME.

We spent a lot of time at the grown up pool, which had just been re-done and was lovely and quiet.  I enjoyed not worrying about kids drowning.  And I also liked splashing in the pool remembering what I do in a pool when I don't have several kids all hanging on me at the same time.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed lazing in the water!

These tiny little pompom flowers kept dropping on me

Lovely sunset from our room

One evening after dinner we found Volcano Shakes, and enjoyed this s'more shake.  It was really good, but a lot of work (and mess!) to eat!  We ultimately decided we were glad we'd tried it, but probably wouldn't bother again...

One morning Craig got up early and went scuba diving.  Unfortunately he didn't get any underwater pictures (a fact that made him sad), but he had a great time exploring some wrecks and seeing giant sea turtles

My huge pink hat made me easy to find on the beach

My parents had these new funky snorkeling masks-- my Dad looks ready to be in Top Gun!

With my parents, we took a ride in an outrigger canoe and it was amazing how fast we could go!  (I may have sung some Moana under my breath.)  We got pictures from that, but our computer isn't recognizing CDs at this moment.  One of these days I'll figure out how to get to those pictures.  Then we went snorkeling and saw a bunch of fish, including several humuhumunukunukuapua'a, which made us happy.  My parents were a bit disappointed in the number of fish we saw, but I thought it was pretty great.  Until a few days later when we went again and THIS time someone was throwing bread to the fish-- then we saw TONS.  So many fish I felt like I could reach out and grab one.  I even worried a little that I might get bit.  But it was amazing.  I love snorkeling.  Some day I'll get scuba certified and get to go with Craig-- I'm pretty sure I'll love that even more!

Managed to get a table on the beach at Duke's

Waikiki at sunset

We hiked Diamondhead one morning.  This was especially fun for me because I wasn't able to when we went to Hawaii five years ago.

One of the best things we did was go parasailing-- we took pictures AND the drivers took pictures, so forgive me for oversharing on this one.  But it was just so cool!!!!

All hooked in and...

...Ready for lift-off!

Higher we go!

This was why we had to buy the pictures.  I love this so much.

The water really did look just like that!

This is another of my favorites

Everyone got dipped.  The captain warned us, "If you don't want to get wet, there's a movie theater just down the street."  I thought that was hilarious.

Splash!

My Dad hugging the eagle before he sent it on to his grandkids

On Thursday we drove to the PCC, stopping at Boots & Kimos in Kailua for a breakfast with macadamia nut syrup-- to die for.  

It was an hour long wait to get inside, but only a ten-minute wait if you just grabbed a table outside!

We took tons of pictures and video at the PCC, but you could probably get better stuff by going to their website, so I'll skip those for now.

We celebrated my birthday there, so Craig got me a pretty lei!  We also got massages, which were amazing-- best massage I've ever had.  When it was over, I felt like I was made of silly putty.  In a good way...

My parents took us to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse on my birthday and it was uh-may-zing.  Words cannot describe. 

Then we watched the sunset, and THEN we watched the Hilton fireworks from my parents' balcony.  It was a pretty good way to celebrate!

Another morning we went to Leonard's bakery and got these-- they're like giant doughnut holes rolled in sugar and then filled with your cream of choice.  I got two-- one with custard cream and the other chocolate custard.  They were so rich I could barely finish, but they were fabulous.

There are my parents!  And their missionary nametags, too!

On our last full day, Craig took a surfing lesson.  I splashed in the water and took a few pictures of him before I decided I was too likely to end up dropping his phone in the water.

I love how they give the newbies the biggest surfboards imaginable!

See the guy standing up on his board?  That's Craig!

I got artsy with my camera

I think we gained back half the weight we'd lost before going, but we expected that to happen.  (Craig had some crazy notion that we would try to exercise while we were on vacation, but I quickly disabused him of that notion.  Although I do need to get back to all that healthy stuff now that we're home...)  We had such a great time, though-- it was nice to just be able to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.  It was nice to take a break from worrying and counting heads and buckling and unbuckling car seats.  It was nice to have a few little adventures.  And it was really nice getting to hang out with my parents so much!

I don't know if or when we'll ever be able to manage a trip like this again, so it's also nice to know that we can bask in the knowledge that we made the most out of this one!