I've been missing from the blogosphere almost all summer which means my life has either been incredibly boring and I've had absolutely nothing worthwhile to blog about or it's been soo exciting I haven't had a second to blog. Well, it's actually been a little bit of both. I spent the first month of summer sitting at home doing well, absolutely nothing. Then one day I drove to Vegas with Whitney Wittwer, hopped on an airplane, and flew to paradise! The next 10 days were some of the best of my life. The next 2 weeks were equally exciting but that's for a later blog post.
Hawaii
Whit and I were lucky enough to stay with the sweetest couple you will ever meet in your whole entire life (The Stanleys) right outside of Honolulu about a 20 minute walk from Waikiki. They drove us around to all the tourist sites and local hot spots and fed us delicious food. Tracy even taught us about the culture and taught us some much appreciated cooking skills. And we got to go to church with them twice. We couldn't have asked for a better home for the week. I could probably write a whole book about our trip so I'll just document through pictures instead (that's the good part anyway, right?)
A family from St. George is in the process of moving to Honolulu and graciously volunteered to be our tour guides one day. They took us to the Dole plantation (fresh pineapple ice cream YUM) a gigantic swap meet, Motsumoto shaved us (the best), and gorgeous Waimea valley where we hiked to and swam in this huge waterfall--one of my favorite parts of the trip!
Whit and I burned off lots of the delicious stuff we ate by walking a few miles to the beach every morning--and it rained without fail every time!
Monday morning we went to Pearl Harbor and toured an actual submarine and museum. We also met this amazing man who is a Pearl Harbor Veteran and I got a Rosie the Riveter pin, one of my favorite souvenirs without a doubt.
More often than not, we would cancel our days plans to lay on the beach. That's what you go to Hawaii for anyway, right?
Hawaii seriously knows whats up when it comes to shaved ice (or shave dice hahah) and we ate our fair share of it!
The first morning we weren't quite in vacation mode yet I guess and decided to go running. We ended up walking most of the way because we kept getting so distracted by all of the beautiful plants and scenery!
We spent Friday afternoon watching Hula dancers, eating Cupcake Wars winning cupcakes, making leis, and getting tattooed by attractive Hawaiian men. It was a great afternoon :)
The weather was so temperamental. One minute we would be soaking up the sun, the next we would be in the middle of a rainstorm.
We could not get enough of those Hawaiian men. Can you blame us?
The BYU Hawaii campus and Laie Temple were absolutely breathtaking. I promise I will go to BYU H next summer. Seriously though.
We woke up bright and early to catch a 2 hour bus to the PCC. Definitely worth it. We learned to hula, got more tattoos, learned about Polynesian cultures, saw the Temple, ate the best food of my life at a Luau, and saw Ha! The Breath of Life in an incredible amphitheater. It was quite the day. By time we took the bus home at midnight we were exhausted and I'm not really sure how we made it back to Dave and Tracy's.
Our beach days consisted of reading really good books, napping, boogie boarding, shopping, and eating at really good places like Cheese Burger in Paradise.
We also loved spending nights at Waikiki. There were sooo many people and watching the street performers was always exciting! Also not pictured, we snorkeled at Hanauma Bay and saw a Sea Turtle, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip!
Basically I love Hawaii and even though this post is a mile long I know I forget a million things. So I guess I'll just have to go back.
Alooooooooha.
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