My Oahu Photos

I thought I would put up some of my photos from Oahu. I have a ton a pictures from our vacation, but not very many from Hawaii. I didn't have time to take any pictures because there was so much to see and do. But here are two of the awesome things we did...

This is Haunama Bay. It's an old volcanic crater that is perfect for snorkeling because of the coral that has formed there. We saw tons of amazingly colored fish and sea urchins and A SEA TURTLE!!! He was so cool! He just looked at us and flapped his flippers around! If you ever go to Honolulu go here. It was my first time snorkeling (other than in a swimming pool) and it was WAY more fun than I had expected it to be.

We spent most of our time on Waikiki Beach. And I love to boogie board! We even bought this board so that we can use it next time we visit California. Here I come Zuma Beach!!

Look at me go! Actually the waves were really wimpy here! That's why I'm catching these silly little waves that break right on the beach. If anyone is stopping by the ocean to take a salt water boogie boarding dip, count me in! (You might have to wait half a year, but I'll be there!) This is definitely my favorite thing to do in the ocean!

Bonfire on the Beach!

When we were visiting Dan and Amber in Santa Maria, we stayed with them at Dan's brother Ken's house. It was an absolute blast which may sound crazy since John and I added two to the already large household of about 11. (I stopped trying to keep count after a while.) And they were ALL so sweet! We would have been happy sleeping on couches or floors, so I was amazed that Viv and Daniella gave up their room for us! And it was so good to spend that special sister time with Amber where we just get to be us, together.

One of the amazing things we did was get some firewood, load everyone in vehicles, and make awesome fire at Grover Beach. AT SUNSET!!! We walked in the waves a little, roasted marshmallows, John showed the boys how to catch sandcrabs, and then we filled a whole sand pail with gross little squirmy things! Lee even roasted one in the fire and ate it! (What little meat he could find in it.)



Then we all sat around the fire and sang worship songs while Lee played guitar. It was SO MUCH FUN! I wonder how much sand all 13 of us unknowingly brought back to the house with us?

Sunrise in Waikiki

Hello everyone! I successfully made it back from some awesome family time, an amazing vacation, and an astounding adventure! (Three 'a' adjectives!) Actually, I've been back for almost two weeks but I just haven't had a chance to blog. I have some very fun pictures and experiences that I'm still very excited about, and I'm glad that I have some some great photos for fodder for interesting postings. I will start with something I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to do. John flew me to Hawaii. I wrote that as monotone as I could just to see if any of you would notice.

JOHN FLEW ME TO HAWAII!!!

First, there's the fact that I flew. This was my first time flying! And it was very cool in very many ways! But I will write more about that later. Second, I flew to Hawaii!! Since John is currently working part time for Skywest we get to fly free right now and we decided to take advantage of it and fly down to California to visit John's family and Dan and Amber. Then we took a detour across some of the Pacific Ocean to the island of Oahu where we played on the beaches, got really sun burnt, and celebrated John's birthday for three days.

One small hitch to our Hawaiian excursion happened immediately on our arrival to paradise. John hadn't finished making our hotel arrangements before we got on our flight from LA, and for some reason we figured this wasn't a busy vacation season. So when our flight landed 3 hours LATE in Honolulu, at 12:30 am, we quickly found out that it is always best to book a hotel. To make a long story short, I'll make this list for you:

- Taxi driver tries to rip us off. (He gets pulled over for speeding.)
- We get to the hotel and they have no rooms. The front desk guy calls around and nobody has any rooms unless we want to sell my 2 new purses from Ross to pay for them. (And come up with 250 more dollars.)
- We lug our luggage around the streets of Waikiki.
- We find a youth hostel where the front desk is located in a parking garage. Front desk guy is strange and tells us his rambling thoughts for 10 minutes. John and I walk away confused. Don't want to stay there.
- We lug our luggage around the streets of Waikiki.
- We find a Denny's where we eat and try to waste 1.75 hours. I brush my teeth.
- More lugging.
- We find the beach.

We immediately took off our shoes and started walking in the water, which was warmer than the dry sand beside it! We strolled down the beach and by now the sky had started turning from black to deep blue. John and I could make out lots of big mounds around us in the sand and up on the grass. It turns out that lots of homeless people sleep on the beach!! So John and I laid our stuff down, made our nests, and tried to sleep. That only lasted about thirty minutes before it was so light and we were so excited to look around.

And it was beautiful!