ALOHA!

Well, I'm finally going to post pictures from our trip to Oahu and Maui! But we have so many that I'm going to post them over the next few days, so as to not overwhelm anyone reading this.

We left for Hawaii on Monday, February 9, 2009. It was snowing, and we were concerned about getting to the airport at all. We had gotten away almost an hour later than I had planned because we were trying to get our flight changed, and it took much longer than anticipated, but we were successful in getting transferred to a non-stop flight to Honolulu, instead of having a 2 hour lay-over in Los Angeles. When we got to the worst part of the freeway, we "just happened" to get behind a snow plow (I call it a blessing), and that helped. We made it in time. Because we got our tickets at the last minute, we weren’t sitting together, but we were able to find someone sweet enough to trade with Tom, and we were able to sit together for the 6 hour flight.

When we got to the airport in Honolulu, it was beautiful, even at the airport!

We rented a car, got out our trusted GPS, and found the hotel, the Marriott Waikiki. When we checked in, we discovered that they had given us a free upgrade worth about $400. Our room was wonderful! We were on the 21^st floor.

We had a balcony where we could sit and look at

the ocean. It was gorgeous!

We decided to have dinner in the hotel, at a buffet. It was really good, with prime rib, fish, all kinds of fruit and salads and deserts. After dinner, we watched the sun set,

and then we went for a walk out on the pier, and took a picture looking back at Waikiki.

After that we went for a walk on the main street, Kalakaua Ave. There are all kinds of stores and restaurants side by side, and we walked around a place call the International Marketplace, which had what seemed like a hundred stands selling jewelry. There were also several street performers. This picture didn't turn out, but they were playing what Tom thought sounded like Peruvian music. If they'd had a CD for sale, I would have bought one--it was so beautiful.

It was great fun, but we were tired from a very long day, so we went back to the hotel.

Tuesday morning sunrise over Waikiki city.

Tom walked a couple of blocks to McDonald's and got our breakfast, which we ate while sitting on our balcony, looking at the ocean. Wow, we could get so used to this!

After breakfast, we took the car and drove up the coast. As we were driving by a kind of wooded area, I saw a little pig running along side the road. It was the funniest thing. I wish I could have gotten a picture! As we drove up the coast, we stopped at several beaches along the way. They were all so beautiful!

One had a famous blowhole.

A lot of the beaches were very rugged.

One thing we found out—all the beaches in Hawaii are open to the public—there are no private beaches. It’s just hard to get to some of them. It is also almost impossible to find a place to park. And there are very few signs telling you the name of the beach. So we just kind of guessed where we were. There are also very few street signs anywhere in Hawaii. We got into a little road construction, and had to take a detour through a residential area, and took a picture of this cool gate.

Then we came upon an incredible house.

Across the street was this mailbox. I don't know if you can see it very well, but it was painted with flowers.

Where we parked the car, there was a path to the beach.

At the end of the path we found a beautiful, secluded beach!

Around noon we ended up at BYU Hawaii and drove around and took pictures. There were beautiful birds, that we think are egrets, all around.

Tom found a coconut on the grass there at BYU.

This is where it came from....

We then went over to the Temple, which is closed for the entire year for extensive restoration. It looks pretty sad with the windows boarded up.

This was a very interesting palm tree at the Temple.

We asked one of the senior missionaries where she would recommend that we eat, and she said, “Giovanni’s shrimp truck. It’s an experience you don’t want to miss!” So we headed down the road and soon found Giovanni’s. It was delicious!

I'm getting a pina colada smoothie and cookies at the 2nd truck.


There were rows of picnic tables.


And wonderful food!


Just peel and eat!