"Let us ever have an Attitude of Gratitude": Our sweet trip to Hawaii!

Oahu, Hawaii-

The view from our backyard after a rain storm

March 3-March 9

Last year for my birthday we were brainstorming different things I might want for a present, and I was racking my brain and was coming up short. Brent was more than willing to get me a gun for my birthday, so I knew I needed to come up with something, or else I would be getting a new gun.

We started throwing around the idea of going on a trip somewhere and at the same time there was a sweet deal on direct airline tickets from Boise to Honolulu. It was so hard to decide it we should go, because a trip is a lot of money and neither of us are big travelers. After talking it through with almost everyone I knew, we decided to move forward. We bought the tickets in August but our trip wasn’t until the first of March 2013 so we had a lot of time to plan our trip and that helped spacing out the big items we needed to purchase so it didn’t hurt the bank so much.

It was so nice having a direct flight to Honolulu. Being a direct flight, it was still 6.5 hours. That is a long time to be cramped in an airplane. I was a little worried to be flying over the ocean, but it was not bad at all. We even got to see a few boats way down in the water so that was fun. We were sitting together so we just watched movies most of the way. A couple days before our trip I started to get sick so I was able to sleep a lot on the plane with the help of some niquill cough drops.

For some reason Brent made me drive, and that was a mistake. I got us lost in the ghettos of Honolulu. That was definitely not where we were trying to go. We stopped at Walmart and grabbed a few groceries and a few other things that we were not able to bring in our luggage because we traveled super light (light=cheap). Everyone always comments about how expensive food is in Hawaii, but the only thing I noticed to be super expensive was the milk. Everything else was like paying for grocery’s at Albertson’s while paying full price. Not the end of the world, and it was definitely cheaper than eating out every single meal.

After our first shopping trip we headed to the North Shore to our beach cottage we rented. We opted not to stay in Honolulu of Waikiki and I am so glad for that decision!! There are so many people there, it was ridiculous. Our little cottage we stayed in was super small, but we didn’t need much. We were right across the street from the ocean and we woke up to roosters every morning. It was cool the first morning, but by the end of the week it was not that exciting anymore (and I might go so far as to say it was pretty annoying).

We had a lot of things planned that we wanted to do but they were not set to a certain day. It was nice to be laid back and do what we wanted, when we wanted. We did a lot of driving around the island checking out different local places and eating at every shrimp stand that Brent could find. Unfortunately my cold did not get better like I was hoping. The first day I felt fine and we went snorkeling Sharks Cove on the North shore. It was AWESOME!!! It is winter time so the waves were really high, which made snorkeling a bit of a challenge sometimes. When we first got into the water it was always a shock at how salty the water was. The last time I was in the ocean was about 9 years ago, so I had forgotten just how salty the ocean really is. The first adventure of our trip was snorkeling. I am an amateur traveler. I accidently rubbed my eye getting salty water in my eyes and I lost my contact. Yeah, I didn’t bring my glasses or an extra pair of contacts. I thought I would try to wear just one contact because I hear your eyes would compensate for the difference, but that just got ridiculous, so for the rest of the week I did not wear contacts. Thankfully my eye site is not that bad, but it would have been a little clearer if I thought ahead to bring a back up pair. Now it just means I have to go back to I can see what Hawaii is really like!

The first day we also we to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We had no idea what that was, but many people said we should go, so we did. It was quite spectacular. It reminded me of a zoo with all the different Polynesian cultural exhibits. It was such a neat experience to learn all about the different Polynesian cultures.

By day two of our trip I was really starting to not feel well. I had a fever and I couldn’t stop shivering. It was quite a bummer deal because I would take a shower and then I would be so cold to get out of the shower, even though it was a perfect 80’ outside. We had a few things planned that I was hoping to do that did not happen do to the fact that I couldn’t get out of bed as early as I wanted. Me being sick made our trip more like a vacation than traveling. I went with the mentality that I needed to maximize all of our time while there because we might not ever make it back, but it ended up being more of a relaxing trip where I slept in most days (not always by choice.) I feel like I had bronchitis because I had such an intense cough with a fever and a sinus infection. By the time I got home and went to the doctor, it was only a sinus infection, but that was definitely enough to mess up our trip. We also planned this trip back in August before Brent was going to school, so we did not plan this during Spring Break so Brent had homework to do a few days.

Even with our roadblocks we still had a wonderful time. We did a lot of snorkeling and I am utterly amazed at all of the different types of fish and other amazing creations in the ocean. I am so grateful that it was just me and Brent on this trip. Snorkeling was so much fun with him because we were out there together and we would get excited underwater seeing the schools of different fish. There were other people we met on the plane that had babies they brought. I have often thought about traveling with young kids and I am all for still living your life even though you have kids, but I think snorkeling would not have been the same if I was out swimming by myself.

We spent a full day at Pearl Harbor and we went to all of the museums there. That was a pretty neat experience. I was surprised at the number of Asians and especially Japanese that were there. I would wonder what there point of view of the whole event of Pearl Harbor, but all of the museums and videos were very factual and not hateful at all, which I was very grateful for. The events of Pearl Harbor were very intense and aweful, but I am very impressed with the Japanese plan and I had a great time learning about it. I didn’t think that we would be able to be on Oahu and not see Pearl Harbor and visit the sunken USS Arizona battleship. There was such a reference that can be felt as we visited the memorial. On a more awesome note, the battleship Missouri was huge and awesome! I would never stay on a battleship like that and sleep in those tiny bunks, but I guess that is better than a submarine. One thing that I loved about being at Pearl Harbor was seeing so many different people in uniform who are serving our Country. I see people here in Boise, but most of them are in the Guard, and there I saw sailor and many more.

We spent some time in Waikiki but not very much time. Just enough time to make me grateful that we did not stay there. One day while Brent was working on a school speech I went to the Temple to take pictures. It was great because we were staying about 10 minutes away. There were so many other things that we had planned that we were not able to do with me being sick, and I try not to think of those things because it just makes me sad. The weather while we were there was phenomenal. We had a couple of rainstorms, but that was towards the end of the week and it did not mess up any of our plans.

We were scheduled to fly home on Saturday but after we dropped off our rental car and checked in at the airport we found out that our flight was delayed. We had talked about how awesome it would be if our flight was delayed the night before, but it is only awesome if we know about it ahead of time. We were scheduled to leave at 12:30 but our airplane was having mechanical issues. I was okay with waiting because I did not want to be flying over the pacific ocean and having mechanical issues. At 6:30pm they decided to put us up in a hotel in Honolulu because the plane was still not fixed. Throughout this day at the airport some of the other people that were on the flight were super rude. I guess they did not read the reviews of the airline before they bought their super cheat tickets. You get what you pay for. It was not worth it for us to get angry because nothing could be done. Brent and I didn’t have kids or any responsibilities waiting for us so we were okay with the delay. It was not optimal at all, but I wasn’t going to let that ruin our trip. We were finally able to leave on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 after another long day of waiting at the airport. Thankfully we had lots of movies to watch to keep us entertained. We would definitely like to go back someday. I was not sure how Brent would feel about Hawaii, but surprisingly enough, he had a great time so that means I had a great time!!

Pictures of the LDS Temple in Laie