Hawaii

We just got back from a week long trip celebrating our 10th(!) anniversary. Our anniversary isn't actually until December, but we decided it is always too crazy around all the holidays to take such a trip, so we went a bit early. Chris planned the whole thing and refused to tell me where we were going until we were at the airport ready to check our bags. He tricked me because earlier he had given me a hint and said that we were staying somewhere on the east coast. So that's where I thought we were headed. But we actually went and stayed near the east coast of Hawaii! Chris did a fantastic job planning everything!

First of all, I have to say that it just about killed me to leave Caleb for a whole week! And if leaving him wasn't bad enough, he had double ear infections and a hurricane was supposed to come through the day after we left. Here...watch my kid with double ear infections during a hurricane while I'm in Hawaii...thanks! But our good friends, the Plumlees watched him and we knew he was in good hands. He had soooooooo much fun with them! Most of the time when we called to chat with him, he was too busy playing and having fun to take much time to chat! Thanks again, guys!

We stayed at a cool place right on Waikiki Beach (THANK YOU, Kaylyn!). It had a pool, ping pong tables, pool tables, tennis courts, a playground, tons of picnic areas, etc.



We arrived just in time to go to the Aloha Festival which just happened to be going on that day and happened to be a block from our hotel. They had tons of food and vendors and live music.

We went to the huge Swap Meet where just about everything you could imagine is sold for cheap prices. It was held at Aloha Stadium--we were also hoping to catch a Hawaii college football game, but they were playing away that week.



We went to the Polynesian Culture Center which was awesome! I really enjoyed our day there! The show at the end is very worth the price!!



We went to a Luau and the food was sooooooooo good!




We also went to Pearl Harbor



We attended church in Tongan

We went to the LDS Laie temple



To the Dole Pineapple Plantation



We enjoyed walking up and down the streets near our hotel. At night, every few feet there were different artists, musicians, magicians, dancers, singers, mimes, people making huge balloon animals, and all kinds of crazy stuff. It was so fun to check everything out! This guy was dressed head to toe in newspaper stuff and just sat totally still like a statue:



We went to the beach every day, sometimes several times a day. Sometimes we'd just walk around, other times Chris surfed while I read a book on the beach. There was also a different show every night on the beach with live singers and hula dancers.








And of course, what is a vacation without lots of card games and tons of good food!

Chris took about a billion pictures that turned out really good, but I'm too lazy to go through them all right now for the best ones. I'll have to post a slide show of them later!

We had a wonderful time ! Thanks, Chris, for all your hard work planning this trip! I think the only reason we came back was to get Caleb!

I can't believe it's already been 10 years! Time flies when you're having fun!