Is there any place lovlier than Hawaii? Good luck convincing me. We had an incredible time visiting Oahu and Maui, and visiting with our good friend Scott Evens. We flew into Oahu on a Saturday, and we were able to spend the weekend at Scott's place in Waikiki. Saturday we spent time out in the sun and headed out to a fabulous dinner at Duke's (which we loved so much that we ended up eating there 2 more times!) We visited Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning, which was an amazing and powerful experience. It was so quiet and peaceful there in the morning, that it made all three of us mindful of what it must have been like to have the SUnday morning peace disrupted almost 70 years ago. We followed the Pearl Harbor memorial with a tour of the USS Missouri, where the treaty ending World War II was signed, and we were amazed by the tiny living spaces. Later, we headed to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and ran through the world's biggest maze. Finally we drove up to the North Shore, and Jason even got me to eat fish at Jameson's ;)
On Monday we headed out to Maui for a few days on Kaanapaali at the gorgeous Hyatt resort. We spent lazy days by the pool, wandered up to shop at Whaler's Village, and explored the resort. We also went for an awesome snorkeling/whale watching trip on the Gemini, a beautiful catamaran. We saw tons of Humpback whales and, while we were snorkeling, we swam with over 17 sea turtles and even saw a Monk seal! Thursday morning, before we headed back to Oahu, we went on a submarine ride. There were huge schools of fish, and a shipwreck over 120 ft down. It was really amazing!
Thursday we headed back to Oahu for a few more days of bliss on the beach. We ended our trip with a visit Saturday to the Polynesian Culture Center, BYU-Hawaii, and the LDS temple. We were able to learn about the culture of Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, and more, we chowed down at the luau, and we loved the performance of "Ha, Breath of Life." Heading to the airport to go home was so hard, but we are definitely looking forward to our next visit!
Our arrival in Honolulu
Dinner at Duke's!
Big guns on the Might Mo!
Should we be concerned if these two are in charge?
The view from our hotel room--the waterfall lulled us to sleep at night ;)
The fireworks from the balcony at Scott's place
