Home again

I arrived home 12 hours ago to wet, windy and cold weather! It seemed exceptionally bad since the last 10 days I've spent in warm, beautiful temperatures. My trip with mom to Hawaii was great. We stayed at a great hotel that was just a 5 minute walk to the beach and we were upgraded to a bigger room with a kitchenette which was a nice surprise.

We were pretty busy each day but managed to get to a beach for at least 2 hours a day. We visited the Dole Plantation, Pearl Harbour, Hanauma Bay (snorkelling), Sea Life Park, the zoo, Diamond Head (twice), two catamaran cruises, a luau, and of course we did lots of shopping. My favorite activity was just floating around in my tube in the ocean. The water is so warm which is quite the opposite of here. I must of spent hours doing this. I enjoyed running along Waikiki beach early in the morning watching the surfers and running through Kapiolani Park looking towards Diamond Head. It was just beautiful! Now it's back to reality. Here are a few pictures of the trip. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of sunrises or sunsets but I still took lots of pictures. 500 to be exact!

My last few moments in Hawaii. I just hated to leave the hot tub. I really should look into getting one for home!

We attended the Chinese lantern floating on Memorial Day. There were 40,000 on the beach and it was beautiful. Here are some of the lanterns floating out in the ocean.

This picture was taken as we hiked up Diamond Head. I really enjoyed this hike so we did it twice.

In Hanauma Bay I went snorkelling. I'm not a great swimmer so I didn't go out very far but there were tons of beautiful fish in fairly close to land.

We took the trolley tour out to Makapuu beach. The waves there were huge so I didn't go out in the water but I enjoyed lying on the beach (wearing my 45 sunblock). We also visited the Sea Life Park across the road and watched the dolphin show.

I must have taken 25 pictures of flowers at the Dole Plantation garden. There were lots of beautiful plants and everything was so colorful.

We visited Waikiki Beach several times and it wasn't too crowded especially early at morning and later in the evening. I did the outrigger canoe ride one day while at the beach. No one was wearing life jackets because he said the canoe couldn't tip over. I can only do the doggie paddle and am kinda nervous in the ocean but he assured me I'd be fine. We were way out in the ocean coming in on the first wave when a surfer got in the way so we had to go side on to the wave. Our boat got swamped with water and the next thing I knew I was paddling in water that was at chest level! The boat (except for the outrigger part) was completely submerged in water! We had to get out of the boat and hold onto the outrigger while another guy bailed the boat out. Here we are in the middle of the ocean, me who can't swim without a life jacket! I didn't panic until a big wave hit us and I nearly let go of the outrigger. Anyways, the bailing didn't work and we had to paddle back into land with our boat under water the whole way. It was quite the adventure but I'm still alive to tell the story!

Waikiki beach taken from the top of Diamond Head.

I took this picture especially for Joanne. She's the one who recommended I try shaved ice and boy was it good! It was so good that Mom and I shared two big bowls like this one. The shaved ice was covered in fresh pineapple and the second one we had was covered in strawberries. Yum!!

This was taken out the luau. The food was great and the dancers were fun to watch.

This picture was taken on the fireworks catamaran cruise. Every Friday night, the Hilton sets off fireworks and they were beautiful to watch from out in the ocean. I'd highly recommend doing this cruise to anyone going to Hawaii any time soon.

Pearl harbour. This picture was taken out on the Arizona memorial.