Aloooooooooooooooooooooha!

So, here's the skinny. Ever since we got engaged, Adam and I had been saving for a trip to Germany (where he served his mission) to pick up his little brother (who was serving a mission there). But his brother ended up getting sick and got reassigned to Florida and with the dollar being as weak as it is against the Euro, the Germany trip wasn't going to happen.

One day, it occurred to us that we're going to have a kid soon and vacationing will not be the easiest thing in the world. We thought, since we took a conservative honeymoon, we'd better hurry up and take one last trip if we were ever going to do it before our whole world changes. Only weeks before we boarded the plane, the plans were made. Adam found a mad crazy package to go to Hawaii and so we told our jobs and took off. Here's some of the highlights:

At the edge of our favorite beach (Kailua) is a street called ALALALALLALALALALALALLA! I decided it's called that because there's NO WAY you can get anywhere but in a circle on that street. So you see, the street is laughing at you!

Here's a view down the beach where we spent most of our time. We chilled in the water...

climbed our way through a rocky, pretty dense jungle in the middle of the island on slippery muddy rocks in flip flops to get to the top of a waterfall...

cruised around the temple, BYU-Hawaii and the North Shore...

Hiked up a volcano (this time in better shoes)...

Hung out with some penguins at Hawaii's version of Sea World which is right on the beach (you can see sand and waves the whole time you walk around the park) ...

Visited Pearl Harbor...

Met a submarine at Pearl Harbor and cruised out to the USS Arizona memorial where we saw officer Lisenby's name on the memorial...

Paid a visit to a pineapple plantation...

Visited the Polynesian Cultural Center where Adam stole the show. Here he is playing the drums with his new found friend. You wouldn't believe this but Cornfed was working the crowd and had everyone in stitches by the time he got off the stage.

See? He's modeling the crown he got in exchange for his amazing drum solo

I got to make friends with some Easter Island locals (which was a part of my mission) like this fine friend and I even got to chat with a kid who worked there at the PCC who was actually from Easter Island!

We went to a botanical garden and tested the local fare. Adam thouroughly enjoyed himself as you can see...

And we still managed to relax and enjoy. It was such a beautiful place to be. There was so much to do...and see! For example, we ended up sitting behind Mahele (Kristin's BYU freshman year roommate) at church on Sunday!)

We also took a tour of historic Honolulu, including the royal palace, government seat, supreme court building, governor's home and the oldest China Town in the US. We visited Hanauma Bay, ate WAY TOO MUCH macadamia nut ice cream and explored the entire island, including inland jungles and rain forests and the entire coast line, all in our super RAD mustang convertible. It was such a great trip. We feel really lucky we got to go before the baby came, and before I got too large to enjoy all there was to do outside. And it brought back fond memories of my trip there years ago with all of you.