I’ve wanted to go to Hawaii my whole life. Growing up we didn’t travel a whole lot. I mean, we traveled to Nevada to see Nanny
and Pop a lot when they lived there. And
we went to California quite a few times.
So I can’t say we didn’t travel.
But we didn’t go anywhere “exotic”.
And then I was a poor college student and I drove to St George or San
Diego but that’s it. When Ryan and I
were planning our honeymoon, I told him my ideal place would be Maui. He was willing to take me there, but when he
was looking into options, he thought a cruise would be a better option- because
the food is already paid for so we wouldn’t be eating cheap food the whole
time. I had never been on a cruise
either and that sounded really fun too.
So I was happy to do that instead, but he said he would take me to
Hawaii sometime in the future.
Over the years we have talked about going a few times. But kids make it difficult. And Ryan always said, “you keep having kids…” There was one time we had decided to go and
then his cousin Travis got engaged and invited us to his wedding in the New
York area so we decided to do that instead.
I’ve never been to NYC either!
Unfortunately that NY trip got cancelled anyway because Ryan was just
really busy at work.
My point is, this trip was a long time coming and my
expectations were pretty high. I was
SOOOOO excited. And it did NOT
disappoint! It was absolutely
amazing. I LOVED it so, so much.
Preparing to go was not so fun though. I was so excited to have a “second honeymoon”
with Ryan and see the beautiful islands of Hawaii. And I knew my kids were going to be in very
good hands with my mother in law. But
little Kaden worried me. He is a bit
clingy. I was really worried about
him! I worried he would think we were
gone forever and never coming back. I
worried that he would cry for us.
Seriously, I would go to the store for an hour and when I came back in
the door he would come running and shout “mommy!” and give me a big hug and
want me to hold him. I tried not to
think about it but the mommy guilt was hard to ignore.
However, in the month leading up to our trip, Kaden relaxed
a bit. He even started enjoying
nursery! It was the strangest
thing. He went from full-on death-grip
clinger, to saying “toys?” when the closing song started. And he would walk right in the door without
looking back. It was bizarre. But awesome!
So I think that helped.
So once the kid’s stuff was all taken care of, I just had to
worry about myself and my trip. I put
myself on a strict fitness program for a couple months before because if I’m
going to Hawaii, I wanted to feel good!
It paid off because I felt awesome.
We were very active and it was fun.
We flew out of Salt Lake, 7 hours into Oahu.
We stayed in Oahu for three days and flew out
to Kauai in the evening. Then we got
five days in Kauai. We decided on those
islands because I had never seen Pearl Harbor or the Polynesian Cultural
Center, both must-see things. But I what
I really wanted was less city and more secluded island stuff. The advice we got from others is that Kauai
is better than Maui. The research I did
said that Kauai was great for jungle, hiking, mountains, views, etc. And Maui was great for snorkeling. I’m sure there were other things but I was
sold on Kauai. I thought it sounded like
exactly what I wanted. It did not
disappoint.
But Oahu was really great as well! Yes, there was a lot of big city stuff that I
expected. But there was also so much
beauty!
The first day we decided to get up early and do this little hike
we read about- Diamond Head. The
internet told us it was cool to do it at sunrise, and that the parking lot gets
full really early so it’s best to get there when it opens at 6. We were on Idaho time, obviously, so waking
up at 5 am was like waking up at 8 – easy!
We got to the gate of the park at 5:55 and they let us in, but they had
already let a bus or two of Asian tourists in so even though there were plenty
of parking spaces, we ended up just walking behind 200 people up this dark
path. We couldn’t see anything other
than the phone flashlights of all the people ahead of us. Not my favorite way to hike- dark and in a
herd. But that’s okay. It was a cool view at the top!
We were perplexed by how obsessed everyone was with filming
the sunrise. Sunrises are slow. And kind of boring… I mean, of course it’s pretty. But we just didn’t feel the need to get the
whole thing on video. We pushed around
the crowd to see what we could see. We
were disappointed that we couldn’t hike down inside the crater. We headed back down before most of the
others. Turns out the scenery on the way
up wasn’t anything great so we didn’t miss anything hiking in the dark.
It was still plenty early, we had Pearl Harbor scheduled in
the afternoon but had some time to kill so we googled a beach. It wasn’t exactly close by but it was on the
east side of the island so we were halfway there already. It was Kailua. It was a pretty beach, but flat and
calm. And I guess we didn’t get any
pictures of it. It would’ve been great
for paddle boarding, but we couldn’t find any rentals that were close enough to
walk instead of loading it on our car. Ryan
tried snorkeling but there was nothing to see.
I thought about doing a swimming workout but I hadn’t brought my cap and
goggles. And it was chilly. And I knew I would have to wash my hair and
get ready before Pearl Harbor if I did that and it just seemed like it wasn’t
the best time. I did see a guy out
swimming and I was jealous. We decided
to run on the beach for a little while instead.
It was fun, but hurts your feet when you’re not used to running barefoot.
We went to get some lunch, even though it was still like 10
am. I convinced Ryan to take me to this “health
bar and café” that I saw. Nalu. It was awesome! So yummy!
We got ahi tuna- Ryan in a Panini sandwich and mine they made into a
salad for me with the yummy sauce as the dressing. So good!
We also shared a papaya bowl, which was amazing.
They had fresh juices, like veggies and
stuff. Kombucha on tap, lol. And signs talking about how fresh and natural
their ingredients were. I was
stoked! Turns out, there’s places like
this ALL OVER Hawaii. My kind of
eating!!
We went back to the hotel and I crashed. I don’t know why I was so tired, but I
slept. Ryan walked around a bit and came
back to wake me up so we could go to Pearl Harbor. We were a tad bit late for our time and
ALMOST missed the last presentation/ferry.
Whoops! I didn’t know how it
worked and that we had to be there for a ferry.
But that’s okay. We made it and I
really liked it! It was very
touching.
We walked around for awhile and headed back to Waikiki. There are so many options of places to
eat. We wanted to eat at local places
every time. The one we ended up at was
Shore Bird and they had you grill your own meat. Interesting!
All the restaurants are open to the air, big open walls instead of
windows, with great views of the beach.
And the temperature was always perfection.
We walked around the grounds for awhile. The place is huge with so many hotels. Our hotel was in with a bunch of others and
ours had like four buildings. So finding
our building was a little tricky at first!
There are these ABC stores everywhere that sell everything you would
need as a tourist. Grab ‘n go sushi and
fruit bowls were nice. Chocolate covered pineapple, chocolate macadamia nuts,
etc, etc. This is the resort we were at, though this little mini lake was kinda nasty with stationary water...
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