Hawaii!

We got back from Hawaii today! It was another super fun trip that we did not want to end. We are trying to figure out a way to take the kids and live there for the winter next year! I love the weather there! Even though the first part of our vacation it rained so bad! The worst rain they said they've had in over 30 years. The whole area we were in was flooded. It was crazy! Although the parking lot of our condo was fine and our beach area and stuff. So besides pouring rain the first few days and dumping a bunch of waste into the ocean so we couldn't go in the water because of sharks, it was tons of fun!
We started out on Saturday heading to the North Shore to catch the big surfing competion that was going on, which when we got there we found out had been post poned, I think because of the rain. But we had fun hanging out on the beach watching not professional surfers. On our way back we had lunch at the Grass Skirt, good recommendation Despains, thanks. We all really liked it.
This is the view from our balcony. We had this whole beach pretty much to ourselves. There were never more than a few people out there. It was awesome!

This one we were watching a whale right from our balcony. I couldn't get the picture at the right time, but he was out there, blowing water, jumping and swimming along the top of the water. SO COOL!

On Sunday, we went to church, the people were all so nice, and when we got out, the sun was out! Woo hoo! So we spent the rest of the day on the beach soaking up the rays.
On Monday, we headed back to the Northshore so Jacob could go skydiving. I think they gave him the shortest instructor possible. Check out how much taller he is. It was pretty funny. He loved it. He's done upwards of 75 jumps on his own, but he said it was so "relaxing" doing it with the tandem guy. He was just along for the ride and had no responsibility. I don't know anyone else who calls jumping out of an airplane "relaxing", but that is Jacob for you!


While Jacob was waiting for his turn to jump we headed up a few miles to where they film Lost. Ok, so this is totally cool to me. I know I'm a dork. I guess when George and Wendy drove up there a few days before, they were actually filming and had crews everywhere and they saw tons of people around. However, they had no idea what Lost was or anything so didn't know what they were looking at. When we went back, there was no one there, but we walked along the beach and stuff checking it out anywhere. So look at the pictures, all of you Lost fans, and tell me if you recognize any of it. I'm pretty sure when it rained for 3 days, they picked up camp for a while...
Here is the beach...

Now these are part of a YMCA camp thing, but don't they look like The "Others" Houses. I thought they looked awfully familiar. They are right there off the road. I don't know, was I getting too excited or do they look familiar to you?

Here are the mountains... I totally wanna go back and watch episodes and see what looks familiar...

After that and Jacob's jump we drove around the island. We stopped off at the Temple, drove by BYU Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Here we are at the Temple...

I thought these flowers were so pretty...

We ended the day in Honolulu. We walked around, this is City Hall, it was all decked out, and check out the Santa and Mrs. Clause. I thought they were hilarious! They were huge!

While downtown, we saw this Cinderella Carriage, so hopped in a rode around downtown. It was fun!



The next two days, Jacob and I stayed at the condo mostly. I was sick of driving around. We hung out on the beach, we scuba dived a shipwreck, which was super cool. We saw tons of whales on our scuba trip. They were so awesome! Some of them were so close. I guess the day before one jumped straight out of the water just about 20 feet in front of the boat. How cool would that have been?
We did Waikiki on Thursday before we left at 10 pm. That is a world of difference from the part of the island we were on. We went to the beach there and there were hundreds of people. On the beach, in the water, walking around. It was CRAZY! Tons of shopping, miles of every store you can think of. Little did we know parking was $4./half hour. So $40.00 later.... oops...
I'll have to get more pictures off Jacob's IPhone and from our friends. But there is our week in a nutshell. It was super fun and I can't wait to go back! Maybe Kaui next time. Or Kona, a few people have said they like that one best! Whats your favorite island?
PS-Thanks so much to my sister Lindy, for watching the kids all week! They had a ton of fun!