Monday, October 13, 2008

We are in Hawaii! Pictures from Monday 10/6 to Saturday 10/11

Paul, Landon and I are in Hawaii! My dream vacation! We are having so much fun here, and there's so many touristy things to do! We have been busy trying to get them all done in the 10 days we are going to be here! I'm sure some of you are probably wondering..."how are they in Hawaii when Paul should be in medical school?" Well, about a month and a half ago Paul took a leave of absence for the year from school. He's not sure if medicine is really what he wants to do for his career, so he is taking the year off to figure things out! He will resume school in August of 09 if he chooses to do so. In the mean time we do have other things going for us that are working out great...so don't worry about us! We started our trip out on Friday October 3rd. I received a Cannon 40d camera in the mail that I ordered 2 weeks prior, and I wanted it for Hawaii, so we had to wait for it before we left!We went to Arizona for the weekend to hang out with Paul's family and watch General Conference. Monday morning we got up bright and early and headed to the airport! We were so excited for our much needed vacation!
Landon on the plane. He's watching the movie about Hawaii.
Landon and Me on the bus to get our rental car. I got my lei at the airport. We arrived around 11:15 am. We met our friends Adam and Lisa, and their son Zack at the rental car place.
After getting our rental car we went to the grocery store to get some groceries for the 10 days. When we arrived to our villa I put Landon in the back yard to play and take picyures. Here's Landon in the yard at our villa we are staying at. What a cute pic...I think!
Landon wearing my lei. He really liked the lei.After snapping some shots of our villa when we arrived, we got dinner at Loco Moco, then went to a lagoon right near our villa to see our first Hawaiian sunset. We stayed in Ko'Olina. It's a very nice area! Here are some of the palm trees at the lagoon. This was taken at sunset.
This is Landon's first time at a beach, and first time in sand. He ate it. He absolutely loved it.Here's our little family at the lagoon on our first night.
Our first day we decided to stay near the villa and not go to far, so we hung out at a lagoon. Here's Landon and me when we arrived. We hung out there until close to dinner time. We swam in the water, Landon loved it, and soaked up the sun!

Landon's first official day at the beach. he was and is such a good baby!

I wanted a shot of Landon with the palm trees, so I had Paul hold him in the air so I could get one. I must say, he looks so cute!
Zack and Landon got tired and took a nap....how cute are they...beach babies.

After waking up Landon played in the sand, and ate it too. There was no stopping him.

Landon and daddy out in the water.


still in the water.

About to eat sand...yummy!
a mouth full of sand.....

When we got back from the beach we tried a new fruit that none of us has ever tried before...a dragon fruit. They are like a kiwi, minus the tartness! We LOVE them! In fact we loved it so much, we bought 4 more!

After our amazing dragon fruit, we went to L&L drive inn for dinner. Lets just say, it wasn't good at all! We noticed a hair in my food, we left and just got McDonalds!


This is our villa we are staying at. We are on the bottom floor. It's 2 bed/bath, living room, dining room, kitchen and laundry room. it also has a small back yard. It fits all of us quite nicely.


Wednesday morning we woke up and headed for a hike. This is one of the look out points on our way there. We took the H3 highway which apparently is the most expensive freeway in the US.

We went to Boots & Kimos for breakfast before the hike! I highly recommend this place! They had the best banana macadamia nut pancakes ever!
This is us before the Maunawili falls hike.

One of the flowers on the hike. I'm not sure what kind of flower this is, but they are all over Hawaii. I think they are pretty.Us stopping for a pose on the way up...we took tons of pics on the way up! It was pretty! We were all sweaty, and muddy and feeling out of shape!Here's Landon after we arrived to the water fall! He was happy to get out of the my tie. He enjoyed every second of the hike. A nice lady took a picture of all of us. So, here we are. We swam in the water. It was so refreshing after the hike up!After the hike, on the way home we stopped at Pali look out (not sure on the spelling), this state park is located there. We also stopped at jamba juice and the base to get snorkel gear.
The guys were so excited about their snorkel gear, we went to the lagoon afterwards to try it out. Here's Landon in the sand again.



The guys in their snorkel gear!Thursday we headed out to Haunauma Bay (spelling is wrong) for some snorkeling. Here's Paul and Adam making sandwiches for lunch.
On our way out we went to Leonard's bakery to get malasadas for breakfast! They were delicious!

Here we all are before snorkeling.

Landon playing with one of Zack's beach toys! I really like this shot!



Here's all of us before getting in the water. It was a very HOT day!
Me before snorkeling, I had a lot of fun doing it. It was tiring though!
Landon coming back from being in the water, playing with toys.

Afterwards, we went to hike the Makapuku (wrong spelling) Light House trail. This is us at the top of the hike.
This is a pic of the lighthouse.Us infront of the lighthouse.

Just after we took our picture, a lady passing us on the hike asked if we were in a tan mini van. We said yes, and she said, I'm sorry to tell you but it was broken into. Lisa and I took of running back down the trail while the guys had the kids and called the cops. We got to the bottom and the police officer was already there. This is what we saw when we got to our car :( (note:this is not supposed to happen on our hawaiian vacation!) I cried!

The thieves were quick. They took mine and Lisa's beach bags and that was it....although there were lots of things in those bags....including our cell phones (my iphone), make up, baby food, diapers, wipes, swimsuit items, sunglasses etc. We were so sad because we both had been journaling our trip on our cell phones. After filling out poloce reports we left and Landon started screaming....I had no food for him because the burglars took it, and the bottles had glass shards on them. So we stopped at a food mart on the way back to get a bottle, water, and formula. (We had a long ride back to the rental car place to swap vehicles) Needless to say on the way to the rental car place it started raining, and Paul had no window, because they broke the drivers window! We decided we weren't going to let this day ruin our trip, even thoughm we still think about it as the days go by and we realize more and more things that were in those beach bags. After we swapped cars we went to Genki Sushi. Paul and I aren't sushi eaters so we had chicken!
Here we are eating our chicken at a sushi place! Haha!Friday we headed off to the North Shore area...so far this is our favorite place. Landon was ready for the day!We started off by getting lunch at the Grass Skirt Grill! It was yummy! I highly recommend this place....I loved their teriyaki chicken!Here we are eating lunch.
Agter lunch we went to the polynesian cultural center! It was awesome! We loved it! There was lots of entertainment.We saw a parade, watched a movie, went on a canoe ride, had a luau, and watched a 2 hour show! Plus we walked around and saw all of the different sites!Here is us infrint of a waterfall there! It's beautiful! Did you know... the Polynesian Cultural Center was built here to help provide jobs for BYU Hawaii college students! I think that would be a FUN college job!
Here's all of us before the canoe ride.
Us during the parade.

Paul imitating one of the statues!

The state flower...the hibiscus.
Us before the luau.


The 3 of us at the luau. Landon kept grabbing everything
We got a pina colada smoothie inside of a pineapple! It was yummy!
Us at the end of the luau. We were stuffed.
Saturday was a big day! We went on a helicopter ride! It made some of us a little motion sick! If you ever go on a helicopter, I recommend dramimune. Landon before the helicopter ride! He kept trying to eat his life jacket.
Our family before going on the helicopter.Us on the helicopter! It was a tight fit!
All of us after the helicopter ride! Some of us felling a bit queezy! I was one of them!

We ate lunch here at Duke's (Waikiki), it was a very casual restaraunt. You could go barefoot!

We looked at the shops here.
Saturday night we went on a dinner cruise to watch the sunset. It was a good time!

My super cute little boy!

I took a picture of the picture they were trying to sell us! Is that tacky of me or what? Haha!

This picture was taken of us just after sunset!

All of the Asian people were very fascinated with Landon! They all wanted to hold him! Paul thought it was funny and just had to take a picture! Plus they were all videoing and taking pictures of him! Haha! This lady is one of the many! How funny!

So here were some of our pictures to share with all of you! There are still much more to come! This is only through Saturday the 11th, and we are here until Thursday the 16th! I have pleny more pictures! Sorry there are so many. I have taken over 1500 pics so far, and it's hard to choose so little out of so many!

6 comments:

Hilary said...

Looks like you guys are having a great time! Too bad about the break in though =( what a bummer! At least you have a great attitude and didn't let it spoil your time! Landon is so big and he looks adorable in every single picture!

The Moulton Family said...

There you are, Melinda!! I wondered where you went. You need to give me a call when you get home. It's been forever, and I want to hear all the news!!

Ash

Lauren and Justin said...

Me and my husband are so jealous! Thats where went for our honeymoon and loved! A lot of the stuff you guys have been doing we did too! Isn't it just beautiful! Oh we absolutely loved it! To bad you guys don't have a babysitter cause the Temple there is beautiful! We did a session and it was way neat! Have fun on the rest of your trip and enjoy! Your not going to want to leave! Trust me!!!

Ben and Taryn said...

Wow you guys are brats! I am so jealous! I hope that one day we will get the chance to go there. Hope you continue to have fun though!

Justina Selim said...

What a fun vacation! SO sorry to hear about getting your bags stolen! What a bummer! I can't believe they took his food! So jealous of the trip!

Brianna said...

I am totally jealous! What a fun trip, except the car getting broken into. Hope you are still enjoy it, have a safe flight home tomorrow. The pictures are great, don't you love your canon!