Hawaii Trip

I know that I'm always behind in posting but here is our trip pictures from Hawaii a few weeks ago. We had a blast! (Below is the view of the bay as we were walking down to the beach to get in)

Monday we went to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. It was a wet and somewhat rainy morning and the water was freezing because of it! I think I turned completely purple but I wasn't willing to get out of the water because it was so neat. I've never been snorkeling in the ocean before and it was a little strange and scary at first. But after seeing tons of fish swimming around right by me, I got really excited and had a ton of fun.

The view from the beach

See the black clouds?

Done and frozen!

After the Bay we went to Waikiki to hang out at the beach. We rented a Peddle Boat and went out in the ocean. The water is so clear that you can see anything swimming below you. We saw a couple of sea turtles and I saw a sting ray!

As we were getting out of the boat at shore, all of these little Hawaiian kids came up to us and started climbing into our boat! We kept telling them to get off and go away because we wanted to get a picture but they wouldn't leave! Finally we ended up having to push the boat back out into the ocean to get away from them for a picture. I guess they are there every night because their dad plays volleyball. No one bothers to watch them while they are bugging people on boats. Weird little leeches! Seriously it was bizarre.

On Tuesday we went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. I enjoyed all of the pictures of fruit and flowers. I don't think Jake enjoyed it much until we bought some pineapple from the gift shop....it was soooooo good!!

After the pineapple plantation we drove over to North Shore before heading to the temple and Ploynesian Cultural Center.

It took us a minute to notice these two sea turtles sunbathing on the beach!

Hang loose...it's a Hawaiian thing I guess!

This beach is the one where they have surf competitions at. We could see the "Volcom House" where professional surfers hang out from the beach. These waves are so strong and so close to the shore that it's really dangerous to go out in them. Trust me I know because a few days later we came back and I got taken out by a wave while I was sitting pretty far away from the water! I was sitting on a boogie board watching the waves and one surprised me...it moved me over a bit and got my towel wet!

These waves break right at the shore and crash into it hard. You can't tell from these pictures but there is a huge hill down to the ocean because the waves move so much sand to create a steep slope.

When we were leaving the beach we saw Jamika Star who is a professional surfer. She has won many awards for riding some of the tallest waves. She was also a complete weirdo hippie!! Her son was with her (3 yrs old?) and he was wearing a hawaiian print button up shirt. That's it! No diaper or underwear to cover up his you-know-what! Yikes....who does that seriously? She also had quite the mustache!

Next we went to the Temple. It's closed for renovations right now. I guess it's a really old temple that needed some updating pretty badly.

Then we headed over to the Polynesian Cultural Center. Here we are waiting for the boat ride.

Water parade...

One of the shows

With the cast

Our new tattoos :)

This picture was for Joslyn...she loves ice cream!

The evening show.

The following day we went on a submarine tour in Waikiki. It was pretty fun but I doubt I'd ever waste the money to do it again. Luckily we got a huge discount on our tickets.

Waiting for the boat to take us to the submarine.

Fish I could see from the boat dock.

Views from the boat.

The submarine

Underwater views

Sunken ship or plane

Sea Turtle hanging out

Back on the boat.

We are at least a mile from shore at this point and here is where the surfers hang out. I've never swam that far out into the ocean and I can't believe they have to go so far out to get ANY waves. The beach area is very still with hardly any waves at all.

This looks fun

View of Diamondhead