Spilling the Beans: Hawaii

After camp, I was so ready for a big vacation. We loved Hawaii so much last time, so we wanted to go again. This time to Oahu. So off we went!

Ready for a super long flight!

Dallin recently learned he could make his eyes do this weird crossed thingy...it creeps me out.

The day was a lot of hurry up and wait. We had long layovers on top of an already long travel time. We spent a lot of time readying, playing games, eating, fighting and sleeping between flights.

The girls taught David how to play "Down by the Banks" and they played this A LOT.

I think this may have been our final flight. David graciously let all of us ladies sit in first class while him and Dallin were squished in the back. He's such a nice guy!

Once we arrived Dallin quickly donned his sunglasses in anticipation for some FUN in the SUN.

But it didn't last long....he was passed out on that watermelon! This trip we decided to try out our first Air B&B so we wanted to stop at Costco to buy food for the week. In hindsight this was probably a bad idea. Not only had we all been up for over 24 hours, but we were all hungry and cranky. But we got what we needed and headed out to Ko'Olina where our house was located. It didn't take me long to learn that route from our house to Costco, the Target was next door as well. ;)

These pictures are going to be somewhat out of order, but our first destination (after some much needed sleep) was the Dole Pineapple Plantation.

Dallin trying to be like the Tiki guys.

Up to this point we had had a lot of arguing among the kids, about who kept sticking their tongue out at whom. We had a stern talk with everyone about getting along and respecting one another.... and made everyone promise they wouldn't do it anymore. So when David snapped this picture of me and Carmen we had planned to both stick our tongues out, sort of in jest of all the fighting. Everyone laughed and that was the end of the problem.

We took a pretty fascinating little train ride around the plantation and learned about pineapples and other fruit produce, packaged and shipped all from that location. We were sad to hear that none of their fruit comes to Virginia.

And then everyone got real genuine Dole Whip. Delicious!!

By this point I think everyone was ready to just put their feet in the water. I believe this was at Waimea Bay. But it was only briefly that we were here because it was rainy and we weren't super prepared to be there all day.

We stopped in Haleiwa in the North Shore for some lunch and although we had just has Dole Pineapple Whip, we couldn't pass Matsumoto's and not get Shave Ice.

The last time David and I were here it was all under renovation and sort of a mess. But this time it was beautiful and also had a super long line. But we enjoyed the wait.

Finally the kids were introduced to REAL shave ice and they were hooked immediately. I lost count of how many times we returned here. Pretty much every time we went to the North Shore, we stopped here.

The next day we headed up to Kualoa Ranch. This is where a lot of tv shows and movies have been filmed before. We were all feeling torn on the activities we wanted to do. Some wanted horse back riding, some wanted to do a bus tour, others wanted zip lining. But it really came down to which one had open slots at our available times. We ended up parting ways and doing different things. Again, these are all completely out of order.

Carmen and Aliza went on a trail ride. I wasn't along with them, but Aliza snapped a few pictures with her camera.

That's China Mans Hat

Meanwhile the rest of us were loading an open air bus to do a different tour. I was trying to snap a quick picture of the girls leaving (below), but then suddenly saw friends from our home ward on the bus next to us. It was such an odd thing to see people we know in such a secluded little spot of the globe!

Those mountains are just gorgeous and pictures don't do it justice.

We had to wait a few hours before our tours began... we drove back down to the beach and then just hung around the ranch for a little while.

Once the big girls were off, we got ready for our ride. We were going on the Movie Tour to see locations where movies were filmed. Here they are running from a dinosaur from Jurassic Park.

That bus behind us is the one our friends were on when they pulled up right beside us.

We got out at a couple of spot. This was the Jurassic Park filming location where the dinosaurs are chasing them through a valley.

Then we got to explore some old military bunkers that were later used to film shows like Lost. I loved that show, so this was neat to see. But no one else even knew anything about Lost.