Hawaii

So Hawaii was awesome! I want to go back but longer this time. I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking cuz I took a ton and it is hard to put into words how awesome it was.

I went to Hawaii because one of my best friends decided on a destination wedding in Maui, Hawaii.  Her mom, sister, and daughter went and Izzy's mom, grandma and 2 brothers went.  Crystal, Theresa's sister, her mom and I shared a condo and Izzy's family was in another.  Theresa and Izzy and their daughter Mia had another.  We arrived on Wednesday in the afternoon.  The weather was perfect, 82 degrees and sunny the whole time and not a single drop of rain.  

The lobby to our hotel/condo I loved how it was all open.

Mia with her adorable sunglasses ready to head to the beach.

Our condo was on the sixth floor in the middle.  It was right on the ocean and we had a beautiful view.

Me on the beach, the day we arrived.

We could see whales from the beach by our hotel.  If you look real close you can see the whale right in the middle of the picture.

The sun setting.  I took this picture from our balcony.

Me so excited to be in Hawaii.  Getting ready to head out for dinner.

This is so cute Mia was so tired after a long day of traveling.  She fell asleep in the back pack and we let her sleep while we ate.

The day after we arrived we went to the aquarium, it was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of cool fish.  This one was my favorite.

LOVE turtles.

Jelly fish...

After the aquarium Crystal and I went to the beach. 

I bought me a big hat, love it.

After the beach we got ready to go to our Luau.  Theresa's mom bought me this pretty flower for my hair.

The luau was awesome.  There was a lot of dancing and entertainment.  We ate great food and I drank a lot of alcohol.  They had this pink drink that was amazing.

Some Hawaiian men.

As we were leaving the luau the parking attendant told us that there was a tsunami watch.  We didn't know what that meant exactly so on our way back to our condo Crystal googled it.  The internet told us about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  We thought we were so far away from there that it wouldn't affect us, so when we got back to the hotel Crystal, Izzy's brother Gabe and I put on our bathing suites and headed to the pool.  A little while later Theresa came down to tell us that it had been elevated from a watch to a warning and things were getting a little crazier.  We talked to the bartender who had lived in Hawaii for 30 years and she wasn't too concerned over the warning so we stayed in the pool.  A little while later though a security guard came and told us we needed to get out.  When we got back up to our room we found out people were evacuating and half of our group had gone to pack and was ready to leave.  The news was a little frightening and they had started to sound the alarms.  The sirens I think made it all the more real to us and they were scary.  Things started to get a little chaotic, people were lining up at gas stations & grocery stores.  Traffic was at a stand still as people were trying to evacuate.  Our hotel evacuated the third floor down.   Some people were camping out in the hallways on the upper levels.

We in the end decided to stay in our room and wait to see what happened.  The news said at the very least we would probably lose power, so we stocked up on water and found any flash lights/candles we could.  It was a long night and pretty scary.  By 4 am I was so tired and it seemed like things would be ok so I decided to go to bed.  I woke up as the sun was rising to find that everything was ok.  My best friends fiance recorded the water receding and that was crazy. 

I took this picture from our balcony mid afternoon after the tsunami.  We were lucky that where we were wasn't affected very much.

We had planned our snorkeling whale watching trip for the day the tsunami came, obviously we had to cancel that. The roads were closed til the afternoon so we just hung out and caught up on some sleep.  That evening we went to Lahaina to eat.  We saw more evidence of the tsunami, a sail boat sinking and some debris on the coast.

For the most part everything was back to normal.

My best friend and her family.

Saturday was the wedding day.  We woke up really early to get ready because the wedding was at 9:30 am an hour away. Theresa had a professional do her hair and make up.  She looked so beautiful.  Her hair and dress were perfect for the beach atmosphere.  For the location Theresa chose the cove and it was beautiful.  The water was so blue and green and the rocks added character.

I told her I wouldn't post pictures of her and Izzy until they had a chance to but I had to post one.  They had a professional photographer and I can't wait to see the photos!  They are going to be amazing.

Told you she looked gorgeous.

After the wedding we took the road to Hana.  Along the road the scenery is beautiful and we stopped at a waterfall to swim.

Apple bananas along the trail to the waterfall.

The water fall was awesome.

Yellow bamboo.

They had a little shack that sold coconut juice right form the coconut and pineapple smoothies.  I didn't like the coconut juice too much, it does not taste like coconut we are used to but the pineapple smoothie was dreamy.

I saw these trees and thought they were the coolest.  It looks like someone painted them but it's natural.  They are called Rainbow Eucalyptus trees.

Some more cool trees, these are Banyan trees, they are so cool and it sounded like there were a million birds in there.  I was afraid I would get pooped on.

We took Sunday easy, we went swimming, shopping and ate great food.  I didn't take many photos.  We were supposed to leave Sunday night but because we missed our snorkeling-whale watching adventure we extended our stay another day.  Monday we headed out on a boat to do whale watching and snorkeling.  We saw a lot of whales and dolphins.  Below is a dolphin.

Spinner dolphin jumping out of the water.

A mama whale and her baby calf.

The water was so blue I tried to get a picture to capture just how blue it is.

We ate breakfast on the boat on the way to the snorkeling area.  Snorkeling was fun but I expected to see more fish or even a turtle.  It was still cool though, the water was so clear and we did get to see some cool fish.  After snorkeling we ate lunch and watched for whales on our way back to shore.  We saw a bunch of whales one even really close.  Theresa and her new husband were tired and feel asleep on the boat while their little girl partied on the dock with grandma.

We left Hawaii Monday night and traveled all night.  I was happy to see my family when I got back I missed them a lot.  I certainly did not miss our weather though and it snowed the day after I got back.  Hawaii was so much fun and I hope I can go back some day and stay longer.