Hawaii 1-8-10

No pictures for this one, sorry.

Got up more or less early, went for breakfast, packed. Mom and I went shopping. I bought a small piece of fabric, should have bought a sexy sleep thing for Kevin to enjoy. Looked at a shop with a lot of cars like mine (I collect metal model cars, like bigger versions of matchbox and Hotwheels, and this shop I could have spent hours in, it was so cool.). Mom bought some neat things for me for Christmas next year (I've already forgotten about them, let's hope mom doesn't loose them before then). Wandered through a lot of shops with cute clothes, should have bought some. Got back on ship, ate lunch, had a nap, felt sickly from boat moving way too much, took medicine. Went to look at pictures, ordered some. Went to shops, got postcard and napkins, ate supper. Packed More. Left our checked bags outside at midnight.

Hawaii 1-7-10

Great day today. Woke up early to go snorkeling, which was great. Got to see sea turtles and lots of fish.

Came back to ship, had lunch and a nap. Got dressed to go to manor house for a tour and see a lu'au. Got to the manor house, got picture taken, took train ride around compound. Came back had a great supper of chicken, salad, purple sweet potatoes, pork, beef, mahi mahi, and lilikoi (passion fruit) chiffon pie. Went shopping in stores. Bought flower earring for $3.70 (I had originally seen earrings like these when we went to Pearl Harbor, but had told myself I didn't need another pair of earrings, and later, decided I did want some like that and had looked at pretty much every shop we went for some I liked), and a frog for $5.21.

Watched the Lu'au. Very cool day.

The lu'au was so cool, it was a bunch of people doing a dance about a guy leaving his girl to go to a new land and hardships that happened inbetween. Ross said not to take any pictures as we weren't supposed to use our flash and they wouldn't come out, but all my pictures turned out rather well, some of them look kinda like they're glowing in the dark. I'm very glad I didn't listen to him.

Hawaii 1-6-10

Too much moving around today. When we can feel the boat moving, I feel like I'm drunk. It's weird when the floor moves.

Got up pretty early, had breakfast and went to get in line to get on the boats that would take us to shore. We got in line about 8:50 and finally got ashore about 9:50. It was an experience I'd like to pass on in the futres. Found out later that because the swells were so bad, they stopped letting people off at 10:00. After getting to shore, we went to the seahorse farm tour and found out the glass bottom boat had been cancelled. The sea horse farm was pretty cool. We got to see little baby seahorses, seadragons and even got to hold seahorses.

The best part was seeing the frog fish.

Went back to the dock and decided to eat fish for lunch and go to the local farmer's market. Had shrimp, crab stuffed shrimp and coconut shrimp. Wandered through a very hot farmer's market. Stopped at the Whaler's General Store, found Kevin a Ford truck with a Hawaii surfboard. Also bought a seahorse keychain and poster at the seahorse farm and collected coral at the beach.

Got back on the boat about 3:00, relaxed for the rest of the day.

Hawaii 1-5-10

Nice day today. Got up pretty early to go on Volcano and Rainbow Falls. Saw trees planted by famous people and big Japanese garden. Went to Rainbow Falls, didn't see any rainbows by tgot some nice photos.

Went to a botanical gardens, not very neat, but got some great pictures.

Went to see volcano. I didn't find it very exciting. Bought a postcard and postcard book fo $5.50. Walked through lava tube, that was the coolest. Went to Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory. Bought milk chocolate Toffee macadamias for myself for $3.95. Bought Macadamia nut white chocolate flavored chip cookies and dry roasted macadamia nuts for Kevin for $4.17. Had vanilla macadamia nut ice cream, not that exciting. Got back on bus. Got to wear one of my new dreses and new shrug today, I thought I looked pretty good thought they made me look bigger (that could have partly been because I had a bikini underneath and the ties on the bottom made the dress fan out a little). We went tot see the lava flow, also not that exciting.

Hawaii 1-4-10

Nice day today, Woke up late at 7 this morning. Mom and Dad were already out. Went to the Aloha for breakfast, had tomato with cheese, cottage cheese, pastries, waffle and milk. Went back to room to found out Atlantis submarine excursion was cancelled (we were supposed to go down in this submarine and look at stuff on the ocean floor and underwater) due to wind. We decided to go on Lahaina On your Own tour instead. Got on bus at 9:30, reached Lahaina about 10:20 (I saw a whale jump out of the water and flip over on the bus ride there, it was pretty cool). Was greeted at Hilo Hattie's store and received shell lei. Bought very cute dress on sale for $9.99 instead of $34.99 and beautiful postcard of Olowalu for $.25, total was $10.67. Walked to Hard Rock Cafe and bought Hawaii pin for $5.21. Wandered on to another shop where Sharon bought me a nice crocheted shrug and some more cute postcards (I have found on my vacations, some of the cheapest and best souveneirs are postcards). Went to oldest banyon tree and decided to split up for lunch. We saw this cool shipwreck on our way to the banyon tree.
Mom and I went to Pacific'O where we had fish . Went to Whaler's General Store and bought underwater camera, water, and dolphin pin for Karli. Wandered past beach and saw crabs. Went to a couple (3) local galleries. Bought 3 postcards of banyon tree for $1.88. Went to get gelato, got a bunch of tastes before finally deciding on mango and passion fruit lolikoi. Went back to ship and found these towel creatures on our beds.

Dad and Ross, who don't like just wandering around, didn't enjoy the day as much as Mom and I did, I think it was a nice substitution for our submarine dive. It was better than sitting on the ship and doing nothing all day.

Hawaii 1-3-10

Well, I have no pictures from the 3rd of January, most likely because it wasn't that great of a day, so I'll post January 4th right after so you can enjoy a picture.
Not very exciting today. We didn't have anything until 3:45PM today. So we got up, ate breakfast, went to sun on the deck, planned to go to a movie at noon, but at 12:30, the movie still hadn't started, so we left to have lunch. After lunch, we went back to sunning on the deck. At about 3:30, we left the boat to go get on a bus for our sunset cruise and whale watch.. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the boat dock and boarded. Unfortunately, it was very rough and windy and everyone except Ross got sick. I was only nauseated. So, none of us ate the included dinner. I did see some whales, but mostly I sat with my eyes closed at the back of the boat. After arriving back at the cruise ship, Don, Ross and I had supper. Then we watched TV before heading to bed.

Hawaii 1-2-10

Pretty slow day today. Slept in until 8:00, went to IHOP for breakfast of french toast. Walked around a bit, I wanted to go to this gelato place I had seen a day or so ago, but when we finally found it, there was a sign in the window saying it was closed for business. Went back to the hotel and finished packing, then went to Duke's for lunch. Ate cold nachos (not very good), checked out of hotel and went to Na'uana Pali Lookout:
Left there about 2:00PM, drove to the boat dock. Got on the boat and have been here exploring since. The staterooms are very small. With 4 of us in here, it's very cozy. I'm also disappointed in the pools, they're very small, but we also don't plan to be on the boat that much. Tomorrow, we have a whale watch scheduled for 4:30PM, but nothing other than that, so I figure it will be a very relaxing day.

Hawaii 1/1/2010

I can't believe it's the new year already. I'm a little buzzed from the drink I had with supper, so I hope this still makes sense. I woke up way too many times because of people celebrating. My MP3's batter finally went out around 3AM, so I attempted to plug it in and in my quest found out that the outlet my phone was in didn't work, so I plugged them both into another outlet and got them charged up.
Mom and I caught a bus to the zoo, and the driver wouldn't let us pay, we were all ready with our money out and he wouldn't take it, so that was cool. We got to the zoo too early, so we went out on the pier at Wakiki Beach and watched swimmers in the water. When we went back to the zoo, I found this really cool leaf (which you can't see and now isn't very cool anymore), but it was an oval leaf, probably about 8 inches long with pink and green on it, it was pretty neat. We got to see birds and monkeys and zebras and lots of animals you'd normally see at the zoo, unfortunately they didn't have their lion exhibit open (I always make it a point to visit the zoo and see the lion, or the aquarium when we go on vacation). This monkey below was one of the ones we saw, actually I think it was a lemur, but I really don't know. Anyway, he was just sprawled out in the morning sun like he was tanning, it was so cute.
Mom took a picture of me with a giraffe statue and I think it's pretty cute:

Also, Kevin called me and that got me happier. Ross picked us up around 11 and we went to the Dole plantation where we ate lunch, took a train ride and a garden tour. I didn't find it that impressive, we also ate some pineapple ice cream. That was pretty good. I bought a couple of postcards including one with a train that I sent to Kevin. We then went to the North Shore and watched the waves. We then decided to go back and deal with supper. We wandered down the beach and went to one place where we were suppoes to cook our own food. We all decided against that and went to the restuarant next door. I keep seeing all these people either doing a little cuddling or holding hands and I really wish Kevin was here.

Tomorrow we get on the boat for our cruise.

Hawaii 12/31/09

I woke up at 3:00AM, 7:00AM Iowa time, found my MP3 player, stuck it in my ears and floated back to sleep until our wake-up call at 5:30AM. I ate the rest of my croissant from the night before and some water for breakfast. We went downstairs and drove to Pearl Harbor. We waited in line for awhile and got some tickets for 11:00AM, that was about 2 hours away, so we drove to the Bishops Museum and walked around there. We saw some historical Hawaii stuff, and some very cool replicas of dinosaurs. Besides the picture below, there were T-Rex, Brontasaurus (will probably butcher the spellings on these), the things with the plates on their backs, velocirapters, and quite a few others that I have no idea what they're called. They all moved when you walked past the motion detector. I also wondered through the lava exhibit.
When we finished there, it was time to go back to Pearl Harbour. We got to watch a short documentary on it, and then got on the boat to go out to the memorial. I was too busy taking it all in to get any pictures, but I know my brother got plenty. We got back on the boat and went through the museum and gift shop, I bought some postcards. We went back to the hotel and decided to walk down to a deli for lunch, I got a vegetarian sandwich and some water. Mom, Dad and I decided to walk to the aquarium and Ross decided to relax by the pool. It was quite a bit longer walk than we thought (or were led on to believe by Ross), but very enjoyable, we walked by Wakiki Beach. At the aquarium we got to see quite a few fish and seahorses, etc. We also got to watch them feed the sharks, that was pretty cool. At the gift shop, I bought a fish magnet, some postcards and some fish stickers. We stopped at the zoo to find out their hours for the next day before we headed back to the hotel.
On our walk back, we passed by a Harley-Davidson shop, so I had to buy a cute pink T-shirt with butterflies on it. I'd noticed how the prices were higher in HI, but the prices at the HD store seemed to be about the same as they would be in Iowa. We also walked by quite a few ABC stores (their convenience stores) and I bought a really cute green tube dress, some scotch tape and deoderant. We also picked up some food items for breakfast the next day.
We decided to go across the stree to IHOP for dinner as Ross was eating with his friend and we didn't really have anything planned. I was really hoping to find some authentic Hawaii food at that point. I fell asleep watching TV.

If you want to see all of my Hawiia photos, go here.

Hawaii, Day 1, 12-30-09

I got up at 2AM, crawling back into bed until 2:15, packed the few things I had left to pack and made sure things were unplugged. Mom made sure we all packed boots and a heavy coat in the car, so if we had any probelms on our way back we'd be ready. We left home about 3:30 arriving at the airport fhortly after 4. We had to ride in a tiny pnae, but got to be in first class, which pretty much consisted of extra drinks.
We got to Chicago about 7:30 and waited until 11:30 before leaving again, we were supposed to leave at 10. There were problems getting the plane in. I got sit in business class with Ross and his friend. It was soo cool:
The seats could recline into a bed, we had blankets and pillows. There were little TVs where we could watch movies, TV, play games, listen to audio books and music. We also got lots of extra food: warmed nuts in a little ceramic bowl and drinks in real glasses. For lunch we got some kind of salad with some kind of really good cut of beef, so tender and spicy walnuts with rolls and a warm chocolate chip cookie for dessert. We got real cloth napkins and warm towels. Later we got grapes, pineapple, honeydew melon, swiss cheese, cheddar cheese and crackers. I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Orphan, and Case 39 and most of Up! I really hope we get business class on the way back. For some reason, my phone wouldn't turn on after we got off, and we haven't been able to figure out why. We finally got in to Hawaii about 5, Iowa time. It was about a 9 hour flight. We found our rental car and drove to the hotel. After somewhat unpacking, we wandered around looking for food. Unfortunately, we ran into too pricey, dark, and too long of a wait. Finally we stopped at a food court.
After eating, we went back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.