Hawaii, here we come!

Our second trip of the year, and definitely my favorite, was the week we spent in Hawaii, mostly by ourselves, but also with Russ and Pam Sly, Chris's brother and his wife. They live in Washington State and we don't get to spend much time with them, so it was way fun to spend a whole week with them!
We stayed at the beautiful Marriott Ihilani at Ko Olina, pretty far away from Waikiki, but worth the drive. It was secluded, and had many of its own beaches... along 5 lagoons made just for the resort! We stayed on the 5th level, in a gorgeous room that overlooked the pool and lagoon near us, with a view of plenty of beautiful palm trees! The palm trees in Hawaii are much different than the ones found in AZ... the palms are much bigger and more tropical looking.... what you would imagine a palm tree should look like! Not like the tall ugly ones here. My favorite part about staying at the resort was one evening when we went down by one part of the beach with hammocks, tied to palm trees of course, and just laid for a while listening to the waves crash on the rocks, watching the bright moon and stars, and feeling the cool ocean breeze... I could have sworn we were the only people for miles! It was so quiet and peaceful. I could have spent the whole trip at the resort, except there were too many great places to visit and fun things to see.
We had to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, of course, after hearing about it for most of my life. It was an eye opening experience to learn about all the experiences and lifestyles of the many cultures represented there. We had fun learning new dances and making things out of palm leaves. The best part though, was the Luau- watching the dances close up, having a pina colada smoothie in a pinneapple, and especially getting to go up on stage together, pretending like we were newlyweds. :o)
Another great thing we did was snorkling at Hunama Bay. It was so fun! This was another first for me, but Chris had been there on his last trip to Hawaii. It was also my first real time snorkling, so I had a blast! We saw so many beautiful tropical fish, sea anemone, urchin, starfish and we even spotted a sea turtle way down below us! We got to follow him for a little ways, as he swam away. Our backs got pretty torched since we didn't pay attention to the fact that we were out in the water for over 3 hours without putting on more sunscreen! Ouch! But it was worth it.
We also spent some time at the Dole Pinneapple Planation, sampling pinneapple ice cream, bread and all kinds of yummy stuff! We also took a tour of the plantation and got to plant our very own pinneapple plant as well learn about much of the beautiful vegetation on the Hawaiin Islands. One of the most amazing things we learned was that there are over 5000 varieties of hibiscus, one of which is the famous Hawaiian state flower. We were able to see about 50 different kinds in the hibiscus garden.
We spent a few days at the Waikiki beach, one of which Chris and Russ decided to try surfing. They had a lot of fun and did really well, especially for their first time! After they finished, I was kinda wishing I had tried it too! But it was too late, cuz they were wiped out. Pam and I had a lot of fun shopping at all the tourist places while the boys surfed. We sure found lots of good stuff to bring home to the kids! There was also a guy on the street who had some birds that he let us hold that I included pictures of.
We decided to climb Diamond Head, a mountain near Waikiki beach, and boy was I exhausted when we got to the top! I was definitely the least in shape of the group, I kept lagging behind, and needed to take the most breaks on the way up, but boy was it worth it once we got to the top! There was such a gorgeous view of the ocean and the coastline, including Waikiki. We stayed up there and enjoyed the view for quite some time!
The one thing we wanted to do but weren't able to, was visit Pearl Harbor. We went to get tickets and there was a 2 1/2 hour wait! Since it was the last day we were on the island and we also had to pack up our stuff, we decided we just didn't have time. I guess we'll just have to save that for our next Hawaiian vacation!