So we are back, obviously. And the top questions I’ve been receiving:
“Was it fun?” – of course! It was a nice, relaxing vacation. We stayed in an A-Frame house (which kind of reminded me of our old cabin in Clear Lake) it had 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and was right on Sunset Beach, on the North Shore of Oahu. The water was crystal blue. So clear.
“Was it beautiful?” – of course! We went to Waimea Falls Park, which was incredible, peacocks were running all around. Andie got to actually swim in the falls, little too cold for Gage. We also did some scenic driving, very cool. Everywhere you look was a postcard picture. The sunsets were awesome.
“What did you do?” – a lot of beach time. The house had its own private beach. Down the road was Shark’s Cove which was an awesome snorkeling place. I saw a massive turtle and promptly hyperventilated (not so good at breathing through my mouth) however, Nick, Eric, Gage and Andie kept on trucking and saw amazing things. We also went to Pearl Harbor, however most of the tours (especially to the USS Arizona) were already booked by the time we got there. So we toured the museum, read stories and saw artifacts, it is so moving. We also ate at some fun Hawaiian restaurants including a Mexican restaurant (Cholos) and it was good!
“A lot of tourists?” – not in our area. We got some great tips from a local woman on where to go/what to do. She told us that “Honolulu was the Vegas of Hawaii”. She was pretty accurate on this. We ventured to the Honolulu/Waikiki area…it is pretty congested, a lot of tourists, somewhat dirty. The Waikiki area was better, but I still preferred our location on the island.
“Shopping?” – We did do some shopping, in Honolulu we went to the Ward Center, Ala Moana Mall and Waikiki shopping district. Also near Sunset Beach was a cute surfing town called Haleiwa that had great little shops. However, I didn’t buy a whole lot…amazing I know, but either the price was way out of my league (Prada, Fendi, Chanel) or not my style…a lot of the souvenir shops had either some cute things or some tacky things. We did get some coconut syrup which I’m dying to try. I got some jewelry, an awesome postcard and of course a lei. The last day we did manage to find a great soap/candle company that made all their products in house and was actually making pineapple soap that minute.
“Anything else?” – The plane ride was 8 hours non-stop and although I didn’t mind the ride there, the ride back was a night flight and I couldn’t sleep with the loudest family behind me and two crying babies in front of me. Once we got back to Aurora I slept 7 hours.
Also I was a little surprised by the geckos that were very present even throughout the house. The instructions from the owner was basically befriend the geckos, don’t kill them, they eat the mosquitoes. The most annoying thing about them is they are very, very loud especially at night…they make almost a bird-like calling.
Which brings me to birds…there are roosters all over the island and they really crow at the dawn of morning and apparently that gets all the other birds going too. Right outside our window was the waves of the ocean, the geckos of Oahu and the birds of paradise all showing their stuff. It was a natural sound machine on high at 5:50am. Which wasn’t too bad since I didn’t wake up past 9:15 on any day and went to bed about 10:00pm every night.
And the sun of Hawaii is really strange. One day while wearing SPF 50 on my entire body I got burnt on my legs while sitting on the deck for less than ten minutes at 1:00pm. Basically we stayed indoors between Noon and 5pm, it was crazy…I didn’t tan at all, just red that turned back to pale white. It was a nice heat though. 80′s all week, low 60′s and little to no humidity.
Now to sum it all up, pretty awesome, beautiful vacation and it is always fun with Nick’s family.
Pictures.
“You say Aloha, I say Aloha” – Nick (in tune of Hello, Goodbye)
