Hawaii is no longer on my "Really don't care to see it list."

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like big tourist spots. Disney--you can have it. Although, my family really enjoys the place, so I go, I really would rather be somewhere else like North Dakota, Maine, Oregon, etc. The only reason I wanted to go to Hawaii is because it was one of the places I had to visit on my 50 by 50 goal. So, when the opportunity was there, I had to do it. It was there, or Alaska because I've hit all the others.

On the October 14th, Amy, the kids and I went to Hawaii. We visited the island of Oahu for the seven days we were there and never ran out of things to do. This first picture was our first day there and we are at the world renouned Waikiki beach. It was beautiful and the water was so clear that you could see the bottom in 12 feet of water.


The only real negative item we encountered the whole trip was the jet-lag. These pictures were taken at 3am Hawaii time, with the kids wide awake because body time was 9am. We watched cartoons for 4 hours, until the sun came up (no daylight savings time in Hawaii). Even little Hailey was wide awake. She kept the early-bird thing going all week long. It didn't matter what time we put her to bed, she was up by 5am local time. Normally, since it was Amy's vacation too, that meant that Dad got to get up with her to watch cartoons.

Some of the fun things we did in Hawaii? We swam, we ate, we swam some more, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, BYU Hawaii, the Temple, swam some more, had shaved ice, swam, visted Pearl Harbor, swam, hiked a trail to Manoa Falls, fell down in the mud, swam some more, tried to drive the rental into the ocean, swam some more, snorkeled, visited Lanikai beach, swam some more, climbed a crater, visited some world war two sites and swam some more. It was one of the most fun vacations I have had and I have had some fun ones.

We ate Malasadas. If you don't know what those are, there is a place in Waikiki that is famous for them called Leonard's Bakery. I gained 10 pounds just eating those. You can find their recipe on the foodnetwork.com.

I really enjoyed myself there. I would not want to live in Hawaii, but a prolonged stay would definitely be nice. By the way, we grabbed the phone book to find a church building, almost like being in Idaho, or Colorado, there were four buildings right in Honalulu and 10 Stakes on the island we were visited.

So, would I go back? Yes!