HAWAII BABY!!

Our after the flight beauty... ha ha it was a 6 hr flight but the airlines do a great job keeping everyone entertained with the screen in the head seat idea... We had fun..

Wow so needless to say I have been super super busy the last little bit so I haven't even had a chance to come update our lives in the blog world. We went to Honolulu, Hawaii with the Shumway clan for a whole week at the end of July... The best part about it was I was getting paid.. I had some wonderful vacation time so I used it and it felt amazing scooting around Hawaii knowing I was still coming home to a nice paycheck... Anyways so Ma and Pa Shumway bought a timeshare in Waikiki and we stayed in a beautiful condo right next to the beach. We did so many fun things, it was so so hard to leave. Also be very glad you are seeing these pictures because for some reason on our last day of our trip the SIM card in my camera stopped working and I couldn't view any of our pics from the whole trip. Heartbroken the whole flight home I was nervous that I would never see our awesome pictures again... With tons of researching and several unsuccessful attempts of calling every picture savvey person I knew we couldn't get the pics. I couldn't just give up, that's not in my nature... So I said a little prayer for help and literally seconds later hopped on the computer yet again and found a data recovery place in Provo, not only here but like down the road from our apartment. I called immediately and took my card and dropped it off to a lovely Asian man. I knew there was someone smart enough out there that could get these pics. Well long story short and $60 later he recovered ALL our Hawaii pictures. YES!!!

We were of course going to do all the touristy things that tourists do.... Our first day we went to pearl harbor and saw the USS Arizona memorial. I have been before but it was awesome to see it again. I cant believe the oil still leaks from the boat. It was a beautiful Sunday trip..

One of the boat anchors with our family.

After the boat tour...

The next day we went to Hanayma Bay.. This was awesome. I have been here before also but for some reason this time was SO much better. I think it was because I was really nervous snorkeling last time but we rocked it and saw a ton of cool sea life. It was neat!

The girls

Derick and I hanging on the beach..

Just getting ready to head out for our snorkeling...

My little fish friend I found...

This is the coolest shot ever... We weren't supposed to step out off the cliff but we got a little crazy and broke the rules but who wouldn't for this shot.

Eating by the beach.. this place was yummy and had the best Orzo (fish) dish..

I definitely lost track of what we did on each day but this was cool. We drove down to the north end of the island and were told to go to a little nook of an area called waimea falls.. We took the advice and LOVED it. We hiked the Hawaiian jungle trail until we were spit out at this beautiful pure water waterfall. It was like in the movies but better.. I will never forget that waterfall and recommend it to ALL who go to Hawaii on vacation.

Random little tree along the hike..

We hiked down into the jungle off the trail... this for some reason reminded me of Jurassic Park.. I was waiting to see the little valasa raptors (ankle high) ones.. ha ha

Success, we made it to the falls...

We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center one of the days, it was so much fun. We watched some of the local men climb trees and attended a delicious banquet that night..

We also had time to drop by the Hawaii temple and BYU Hawaii campus...

The main characters in the PCC performance....

 

These guys were HUGE and they were going crazy on the drums.. I was impressed!

We also were able to Catamaran on our beach day. We went out in the middle of the ocean and snorkeled and looked for the turtles.. There were a ton so the trip was well worth it. The turtles would come up for air pretty close to us so it was fun watching them.

Teaching Allie how to hang loose.... lol

Haha not much success but still a cool underwater shot of us.

Crash from Nemo....

Last but not least the last day before we flew home we had the choice to go skydiving which we probably should have done or para sailing. I was so rested I don't think I could have even handled skydiving but I am sure it would have been AMAZING! Maybe next trip we can do something crazy like that.