Hawaii in a nutshell

After the kids had been in school for 5 days, we took them out for 6 days and headed to Oahu.  We LOVED LOVED LOVED it there!  We had so much fun and our week flew by!
We stayed in Waikiki and the beach across the street from our hotel (Addison counted 180 (of her) steps from our hotel to the water) was AWESOME!  The kids loved the waves and had so much fun in their tubes!  There was also a sand bar that went way out in the ocean and it was so fun to be way out but still be able to touch.  We also saw big sea turtles every day (and I freaked out the first day thinking it was a sea lion and tried to save my kids until a cute Australian couple told us they were turtles).  They were so fun to spot and follow around the rest of the trip.

 We took a drive one day, trying to find a waterfall hike, but when we got there, we realized there had been a landslide years ago and it was closed.  So, we just had yummy food at the shrimp shack truck and hung out at the beautiful Kailua beach.

We went to Hanauma Bay to snorkle.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.  The kids were AWESOME snorkelers and hung in there with us pretty much all day!  That same night we went over to the Disney resort, Aulani, for dinner (notice Addison's Mickey Mouse dessert she is holding).  The resort was so beautiful!

This was back at Waikiki beach, there was a super yummy shaved ice place right there on our walk between the hotel and the beach, lucky for us!

Another day we headed to the Dole Plantation, Matsumoto's Shave Ice and the Polynesian Cultural Center.  

On September 11th, we went to Pearl Harbor (sorry there are two collages from that day).  The Veteran in this picture is 96!  I couldn't believe it.

Then back to our Waikiki beach and stayed for our last sunset.  boo!

 Of course Thursday morning before we flew home we had to spend a couple of more hours at the beach.  We are all coming back tan and happy!  What a great trip!