Hawaii--Day 1-4

To celebrate all of us graduating from college, my family decided to plan a trip to Hawaii. We rented a cute little house on the North Shore, Oahu. Our trip started off a little rough when we got to the airport and learned that our plane had been struck by a bird coming into the Salt Lake International Airport. They told us that the delay was indefinite at that time and boy they weren't kidding. Long story short we didn't get in to Hawaii until 3:30 in the morning--we were supposed to get in at 2:30 pm.

Nevertheless, when we did arrive all of our frustration left as we pulled up to our house and heard the ocean and saw it right in front of our house. We all went to sleep when we got to the house but woke up a few hours later to check out our awesome home. This was the view from our top porch....

...and our covered porch.

We spent the first day in Hawaii adjusting to the time change and stocking our house with some food. We visited the local Costco to stock up.

On day two we headed to the other side of the island to check out Pearl Harbor. We took a boat ride out to check out the USS Arizona Memorial. Unfortunately the USS Missouri closed the day before for some renovations so we weren't able to check that out.

Obviously I didn't take this picture but I had to post one because I think its just an amazing shot. Silly me didn't really realize that this memorial was placed over the actual ship so I found this picture to be very helpful.

This is the smoke stack on the boat which still has oil leaking from it. In fact, it smells quite a bit like oil when you are on the memorial. I wasn't prepared for that and it made the events of Pearl Harbor seam that much more real. They call this oil the tears of the fallen as it comes up to the water's surface in droplets.

There is also a wall on one end of the memorial listing all of those who died at Pearl Harbor. You cannot see in this picture but there is a smaller wall in the front of this one with names of those who survived Pearl Harbor but have since passed away and have chosen to have their bodies rejoined with those you didn't make it through Pearl Harbor. I think Logan's favorite part of this trip was walking behind the pigeons at the visitors center. The things that entertain kids.

The next morning we all went for a walk along our beach and discovered a ton of sea turtles swimming in the ocean. It was amazing how big some of them were.

The boys enjoyed playing in the waves, while the girls played in the sand with Logan.

We then cleaned up and headed to the other side of the island to the Polynesian Cultural Center. First off, however, we made a stop at Matsumoto Shave Ice. What a yummy Hawaiian treat. I thought it would be just like a snow cone but boy was I wrong. It was much more flavorful than that!
After we finished our shave ice, we finished our trek over to the Polynesian cultural center. This place was amazing. It was like a Disneyland park. We got to go check out a few shows for the separate islands before heading to our Luau. We were late getting to our Luau because the information center told us to go to the wrong place. We were a bit upset until we went to the show that night and discovered we had seats on the 3rd row front and center. The show was well worth the whole cultural center experience. If we went again I am not sure we would do the Luau. I loved getting the fresh flowers, but lets be honest....they were so hot on your neck we all ended up taking them off anyway.