In Paradise

Dave and I had the opportunity due to his wonderful job at AFLAC to go to Paradise. I mean Hawaii. It was so much fun. We had a blast. We started our day flying out of Seattle at a nice hour of 9am. When we lived in Idaho we almost always left at 6 am and had to fly somewhere else to catch a direct flight. Not from Seattle, we had a direct flight to Hawaii.

This is good and bad. Good because only one flight, bad because longer flight. Shorter than direct from Atlanta, like we flew last time. 10 1/2 hours. No thank you. Seattle was only 5 1/2. Anyway it would have been even more wonderful if we were in first class but alas we weren't that lucky.

I think we were just lucky to be on the flight we were because we were the last row. Which isn't bad if you are only on an hour flight. But 5 1/2 gets a little long when you can't lay your seat back. But really it wasn't too bad.

The bad part of the flight was the person sitting next to me. No not Dave! The other person. Actually it wasn't even her. It was her dog. Yep, a dog. A Shi-tsu. So you can now have dogs on flights so long as they fit under the seat in front of you. Of course you can't tranq them, because what if something happened during the flight, so you have to listen to them yelp. This dog didn't yap for very long. This dog decided to break his carry case and tried to escape. So what do you do with that dog on a long flight? You hold it. You hold it on your lap in it's carry case, because that's the rules and let it snort and pant on the person next to you. That would be me. I got sprayed a few times ( can you say gross?) and it's breath not so great.

Anyway it was heaven when we landed in Honolulu. We rented a convertible and headed to our hotel.
Aren't we cute? This weekend consisted of many activities and dinners. It was fun. On our free day we decided to hike up to Moana Falls. At least I think that's what it's called. It was truly a gorgeous hike.
It's amazing the green and beautiful flowers that grow in the tropics. We have lots of green but not so much the tropics.
The next picture was on our hike and reminded me of the kudzu that grows all over everything in South Carolina.
Some of the roots from the trees we hiked over. They made amazing patterns. They also made the perfect stairs for the muddy trail.
These trees were so pretty and so many. A very beautiful canopy. Heavenly Father truly is amazing.
Here is the waterfall. Yeah, not much to look at. The hike was definitely the best part.
We had the opportunity to see one of our favorite people from Arkansas while in Hawaii. Our wonderful babysitter Elizabeth has moved to Hawaii to go to BYU Hawaii. She came over and had some breakfast with us one morning. It was so great to see her. She was 14 when she started babysitting our kiddos and has never met Abby.

We had another outing on our last day and went to the North Shore. We went to the Dole plantation and had pineapple ice cream. VERY Pinappley. Then we went and had lunch at the shrimp trucks. After that we went to Matsumoto's Shave Ice. Delicious. Craig and I are sporting the blue raspberry tongues.
Here is Dave and his buddy Damon at one of the shrimp trucks. Really scary, but according to everyone, DELICIOUS. I thought the onion rings were awesome.
We also had a few dinners. One night was formal. It always makes it fun to dress up and feel fancy. We had the chance to see Sheryl Crow. She has great music. It was fun, the food wasn't so good so we went and got pizza after. I think I ate pizza 3 nights in a row. Good thing I like it. But I don't think I ate pizza for a couple weeks after I got home.
I'm holding my name tag if you are wondering what is in my hand. We had a wonderful time there. It was truly nice being with my sweety. It would have been even better if we had a king bed instead of 2 doubles. It was sort of weird sleeping in separate beds but I know we wouldn't have gotten any sleep if we shared a double. You definitely get used to your space when you have a king.
Here we are. This is us. I think we are pretty cute.