Hawaii in a nutshell....sort of

sleeping out on the balconey....good night sleep...lulled by the ocean!

view from our condo! i like it!


Oh man....I meant to write all about Hawaii but I've been too busy with seminary starting and trying to figure out the glitches we had this year...also preparing 'new stuff' for my fitness classes, I'm always looking for the latest trends.

I'll give you Hawaii in a nutshell....it was the best family vacation....and we did everything but rest! lol! I was so worried we would waste our first day there....arriving at 1 pm....getting up in Portland at about 4 am...riding the MAXX to the airport and then flying...what with the time change we went for almost 24 hours that day! Needless to say....I was very very happy! We hopped off the plane and headed to Big Beach...stayed there for a while and explored the very end where it had rocks and no one but some older weed sucking adults were....and the scenery around the corner was great....not a soul! We did get a little high on the air as we walked by our little 'weed friends'....just kidding! We later hit Wailea Beach just as everyone was leaving it! That was one of my favorite beaches....good waves but not shore breakers like Big Beach. We were one of just a few there...dinner time is a great time to go to the beach! But 'our time' it was about 9 pm....and the family became distressed over the lack of food...what a bother! We finally left Wailea but had to head back to the airport area to Walmarto and Costco to get food for our stay (you should have seen us in our midsize car..all our luggage we had hauled around all day, three big teenagers...make that adults! yikes!, and us, and all our groceries...we had to put the groceries on our laps for the 45 minute drive to our condo...a case of water on your lap is so fun)....so it was midnight by the time we got to our condo....I knew that they closed at 8 pm so I had called ahead and they told me how to get our keys. We were so surprised to find they gave us a two bedroom/two bath instead of the one bed/bath we paid for! Good surprise! Ohhh.....I don't care about anything but the view and it was so great! Huge balconey and sliding glass doors out right almost over the ocean! How could we tell? in the dark? Lights were shining on the water! Older condos....the very cheapest....okay....maybe the second cheapest in the book! We were north of Ka'anapali....almost in Kahana....if not in. No airconditioning....Oh dang! we had to keep all the windows open and the first night I couldn't sleep for the roaring of the ocean....I just tossed and turned with great joy! Sooooo loud! Our pool was a joke and pretty much no beach....rocky but so incredibly beautiful! and I didn't plan on staying in our room. We were so close to the ocean! As Shanie and I ran all the way up to Black Rock the next morning and looked at the nicer hotels, we felt super glad to be where we were! Who cares about air-conditioning, maid service, or pools? All I care about is the beauty of where we were! All the more expensive hotels were far from the ocean and I know we would never had been able to have such a great ocean view any where else. It almost seemed like we were one of only a few at our condo....seemed private and fun and a secret!

I could go into every day but you would get bored and you probably have already stopped reading....but we swam in underwater caves with our flashlight wrapped in a sandwich bag...jumped off cliffs, hiked to waterfalls, hiked through a bamboo forest, I even danced on a chair for my birthday at Bubba Gumps and they raved that I was the best dancer they had in forever! lol!...I was really just trying to be silly, visited and swam at a black sand beach and we got there so early, we were the only ones there!, swam in sacred pools, swam with turtles.....we saw a lot (I later heard it was turtle season....something like that) I sort of got scared when the hugest turtle ever turned around and about knocked nose to nose with me!....Hamoa Beach (Hana) one of my favorite beaches....we swam while it rained...how I loved that! I love HI rain!...we drove the road to Hana...such windy roads (thank goodness I wasn't driving)...we went to Oahu for two full days and one night...went to the PCC and BYU-HI...where my love for Hawaii started....went to the North Shore and my favorite-Pipeline....little did my friend from there know...but I absorbed everything I was told about the waves and surfing and I loved it...I love those waves!...but they weren't that way when we went this trip :) ....went to Hanama Bay....Sandys Beach (too rough for me, and even big....but I HATE shoreline breaking waves!!! Of course, after going over and over about not 'going over' the wave and crashing on your head and breaking your neck....I did it! right over the hugest wave crashed right on the top of my head.....swirled around dazed in the churning ocean....trying to figure where the heck my swim suit was...and exactly just what was it still covering....I had enough sense even after that head banging to know that if I wasn't paralyzed that I wanted to wash ashore with all my unmentionable parts covered, and I'll tell you what....I was so ground into the sand that I shouldn't have worried about it....I was caked with sand! when I could get out of the water, I walked....ummmm...ran!...to miss the next wave....I came out with a cup of sand in my bottoms....it looked cute!.....literally a cup!....and my scalp!!! that was at Big Beach)...Nate is the only one who went in with our little disposable Walmart boogie board....he even crashed into a local boy catching the same wave...but went and apologized to him....seriously, no one could ever be mad at Nate...he is too nice!....tried to hike Diamond Head this same day we did Waikiki, International Marketplace, Sandys Beach, that blow hole (name?),Hanama Bay....but dang, Diamond Head closed....we thought we would be able to do a sunset hike and we were soooo disappointed and we ended up wandering around Waikiki that night until we had to turn in our rental car and fly back to Maui....which we got super lost...same as on the night we came to check into our Waikiki hotel after a full day of North Shore/PCC/BYU/temple/Pipeline (never made it to Waimea Bay or to get shave ice....not enough time)....we were driving in the dark....I had a map...free from AAA...but we soon realized how they could give away these maps....the writing was so small none of us could read the street names!....I was trying to switch from my regular glasses to Steve's reading glasses....trying to say the names of the streets and it was close to midnight and we were so tired....we had started the day at 4 am to fly to Oahu....and we were laughing so hysterically trying to find our way around! I swear I thought I was going to choke to death when Steve kept asking me what street and they all sound so much alike and too hard to pronounce and he kept saying he thought we were going to Waikiki, thinking that was the street and I couldn't tell him any different cause I couldn't talk....he told me that later he might laugh too but he was pretty much the only one not dying of laughter....poor driver!

We found our own private place to snorkel in Maui....we were just exploring and stopped and hiked down some rocks and found the coolest place...the place Nate whipped off his suit and jumped in! we went further to Honoloa Bay (sp?) to snorkel more...this is where we saw our first turtles but had to snorkel to almost out of the bay....I saw a wall of fish swimming in a huge massive circle! I had never seen anything like it before! we explored more that day....we went to so many different beaches to snorkel and swim and found some all to ourselves. Steve kept saying how much better he liked HI than Mexico....I know that I wouldn't have dared explore as much in Mexico...too scary! I told the kids the last night there that we were going to sleep on the balconey for the adventure and also go pool hopping through those nice hotels...that is the only time I want to swim in a pool....is at night! ....but....it took so long for me to pack up our stuff that I actually got worn out and pooped out on the pool hopping but I did sleep on the balconey...with just a towel on the ground and a towel to cover me...with Nate and NIck....Shanie had fallen asleep on the couch...I have to tell you....it was the best rest I had all trip! hahaha! we should have just slept on the beach....which was really a strip of grass....and very little sand...that would probably be water in the middle of the night.

So, would you ever guess that I was deathly sick this whole trip? I started out with a cold and with all the lack of sleep and food and so much adventure, I got sicker....I pretty much survived on Ibuprofen and coughing medicine....I knew I had a fever in Oahu but didn't share that....they could hear me coughing and coughing but I WAS NOT going to let it stop me!!! I continued to have that cough for about two weeks after the trip until I got so sick of it that I went to the doctor!

Oh my, so many memories and I think this was supposed to be a nutshell version! Well, it is! If I told you all that we did, you would be stinkin' tired!

One of my favorite things was going to church...loving the Hawaiian people...so humble...nice and welcoming....sitting in church and finally having my 'family vacation...in my favorite place' but recognizing that my family was going to be stronger because of the gospel and not from memories of a family trip....I felt it so forcefully as I listened to the testimonies of several of the Hawaiian members....and felt so grateful and so blessed!