ok, let's be honest. i have an INSANE amount of pictures from our trip to the garden island. how could you not take over 400 pictures??? i tried to narrow it down...but it didn't work too well. i thought about putting all 400+ on a slideshow, but who am i kidding, no one but me would actually look at all 400 of them. SO instead i'm going to summarize what went down in our ten day vacay to hawai'i. i realize it is going to be an incredibly looong post, so don't feel obligated to read it all. one day i'm going to make a book of this blog, so i don't want to forget any thing that happened. basically, those ten days were blissful. that's all there is to it.
enjoy.
DAY ONE {august 8}:
3:30 am rolled around and we packed up the suburban and headed to the slc airport. our flight to l.a. left at six and by 10:30 am we were in lihue, kaua'i!! it was a pretty long flight since hawaii is four hours behind utah but SO worth it. danny's parents, aaron, danny, and i were all on the same flight and danny's grandma flew in about twenty minutes after we did so we greeted her with a beautiful lei. there were TONS of exotic flowers everywhere and it was super humid, but i didn't care at all because i was in hawaii! on the way to our beach house we stopped at costco and got a truck load of food and then rented our snorkel gear for our ten day trip. {yes...i look awesome in snorkeling get-up...i know}. after that, we arrived at our beach home...and holy moly it was SO nice. i would have been content with a little hut; debbie definitely out-did herself. everyone had their own rooms/bathroom/patio...it was amazing. we got all settled in, and then quickly changed into our swimsuits {basically the only thing we wore all ten days}. by then, kristina, tim, matt, and greg were all there too--it was quite the party! we hiked down to hidden beach {just minutes from our house} and played until the sun went down.
DAY TWO {august 9}:
sunday danny and i decided to take it pretty easy, so we got up and went to church {there were the CUTEST little hawaiian babies!} and then went home and feasted on pineapple. i have never eaten so much delicious pineapple in my life. i wanted to ship a crate full home to provo...but it didn't quite work out. we did a puzzle, ate some more, and then headed to a different beach where we strolled and found tons of sand crabs and awesome flowers. we got a little lost on the way back to our car, but we stumbled upon the craziest looking houses! we decided if we ever lived in hawaii we would install an elevator because walking up those stairs every time we needed to leave would be a little insane.
DAY THREE {august 10}:
greatest Hawaiian day ever! my girl and i (this is danny now) and the rest of the fam went hiking along the Napali coastline, arguably the prettiest place on earth. the hike totals 22 miles roundtrip and most people do it with tents in several days. we did it in 5 hours. pregnancy what! just kidding, but we did make it a mile and a half on the slipperiest, sweetest trail ever. we walked along the coast which had the bluest water on the whole island. next time we make it to hawaii we will take a tent.
this is the greatest place to watch a sunset ever! it is on the green of one of the golf courses that tiger woods grew up playing on. ok maybe not, but it was sweet. you could see hanalei bay, which people say is like puff the magic dragon "and frolicked in the autumn mist in a place called HANALEI" yeah the song makes more sense now right? sunsets in provo are so boring now.
this is probably the most attractive picture of me jess could have taken! haha, oh well. this is my little friend gary the gecko. they are all over the place in hawaii and fun to catch.
DAY FOUR {august 11}:
the boys decided to rent some surf/boogie boards so we had fun playing with those for a few hours. hanalei beach was beautiful--the water was so warm--and the baby loved doing flips in my belly while i swam. there was supposed to be a hurricane coming through so it was a little overcast but it didn't ever rain for too long {which i was grateful for}.
DAY FIVE {august 12}:
day five was the greatest Hawaiian day ever! we went to a place called spouting horn, which as you can tell by the picture, says it all. it was pretty cool, it reminded me of the old movie "The Rescuers." not to be confused with "The Rescuers Down Under" where the waiter says "Pea Soup"! yep istill love the disney movies. anyways, it was awesome, and we saw the greatest waterfall ever on the way there.
DAY SIX {august 13}:
day six was by far the greatest Hawaiian day ever! we saw a Monk Seal on the beach. we named him Sammy. it was awesome, except for the fact that he was really boring and didn't do anything cool. but he did roll over and we thought that was pretty sweet. yep, we've seen a seal!
DAY SEVEN {august 14}:
oh gosh! day seven was the greatest Hawaiian day ever! we hiked down to a place called Queen's Bath which is a pretty sweet, but a steep hike. there is a sign saying "Queen's Bath Drownings: 28. Unexpected large waves will knock you off rocks and sweep you out to sea!" yeah it's a pretty family friendly place. it was gorgeous but that day the wind was pretty strong so we just enjoyed the scenery, the waterfall, and everything else. max needs a mommy and daddy when he gets here so we decided not to add to the number or drownings.
that night we went to a luau show, which was totally awesome. i wish i could do the fire dance like that guy did. it explained the history of the Hawaiian people and how they came to be on the islands. it was a great show and we drank lots of pineapple juice.
DAY EIGHT {august 15}:
today was absolutely gorgeous! {this is jessie again...} we started out by going back down to queen's bath and aaron and matt decided to jump into the humongous waves and swim with the turtles. danny really wanted to jump in too, but like he said earlier, i reminded him that max would probably want a dad to look up to--so i didn't let him. he did go snorkeling in the ocean though, so i wasn't being a total lame-o {i hope!}
we then went into town with the family and ate basically the BEST pizza we have ever eaten in our lives. it was delicious. not only that, but i got to see what my husband would look like as a "mer-man"...pretty awesome.
everyone else was pretty pooped after dinner so danny and i decided to hike back down to our favorite beach {hidden beach}. it's an insane hike down, but we made it down alive and watched the sun set. once the sun was down though, we realized we didn't have a flashlight and holy cow i seriously thought we were going to die. the hike back up is bad enough in broad daylight. sometimes we aren't the smartest people...but it was an adventure, and we love those!
the stars were incredible in hawaii too so once we got home we decided to walk over to the golf course to watch for shooting stars. we saw a few...and then the sprinklers decided to turn on full blast...so we had to cut our trip short. it was still a beautiful night, and i am so glad i am married to danny! he is the best husband.
DAY NINE {august 16}:
we went to church {and saw the cute babies again...yeah...we're getting a little excited for our own little guy to come} and then headed to the kilauea lighthouse. TONS of birds all live on the mountain right by the lighthouse so they were constantly flying overhead. they had free binoculars that you could check out and we saw a school of dolphins jumping/swimming in the ocean. i seriously thought about jumping in with them...but i decided against it. it was awesome though, and the view was basically perfect. honestly, if places like hawaii exist on this earth...i can't even imagine what heaven is going to be like! we then went to secret beach {different than hidden beach} and strolled along finding the coolest sea shells. we thought the sign {seen below} was pretty amusing as well.
DAY TEN {august 17}:
greatest Hawaiian day ever! we woke up and got breakfast at a little hole in the wall restaurant. we realized that they only accepted cash so we could only afford a cinnamon roll and a bagel. but it was the greatest cinnamon roll of all time. it had macadamia nuts in it. jessie mostly ate it, and i got the bagel, but max really likes macadamia nuts so its cool. then we went to a golf course pro shop and we felt soooo out of place. this place had a huge fitness center, a spa area, a restaurant, a very nice pro shop, and an amazing view of the ocean. we found jessie's dad a nice birthday present, and now he will have to save up to go golfing at that course for his next birthday!
That night we went swimming at my grandpa's hotel pool and let me say that aaron has got NOTHIN on me! yeah wassup aaron?!
DAY ELEVEN {august 18}:
GOOD-BYE HAWAII. this was our last day on the garden island...and we sure didn't want to leave. but we tried to pack as much into our last day as possible. we started out by getting a delicious shave ice with sweetened condensed milk on top and then we drove out to tunnel's beach for the last time. we snorkeled with some sweet sea turtles, dug a humongous hole in the sand, laid out in the warm hawaiian sun, and swam in the amazing water. it was a fantastic day at the beach, to say the least. no, let me re-phrase that. it was a fantastic vacation. period. we had so much fun with the mckinley family and are so glad that we were able to go! thanks for the fun times mom and dad! the flight home was a little horrid {take my word for it--flying all night, being eight months pregnant isn't the funnest thing to do}. but i don't regret going on the trip one bit. we had a blast and can't wait to go back sometime with little max!
