ALOHA!

Well, since most of you know, we went to Hawaii last year! We ran a half marathon, ate at some cool places, went snorkeling (like everyday!), lazed about the beach, ran on the beach, went kayaking, visited the temple and a ward, and looked around Pearl Harbor. Here is our trip in pictures! These will probably not be in order...

This is us on the plane! I posted this picture along with saying we were on our way to Hawaii. Scott was not to thrilled about that. I mean its not like our house has been broken into...oh wait....

My first half marathon! It was so hard! We did this on our first day there. We didn't even get to start on time because it took forever to find a place to park and then we had to walk to the starting line, and then we had to go to the bathroom. All of these things would not have been a big deal except that parking in Waikiki is crazy! Also, EVERY SINGLE WOMAN at that starting line had to pee. So that took forever.

This is us! Finally both done with the stupid race. I felt like I could race again on account of the energy drink that was handed to me as I crossed the finish line and Scott was about to throw up. This is totally a roll reversal from normal! 

This is our hotel! That is Scott that you can see in the bay. As soon as we were done with the half we came back to the hotel and got right in the water! 

This is our room. It is perfect for us!

This is the view from our hotel room. There is a blow hole really close to our window. Every single time a wave came in the blow hole would push the water straight up, and loudly. ALL NIGHT. I mean, it was great! (sarcastic smile and thumbs up)

This is us on our balcony taking a cute picture right before we go to a the Laie (LA-ee-a) 4th Ward. The ward was basically on temple grounds. We took a lot of pictures at the Laie Temple later.

This is Hanama Bay! It was super HOT. You have to go through a little training before you are allowed to go snorkeling here. This bay is on the other side of Oahu from where we were.

Yay Scott! Thanks for posing!

This place is significant, but I can't remember why. It seemed to be a tunnel mountain road...like it used to be the only way from one side of the island to the other.

Here is another view from that view point.

And since I made Scott pose...now I have to pose.

This is at Dole Pineapple Plantation. And yes. It is a bajillion degrees outside. That giant pineapple with ice cream on it is where I am headed. 

This is a super cheesy closeup, but I wanted to take a picture of the guy's shirt behind us without it being weird. He is totally wearing palm trees on his shirt to one of the gardens (located on the grounds in the Dole Pineapple Plantation) in Hawaii!

After waiting about 45 minutes we are finally on the Pineapple Express. This cute little train took us around the plantation. We saw some of the pineapple fields!

And there they are! Look at that red soil! Those bushes in the background is how pineapples are grown. I learned that contrary to popular belief, pineapples grow on bushes! They are super cute when they start to grow. They look like miniature pineapples. They have the stems and everything when they start, then they just get bigger. I learned that the pineapples in the store are actually ripe. They don't continue to ripen like other fruit after they are picked.

This is later when we were touring the gardens. They were so pretty!

One of the mornings before we went out snorkeling, we decided that we would make some breakfast. We found some tarro rolls and some rambutan (sp?). It was spiky on the outside and then it was slimy on the inside. You suck the slimy stuff off of the big pit seed in the middle. Appetizing.  Oh, you want to know about the iron...well that is what we used to heat up the rolls. I am pretty resourceful. 

That was the look on my face the entire time, until...

It is surprisingly good!

Behind us the beautiful Laie Temple. We came on a great day. There were about 10 people in our session. We did an endowment session and then did some sealings. The officiator in the endowment session had a bad case of the old person farts. Every time he stood up, and remember there were only 10 people, he would let one rip so loud that I tried not to look at Scott for fear of an outburst of laughter. And to make matters worse, we were the witness couple. So we had to look at each other once and while.

It was way fun to do sealings here! Some of the names that we did have 4 different temples on them! Washington DC, Columbia, SC, Mt Timpanogos, UT and now Laie, HI. Super cool. A couple stayed after the endowment session to do the sealings with us. They were the Kinni-kinni's. I am not sure if that is how you spell it, but they were great! Really nice, really large, really dark Polynesians. They thanked us for letting them participate with my family's work!
Speaking of Polynesians...

Our trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center was amazing! We walked around to the countries that are represented there, catching all of the shows and participating in some of the crafts. Our favorite show was Samoa. The guy was hilarious! Our camera died halfway through the day, so here is what we could get. The following pictures is the Parade of Floats. Each country represented has a float where a live band perched on a bridge played music from the country and the people on the float did a native dance. They are dressed in native outfits.

Hawaii. The dancers on the float are doing a Hula dance. Hula is a form of dance that tells a story. Each move corresponds to a word or phrase. This is how stories get handed down from person to person. They learn the story from the moves of the dance. It is actually quite slow and rhythmic. 

Tonga is doing a Welcome dance. 

They are the ones with the what American's think is Hula. It is very fast hip movements. That is why their grass skirts have the shelf on them. It makes the movement more visable. 

This is Tahiti. They are doing a wedding dance. It was so long! We went to the Tahiti area and watched the entire wedding day. It is really quite interesting. On the morning of the wedding, a Tahitian male dives to find a black pearl for his bride that he presents to her when they get married later that day. The wedding party consists of the parents and grandparents of each side. They all walk through the town and then follow the couple to their new house. 

Samoa was hilarious! They are actually rocking the float so much that a guy in the back falls off. (On purpose of course)

This is Fiji. They are doing a battle dance, I think. Those guys are huge! Like almost 7 feet tall. 

We did a full day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. After we visited each country, we went to a luau! It was a lot of fun. Though, next time we will pay a little more money so that we are not in the cafeteria style luau. Still delicious food. I loved whatever the fish was that they had. And the papaya seed dressing! Omg. I bough some at the airport to bring home. Then proceeded to finish it in less than a week after being home. :-(
We saw the show at the end of the night. It was fantastic. Each of the countries participate as it is the story of a boy that travels through all the countries and learns and lives among the people.

This is us hang out in a WWII bunker by our hotel! We ran that morning along the beach and found this pretty close to our hotel. We decided to take some weird pictures.

I was trying to imagine what it would be like to see ships coming in from the bunker.

You honestly can't see very much. I never did learn about what the bunker was for.

We went kayaking through our hotel one morning. It was so much fun! We were able to see some really neat coral and we practiced surfing in our kayaks. I am actually pretty good at it...except when I biffed it. This is our action shot!

This is our relaxed shot.

I got the guts to stand up...and then immediately sat down. It was scarier than it looks. One of the instructors stood the entire time! Of course I am super competitive and thought to myself, "I can do that." Well, turns out, I can't. I can stand, I can't row while standing.

This is a turtle in the bay where we were kayaking! 

We hope you enjoyed reading about our trip! We loved it so much and are hoping to go back soon! If you go before us--let us know if you don't mind having 2 people tag along....