Brent, Suzanne, Brody, Ryker & Jayla: HAWAII DAY 1

Recently, we took a little trip to Paradise.

Yes, HAWAII!!.

We stayed on North Shore of Oahu, to be exact.

Let me just preface by saying this was my favorite vacation. EVER.

This may sound corny, but I've wanted to go to Hawaii since I can remember. Since I was a little girl, old enough to know what Hawaii was (so like 6 years old?).

It was nothing short of a dream.

It was all that I imagined, and more. Really, the most beautiful place I've ever seen. . .

Heavenly is a good word to describe Hawaii.

Ok, now that you've got the point . . .

I'm asking myself, "What took us so long to get there?" and "When are we going back, please?!"

Be prepared for picture overload. I have gobs of pictures to share, so I'm breaking them into several posts by each day we spent in Hawaii.

We started out Day 1, of course, with a flight. A long flight. I was so anxious to just get there, and the 6 hours in the sky seemed like an eternity. Plus, we had spent the previous night driving to Las Vegas to catch our plane.

Jaime.

Tara, and Tom were worn out from the long drive, followed by the long flight.

We went with 2 other couples:

Tom and Tara,

and John and Jaime.

We left the kiddos at home, which was the hardest, but we were able to spent some good couples time together. I think it's good (once in awhile) to get away as a couple, but we sure missed our little guy!! I had to choke back tears as he got in the truck to go to Grandpa and Grandma's house, and was sick to my stomach the day we left. I knew he would be in perfectly good hands with my parents. I wasn't worried about that, I just felt guilty about leaving him, and sad I wouldn't see him for a whole week.

Someday, I envision going back as a family with our Brody.

Here are our travel partners. . .

John and Jaime Tom and Tara

As soon as we got to the island, we picked up our rental cars, and headed to our rental house which was beachfront. . . someone pinch me.

It was a 3 bedroom home in Waialua, and it was perfect. It had everything we could ever need while on vacation, including snorkeling gear, boogie boards, kayaks, fishing poles, bikes, a full kitchen, and so on . . .

Then we spent a little time enjoying "our beach."

Bea-u-ti-ful!

These 2 grew up together, and did crazy things such as borrowing their dad's truck and jumping it through the air like the Dukes of Hazard, and riding their horses to school, ~~lighting chickens on fire,~~ and we won't mention other stupid things. That's just what country boys do for fun. Frightening to think I have a son who will likely grow up doing some of the same things.

We spent some time that afternoon driving around the island and exploring, and

we came across the Dole pineapple plantation by chance. We stopped to walk around, however, we didn't take the time to tour it. But, I did learn that it takes about 3 years for a plant to produce a pineapple!

I found it amusing that there are chickens walking around everywhere on the island as if they own it. It gave us the real, true blue feel of Hawaii.

Later we went back down to the beach to witness our first Hawaiian sunset.

The guys dug up weird sand creatures, and tried to guess what they might be.

Our 6 footsies!

There were a bizillion tiny crabs that scampered over the top our feet at sunset, and into the ocean, and they freaked me out. They were tiny, like the size of spiders, and they totally reminded me of spiders. There were hundreds of them.

Not a very good picture, but Tom picked up one of the creepy creatures.