ko olina

Oh, Hawaii, you have treated us well!

Ben and I arrived on Friday afternoon in Oahu to meet my family and Ganon's family at the Marriott Resort at Ko Olina for a fabulous week!  I'll give you a short play-by-play, but I'll let the pictures tell most of the story.

Friday - No pictures.  We got to the resort in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day swimming in the resort pools and ocean cove.  The pools had a fun waterslide and several waterfalls and the cove had a perfect little beach with lots of chairs and no waves.  Ben and I wore ourselves out playing with all of the kids this day - Ben threw the little girls in the air what seemed like hundreds of times, and whatever I did with little Andrew he would say "Again! Again!"  

Saturday - No pictures.  Today we drove several miles to a beach in Kaena Point State Park to snorkel and play in the waves for the first half of the day.  As always, snorkeling with Dad is awesome.  We spent the rest of the day in the pools and at the beach at the resort.

Sunday - We went to the local ward in the morning, where, of course, I ran into a girl I had had several classes with at BYU.  Small world in the Church. 

Here we are outside the church building.

After Church we started our drive around the island (counter-clockwise, mind you).

Our first stop was the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

This is Lady Columbia, a statue representing all grieving mothers.  It says "The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom."

Then we drove to Pali Lookout.  It was very pretty and very windy.

Lunch in a park was next, and then we went to the LDS Temple.

These are all the ladies on our trip.

And these are all the men.

The last stop on our trip around the island was Matsumoto's Shave Ice.  We went a total of three times during our week on Oahu and Ben and I both came home with Matsumoto's t-shirts.

Because we spent most of Sunday driving, I thought this would be an appropriate place for pictures of our rental car . . I mean van . . I mean . . bus.  It has 4 rows of seats and seats 12 people.  Here are a few pictures to give you a little taste of what it was like to travel in the "white elephant."

Also on Sunday I started to get sick.  Boo.

Monday - We hung out the resort all day!  Ben and I had fun playing with the kiddos again (no really - "again! again!"), and we had some good beach reading time too.

We BBQ'ed that night.  Cute, Dad.

On Monday I started taking Mucinex.  That's when I know I have a cold.  

Tuesday - I felt the most sick this day.  Mom, Dad, Scott, Doug, and Ben went snorkeling at "Electric Beach" this morning.  I was way bummed to miss out, but it sounds awesome!  There is a power plant that uses ocean water to heat their system (or something like that . . ) and a big pipe pipes the water back into the ocean.  All the fish hang out on/around/at the end of the pipe because the water is extra warm.

I didn't really want to get in the water this day so I suggested we go to Pearl Harbor or something.  It worked out perfect.  We got there too late to get tickets, but we stood in the standby line for about 20 minutes and then we all got in to see the movie and take the boat out to the USS Arizona.  I think we all enjoyed this afternoon a lot.

Wednesday - We went to Waimea Beach for the morning.  It was beautiful!  Some people jumped off this rock into the ocean (heck no, not me), everyone had a ton of fun playing in the waves, and I was still feeling under-the-weather so I sat under my beach umbrella and read, thoroughly enjoying myself!

We left when it started to rain!

And that is the end of my pictures.  Mom took a lot more than me so I'll give a link to her blog when she posts about Hawaii.

Thursday - I was feeling much better this day and I had a blast!  Mom, Dad, Scott, Doug, Tom, Ben, and I went snorkeling for a few hours at Three Tables Beach - we loved it.  Then went back to Waimea because we had enjoyed it so much the day before.  We got lunch at the taco truck (mmmm-mmmm!) and played in the waves for a few hours.  This was my favorite day.

Friday - We flew back to the Bay Area.  :(

Great trip all around!  Thanks Mom and Dad for taking us!