I Love You, California!

Sunday was by far our most relaxing day, and after such a busy day we really needed it! We started the day with breakfast from the hotel cafe. Then it was off to Waikiki to do a little shopping, of course we had to go to the Harley store! We enjoyed lunch along the beach at Shore Bird Restaurant and Beach Bar. Yummy frozen drinks. Diamond Head in the background! We walked back to the hotel to get ready for the beach and spent the rest of the day on the beautiful beach of Waikiki. The water was so warm it was like a bathtub and the floor was nice very sandy, unlike the extremely rocky beaches elsewhere. We had so much fun playing around and relaxing! After soaking up every last drop of the sun, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We wondered around Waikiki for a while, but finally settled on an awesome sushi place. We called it a night after that since we had to be up early Monday morning. Will had to get back to his work, and sadly it was time for ...

Saturday we were up and at it early in the morning. We were at Hanauma Bay by 7:30 am! Hanauma Bay is a big reef area and provides spectacular snorkeling just twenty minutes east of Waikiki. It's so popular that the parking lot fills up pretty early, and there's not so much shade, so it's best to get there earlier in the day before it heats up too much. It was also a great way to get in and snorkel before it got too crowded. While we snorkeled at Hanauma Bay we got to snorkel right next to a sea turtle as it was eating from the reef and swimming around a little. It was amazing to snorkel next to the turtle, but I have to say that our snorkeling adventure in Shark's Cove provided us with more interesting fish. Lots of fish! After snorkeling we continued driving east along the south side of Oahu. There were several landmarks along to way to stop at for amazing views. The first stop was Halona Blowhole and Beach Cove. In the cove the...

I took one look out the window and immediately fell in love with the North Shore of Oahu. This is by far my favorite part of Hawaii that I have been to so far. After Thursday night I couldn't wait to get back on Friday. Friday morning we woke up to another beautifully sunny day in Honolulu. We went down the street in Waikiki to have breakfast at Hiking Hawaii, a cafe that also leads hiking and camping tours around Oahu. They had delicious acai bowls and breakfast sandwiches. After breakfast we headed right up to Haleiwa on the North Shore. One thing that I had been looking to purchase on this trip was a new swimsuit that didn't cost a fortune. (How can such a small piece of material cost SO much, anyway?!) I was getting down on my luck, until I noticed on Thursday night at dinner that the swimwear store next door had changed their 50% sale sign I saw earlier in the day to a 75% sale sign after closing! So we stopped back there on Friday morning. I had great success and got ...

Today was our first full day in Oahu. We woke up Thursday morning to a beautiful view of the harbor. First, we went to pick up my rental snorkel gear and some flippers for Will. After picking those up we stopped for a quick breakfast: acai bowls from Jamba Juice. Can't get enough of those things! Then it was off toward the North Shore. On our way up we stopped at HARC, Hawaii Agricultural Research Center. Here they are growing some pongomia trees that were planted several years ago. They also are growing some cuttings that are doing pretty well. The older trees were even flowering and growing pods, which is happening a little earlier than they usually anticipate. The trees at HARC aren't really meant for a large scale operation, rather just find out how the trees grow in Hawaii, how much water they need, how they withstand the weather. They're doing quite well so that was good news! We continued north with Haleiwa as our destination. We enjoyed lunch at Jameson...