Hawaii Trip Sans Kids!

For Christmas this year, Tyler surprised me with a trip without our kids to Hawaii.  We went the last week of May.  We had a good trip despite me being 30 weeks pregnant and whiny.  Tyler's mom came out to watch the kids for us and I don't think they even missed us!

We caught a super early flight out of LAX and made it to Honolulu around lunch.

 We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Villages resort in Waikiki and had mixed feelings about it.  It was nice to have a hotel right on the beach, but we were too far away from the rest of Waikiki to walk there easily.  This is our beautiful beach!

The first full day we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.  Such a beautiful place!

 

The tide was really low, but we saw tons of cool fish and an endangered Hawaiian monk seal.  We were trying to recreate the snorkeling picture from our honeymoon, almost 11 years ago.

 Pretty good, I'd say! (Cozumel, Mexico, July 2007)

The next day we rented a car and drove up to the North Shore of Oahu.  First we stopped at Waimea Falls and hiked through the rain and beautiful botanical gardens up to a waterfall.

 We swam in the water and under the falls even though it was cold in the rain.  So refreshing and fun!  Only mildly worried we were going to get Leptospirosis, haha.

 We stopped for lunch at some food trucks.  Then we drove up to Turtle Bay to do some more snorkeling and then stopped at the Dole Plantation on our way back.  The north shore was really pretty, but surprisingly had terrible traffic!

The next day we spent at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  It was just as fun as I remember it being from when we visited with my family years ago.  We had to take a picture of a "real coconut tree" for Penny.

 We loved seeing all the countries, talking to the students, and the luau and night show was amazing. 

We had a lazy morning the next day with a only lunchtime fishing trip.  Not very successful because of a windy rainstorm, but I caught a tiny fish and we saw a huge pod of dolphins, as well as a sea turtle.

 

Waikiki in the background.

 

Our last day, we hung out at our hotel swimming in the pools and at the beach.  Waterslides were more wild than we thought they'd be!

It was so refreshing to have time without kids- relaxing and going to nice restaurants, and not worrying about naps, meltdowns, being up too late.  Happy Fellowship graduation/anniversary/babymoon to us!