Hawaii--Day 5-7

The 13th was my sister's birthday and she decided she wanted to go and hike Diamond Head. We all got up early and drove to the other side of the island to do this hike. It wasn't too bad of a hike and Logan enjoyed walking for a lot of it. It was pretty narrow though so it was hard to let people pass us cause he walks slow. The worst part of the hike was the 100 stairs or so at the very end that just went straight up. We all did it and got some great views of the island from the top. After we were done hiking we went to a local shrimp truck for lunch. Ben and I really don't like seafood but I braved it and tried some pineapple shrimp and thought it was pretty good. They didn't have any fried shrimp which is usually more up my ally. We then spent the rest of the day playing in the ocean and celebrating my sister's birthday at our wonderful house (Logan was kind of melting down by this point and we decided he just needed some down time). She turned the big 30 in Hawaii and we got her a cake from Tom's Bakery (the best bakery on the island supposedly).


The next morning we went to visit the Dole Plantation which was only a few minutes from our home. I think this was one of Logan's favorite places we visited as a lot of the activities were geared towards him. He loved feeding the fish.... ...riding the Dole train .....and putting his head through the pineapple cutout.

And his mom loved the chocolate covered pineapple. This was one of the highlights of the Hawaii trip to me. It was sooooo good. I also loved learning how pineapples grow. I had no idea they grew on small bushes like this. You learn something new everyday.
The only thing we didn't love about the Dole Pineapple Plantation was that our rental car got broken into. We didn't even notice until we got in the car to go horseback riding a few hours later. We went to plug in our iPod only to find and our GPS missing. All in all they stole two iPods, a GPS and prescription sunglasses. So frustrating. If you every go to Hawaii, take the signs about not leaving personal belongings in the car seriously.

After the Dole Pineapple Plantation we had reservations to go horseback riding on the other side of the island. It was so beautiful. The North Shore is a bit more desert looking. It doesn't get as much rain as the east side of the island. Here are a few pictures from our horse back ride. There were several movies filmed on this location. For example, 50 First Dates and Jurassic Park were filmed here. While we were horseback riding, my mom and dad stayed at the beach house and built a sand castle with Logan. He loved playing in the sand and helping fill and dump the buckets. The next day we went to Waimai Falls. It was a beautiful park with a trail to a waterfall. Even better you could actually get in the little spring at the base of the waterfall and swim right up to it. The water was pretty cold at first but felt so good once you just got in. Logan hadn't really wanted anything to do with the ocean up to this point but it was all we could do to keep him from swimming out into this spring.

After our hike, we went to check to Waimai beach which looked pretty calm from the main road. We were hoping it would be calmer so that Logan could get in a play. The sand at this beach was just beautiful but boy were we mistaken about it being a calm beach. There was a drop off just a few feet out that would send waves straight up right before they hit the beach. Many people enjoyed getting thrown around by these strong waves. Logan and I mostly sat on the beach and watched.