Hawaii!!

*** Warning-- picture overload***


ALOHA, Everyone!!

Well we just got back from our beautiful Hawaii trip! We were on Maui for 5 days then flew into Oahu for 3, then home.

I absolutely LOVE Hawaii! My mom grew up there (on Oahu), my Grandparents lived there while I was growing up and we would go visit them occasionally, and for some reason I kind of feel like Hawaii was always my second home.

When we got to Maui, it was a lot drier than I would have thought. I was starting to wonder if we really were in Arizona. Then once we got onto the other side of the island where we were staying, I started to see Hawaii.... all the green, with the coconut trees and flowers.... it was BEAUTIFUL!!

So here are some of the pictures of our trip! I had over 200, so I did cut it down quite a bit! Enjoy!!

This was our first day in Maui. We just walked down to the beach....

On our second day, went on The Road to Hana. It is a long, curvy road that had lots of stops along the way to pull over and look at. A beautiful scenic way to see Maui.....

We even got to see BLACK sand! How cool!

On our 3rd day, we did a snorkeling trip. This boat took us out and we stopped at like 5 different areas where we got out and snorkeled. This was one of my favorite times of the trips. One of the stops, we counted I think 9 turtles, swimming with us and just laying on the bottom of the ocean. So Cool!!



Then that night, we went into Lahaina....

4th Day, we went to the Haleakala Crater.....

And got to see a beautiful Hawaiian sunset on the way home....

On our 5th day, we went to the Ioa Valley State Park....

On the way home from there, we took another scenic route, and ended up at Lorraine's shave ice. The shave ice was wonderful, not to mention it had a beautiful view....

By the way, if you don't know, Hawaii has the BEST shave ice in the world!! They put icecream in the bottom of it and can I just say, YUMMY!!!

And from there, we also saw the Elephant rock.... Can you see the elephant?

We ended up back in Lahaina again, and saw the Banyan Tree.

After that, we flew into Oahu the next morning, where we first headed to The Dole Plantation and had a pineapple dole whip!

After the dole plantation, we headed into Laie, where we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center....

Matt got picked out of the audience in the Tonga village, and got to go up and play the drums with the Tonga men!

That night, we went to the show at the PCC, called... Ha' The Breath of Life.

REALLY COOL!!

And then we went and saw the Laie Hawaii Temple

The next day we drove into Honolulu and went to Pearl Harbor.....

Later that day, we went to the Poli lookout.... It is known for its winds.... and boy was it WINDY!!

After we went there, we went and saw my Grandparents grave.... (Mother and Papa)

I sure miss them....

On our last day in Hawaii, we went to Waikiki beach and spent time in the sun relaxing.....

And of course, eating more shave ice.......

We did go to a lot of other beaches during the week in Maui, but I never did bring my camera. This was the only beach that I brought the camera.

So needless to say, it was a beautiful trip. We got home and were looking at our pictures, and we decided that we already wanted to go back! So it's official, we are Hawaii fans!! Aloha!!!