Hawaii

At the beginning of this month, Matt and I were lucky enough to get to spend a week in Hawaii to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary. The kids stayed home with grandparents. It was so wonderful. We knew they were in good hands and having fun and we enjoyed our alone time very much. I rediscovered how bad we are at relaxing on vacation. We always have to do and see as much as possible. Here's a recap of the week. We landed in Honolulu around noon on a Thursday. First, we took a nap in our hotel and then went to the beach, walked around Waikiki, had dinner, came back to the hotel, read a bit and went to sleep. The next morning we were at the moped rental shop by 8:30am and we rode to Pearl Harbor. We did all the museums there which took us about 6 hours.

Here is Matt at the Arizona Memorial with the Missouri in the background.

Here I am standing in front of the Missouri.

This is at the Air Museum. Matt's grandpa was the gunner in this type of plane. We also toured the Bowfin (a submarine) and a Maritime Museum.

On the way back to Waikiki, there was a little rain storm. We were riding mopeds and dressed in shorts and T-shirts. It was a bit uncomfortable but not cold. I kept thinking that at least I would end up with a good blog picture but half way back it cleared up and we were basically dry by the time we reached the hotel. In an effort to not waste our moped rental time, we changed clothes and then took off for Diamond Head Volcano (inactive). It was only a few miles from our hotel and the hike to the top is less than a mile, although part of it is very steep.

This was our view from the top of Diamond Head with Waikiki in the background.

The next day we didn't do too much in the morning because we had signed up to go SCUBA diving in the afternoon. We did two dives to about 40 feet and saw lots of tropical fish and a few eels, including a very large one that Matt found under the ledge of a reef. On the morning of our last day in Oahu we rented boogie boards and rode the waves. It was very fun. Then we layed on the beach for a bit.

These are the views that we had from our hotel window. Here is Diamond Head

and this is the eastern end of the Waikiki beach. Our next stop was Kona on the Big Island. We stayed at a lovely resort. This was the resort's private beach and the view from the outdoor restaurant where we ate breakfast every morning. We snorkeled in that bay twice and saw tons of tropical fish, a few eels and sea turtles that came within a few inches of us. It was beautiful.

This was our private hut (called a Hale on the island). There were no locks on the doors, no shades on the upper halves of the windows, ceiling fans but no A/C, no TV's or radios or clocks and we were not permitted to use cell phones or computers in the public areas of the resort. It was actually really nice.

Here is the view looking out from our porch.

Some local wildlife.

A friend on the outside wall of our hale.

One of the less exotic, but still very yummy, fruit plates we started off with each morning.

One day we went SCUBA diving with manta rays. I put those pictures on Facebook.

Our last full day we spent at the active volcano Kilauea.

Lava fields.

Lava coast.

Glowing lava in cauldron at night.

It was a great trip. Happy Anniversary to us!