Sunday, March 6, 2011

Aloha

What a vacation! Hawaii was definitely the vacation of a lifetime which I will always remember. My mom took me and my sisters for a week and what an adventure we had.

It all started in Las Vegas where we stopped at Hooters to kill a few hours before our flight to Honolulu. They had this promotion going on where you signed up for their rewards and they gave you $100 to spend in a special machine. Well long story short, Jamie ended up winning $209 so she bought us some really expensive cheesecake and we were on our way. Here she is with her winnings....it was pretty funny!
We took a red eye flight to Honolulu so we got there at about 6:00 am. Our first stop was Pearl Harbor which was pretty neat, but kind of blah.....definitely not the highlight of our Hawaii trip.
Across the bay is where the USS Arizona sank and where the memorial sits.
On the memorial
After exploring Pearl Harbor, we found some much needed breakfast and then we headed to Hanauma Bay to try out our snorkeling skills. We had SO much fun checking out the sea turtles and the gigantic fish in the bay. One thing we learned real fast is that you shouldn't laugh while snorkeling because your masks fills with water (it happened to us A LOT).
Yep, we snorkeled down there!!!
We were some SEXY snorkelers!!!
After snorkeling we went to Waikiki beach to our hotel, showered, and then headed back to the beach. Here we are posing in front of some pretty green stuff.
Waikiki Beach

We also took a drive down the North Shore. The beach was so pretty and we were able to stumble across this cool little blow hole.
One of my favorite parts of our trip was our snorkeling tour out of Ko Olina. Our captain was hilarious and made our trip so awesome. As we started out in the ocean, we ran into a few whales. February is the best time to see whales because they come to Hawaii to mate and give birth, then they go back to Alaska. Anyway, we got really close to these two whales and it was AWESOME. You have to remember that humpback whales are the size of a school bus......our boat was 1/4 that size.
After watching the whales for a bit, we were finally able to get out into the ocean and do some snorkeling. The water was so clear and we were able to see some really awesome things.
Here we are feeding the fish
After a few minutes of being out in the water, our captain hurried us back onto the boat because he had found the dolphins. He said that it had been a while since anyone had been able to swim with them, but he thought we would give it a try. He gave a strict instructions to not move once we "ninja pencil dived" into the water (while the boat was moving). We all followed his instructions perfectly and were able to swim with the dolphins. It was amazing!
This picture is my favorite.
We are all looking like HOTTIES! We belong on the beaches of Hawaii don't we?
When we got back to the harbor, our captain took us to see this Pirates of the Caribbean ship. It used to the be black pearl, but in the new movie, it was called something different. It was really cool and the detail was crazy!!
After getting off our snorkeling tour, we jumped through the outside shower and headed to the Polynesian Cultural Center with our hair soaked. It was pretty cool. Here is a sexy Polynesian climbing a coconut tree.
Yeah....we're funny!
So every time we had to pose here they wanted us to make the "hang loose" sign. Well my mom could not do it......it was hilarious. She finally gave up and just didn't even try in our pics.
Luau
The next morning we woke up and went to the swap meet and then headed to the airport to fly to Maui. When we got there we attempted Hana Drive. The drive was insane, but the scenery was beautiful. Here we are in some bamboo.
The waterfall we hiked to
Hawaii was just pretty EVERYWHERE!
You can REALLY swing from these vines, I didn't try, but Jamie and Jasa did



We also went and saw the Iao Needle. It was really pretty there as well.We spent one day down in Lahiana where we toured front street and went on a whale watching excursion. I didn't get very many pictures because I was to amazed at what I as seeing. We saw a whale that was ticked off splashing his tail like mad, we saw a few whales actually breech (come clear out of the water) and we saw three whales fighting for a female (blood and all), you wouldn't believe the amount of whales we saw. It was so cool.
The next morning we left at 4:00am to go and see the sunset on the Haleakala crater. It was beautiful. We drove from sea level to 10,000 feet to see the most amazing view. I am no photographer so my pictures don't give it justice.


Another one of my favorite parts about the trip was ziplining through the rain forest. We had a really funny instructor for this tour too, so we had a blast. We went down 5 ziplines, each getting steeper as we went. It was so much fun and we laughed the entire time.

Our trip was amazing. I am forever thankful to my mom for taking us on such a fun getaway. Kyle did so well with the boys and it was so good to see them after a week. This was definitely a vacation of a lifetime and I was so lucky to spend it with my very best friends.