Our Aloha Adventure!

SOOO Matt and i just got back from spending 9 whole days in Hawaii! Weve been wanting to go ever since weve been married but for some reason it took us 9 whole years to finally just GO! I am so glad we did! What an adventure it was with just the two of us free to do as we please (THANK YOU Andrew and Yana for watching the heathens boys while we were gone!) Bless your hearts! ;0) I havent been on a plane in like 10 years so that was a treat for me in itself! (i LOVE flying!)
We didnt get a window seat :0( but it was still fun! I had my husband ALL to myself for 5 hours to play GAMES with (which is not his favorite thing) but he had nowhere to escape! ;0) Moooohahaha! I brought UNO, Yatzee and a deck of cards and we had a good ol' time!

Im pretty sure everyone around us was jealous! ;0)
We were SO excited when we flew into Oahu and couldnt wait to get out and start adventuring! We rented a jeep for the week (which made running around/exploring super convenient!)

and headed over to the place we were staying in Kailua (a little studio nestled up in the beautiful mountains of Kailua just a few miles from the beach!) It was a perfect spot as it was in the middle of lots of awesome surf spots/beaches/ possible adventures! We pretty much threw our stuff inside though and sprinted off to the nearest beach!
Here are some highlights of our trip!

Snorkeling:

was probably my favorite thing to do there! Its awesome because no matter where you go you will see cool stuff/fish! I was a little nervous at first thinking that i was being stalked by jaws BUT i never did see a shark (thank goodness!) although im pretty sure they saw ME! ;0)

One day we decided to swim out to an island that was about a mile away from the beach shore.

Nobody was over there but we didnt think anything of it. We swam around/explored and were out there for a quite a while! Banana Slug anyone? ;0)

One time i came up from under water and was surprised to see that two guys had paddled out to us! Turns out they were lifeguards and nobody was allowed around that island! (id hate to know WHY!) Ooops! I thought they were joking when they said they were there to rescue us! :0) They were quite impressed that we made it out there and were doing okay/didnt need any help! But we were about to head back anyways because it was gunna start getting dark soon and im terrified not a big fan of swimming in the ocean in the dark so we all headed in! That was a super fun adventure though! Theres nothing like swimming around in the open water with so many different fish and watching them go about their daily business! It was eye opening to just how VAST and mysterious the ocean really is! I felt tiny in comparison! We also went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay (a popular snorkeling spot) and spent hours swimming around together exploring the coral reefs!

We took a TON of underwater video that i will try to upload after we edit them :0)

Swimming with dolphins:
Matt read about a place that you can swim/interact with dolphins and insisted that i do it!

Im glad i did because it was a super fun/neat experience! I even got to ride on one! He flipped over on his stomach and i grabbed his fins for a little ride!

I was surprised that they werent at all slimy but more rubbery feeling. We got to give the dolphins a kiss and do some tricks with them! They are very smart and each have a unique personality.

AFTER meeting the dolphins we hung out with some pretty cool birds! We got to feed them too :0)

We also saw some huge sea turtles! LOVE them!

Pearl Harbor:

We were able to visit Pearl Harbor one day. It was sobering to learn about some of the details of that day and the war in general.

So many lives were lost and many men still lay entombed inside the huge ships that were attacked/sank that day. We rode on a ferry boat out to the site and walked around the memorial building that rests on top of one of the sunken ships.

Grateful for that experience and thankful for the brave people who lost their lives that day.

Surfing:

Oh man, surfing is SO.FUN! It was a goal of mine to learn how to surf while i was there so I knew i wanted to find some boards to use! I found a guy on CL that had some to rent for a good deal so we picked up two boards. My first attempt was a complete BUST because the boards turned out to be old/crappy and didnt float worth beans! I had no idea and just thought that surfing was super hard and not for me. At least my surfing buddy was cute! ;0)

Luckily matt had a friend there who let me borrow her board for a few days. MAN what a difference! I was up catching waves in no time! I was a little nervous at first because in hawaii...most of the ocean floor is covered with hard/sharp rock (coral) instead of soft sand and i was afraid of getting slammed into it when i inevitably ate crap on a wave. Turns out it wasnt so bad afterall and i only donated a little skin to the reef while we were there!

Hiking/the Mountains:

Honestly what most impressed me about Hawaii were the HUGE mountains there. They were breathtaking and begging to be explored!

We went on a few hikes while we were there. One night (yes i said night! ;0) We decided to find the ruins of an ancient Hawaiian king's house (i forget his name) but the 'directions' were very vague and we ended up doing alot of bushwhacking/trailblazing in the dark which wasnt such a bad thing until i realized all of the little things that were glowing in the bushes/trees when i shined my flashlight on them turned out to be the EYES of  GIANT SPIDERS!!??!! AAAAHHHHHH! They.were.EVERYWHERE and i may have had a full on anxiety attack freaked out a little! We finally made it to 'the ruins' and it was pretty dang cool (and kindof creepy at night!) People go there and leave random 'offerings' to the site and they say that if you take anything from the site (a rock etc.) that you will be cursed! We didnt get any good pics of those ruins because it was nighttime BUT here are some other neat ruins we found so you get the idea :0)

 Another thing that i thought was REALLY COOL were all of the WWII bunkers that are hidden within the mountains. During the War, they built a bunch of these 'pillbox bunkers' on top of the highest mountains for soldiers to keep watch over the island and fire cannons/artillery from if they had to. After doing some research i found out that these 'bunkers' all have huge tunnel systems attached to them that are carved out within the mountains they are on! Not many people have explored these tunnels full of turns drops and secret passage ways because the entrances to most of them have been filled in to keep people out. There is ONE that we went to (at night again ;0) That they used to store props and things from movies that were filmed there (JURASSIC PARK, my favorite movie) being one of them! They are barred up but i managed to squeeze through a bend in the bars and got inside ready to explore! Matt was supposed to come in after me but couldnt fit! LOL i may have had another panic attack that i was inside this pitch black tunnel with monsters who knows what inside all by myself! I SO wanted to check it out better/investigate but when i saw the rusty ladder leading straight up into a dark vertical tunnel covered in spider webs i was a little too terrified nervous to keep going all by myself! If matt was with me then it would have been a different story but that wasnt the case SOO i frantically escaped calmly squeezed through the bars and got out of there! ;0) I didnt get any pics of that particular bunker but here are some others that i found while hiking up to a lighthouse! Pretty sweet!

We also hiked to Waimea Falls and swam underneath the waterfall! It was SO AWESOME! Matt took a video of it that ill try to upload later!

There were wild chickens running around everywhere we went! I thought they were so cool!

I would always feed/try to catch them like a crazy lady! :0)

Sometimes i was successful ;0)

Hawaiian shaved ice:

I could eat this stuff everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Seriously. Its SO GOOD! The best stuff was from Matsumotos.

Hawaiians love Spam (and so do we coincidentally ;0) so we ate alot of spam and rice meals while we were there. We took turns cooking meals in our studio..it was nice to not have to eat out every day/save some money! These are called "Loco Mocos".GRUB.

Matt gave me a tour around the town he lived in for a couple of years while he went to college there (Laie) and showed me the places where he lived. This particular house where he used to stay was right on the beach...rough life! ;0)

The Buddhist Temple:

We checked out the Buddhist Temple while we were there. It was a very neat/interesting place. 

We also saw this crazy lookin' dude there! :0) lol

I hiked around some cliffs by the ocean. It was super steep/slippery/dangerous FUN! ;0)

I was so impressed by all of the beautiful flowers growing EVERYWHERE! I always had a different flower in my hair and had to document them of course ;0) Here are a couple.

I was also pretty excited about COCONUTS! They were everywhere! Most people dont know that coconuts have an outer layer called the husk that you have to pry off before you get to the brown shell part inside that you can crack open...its a pain in the butt hard!

It was fun to just find a coconut when i wanted a little snack!

We tried to take some coconuts home for the boys but werent allowed to hence the sad face..
There were also TONS of lizards and geckos around for me to traumatize catch! :0) They were  SO COOL!

And HERE are some random pictures from the trip:

BEST.VACATION.EVER!!!