Our plane left at 9:00am so we headed to the airport early. My dad took us and we picked up Greg and Staci on the way. They live in the neighborhood across the street from us. It should have taken 5 minutes (not longer) to get to their house but we got lost and it took about 15. That was the beginning of our adventure. I get pretty stressed if we don't have enough time at the airport to relax before boarding. There was traffic of course so by the time we got to the airport, got our bags checked, grabbed a bite to eat we were one of the last to board the plane. I was feeling super excited to be spending a nice relaxing week in Hawaii but at the same time missing Kaiya and Ella already. I tried to remember that they were with my family and would be well taken care of .
The plane ride was long! It took about 5 hours and 20 minutes. I was getting very antsy and hungry. The doctor told me to make sure to move my legs and drink lots of water because of the blood clot they found when I went to the ER. I did drink a lot of water but the bad thing is that I refuse to go to the bathroom on the airplane. I am not sure why but I have a fear about it. By the end of the flight I was surprised I didn't pee my pants. We bought some bagels at the airport and some snacks that they were selling on the plane to hold us over (I wasn't thinking and only took some protein bars onto the plane which I didn't want). We rented a couple of digE players so we could watch movies. Cirdan, Greg and Staci all sat in a row and I sat in front of Cirdan by myself. I ended up sitting next to a couple ladies flying to Hawaii from Atlanta. It took them 2 days to get there...they stopped in Seattle overnight.
When we got to Oahu we got our luggage and headed to the car rental place. As soon as we got outside it felt so warm and tropical. I was instantly in love. There were a billion people at the car rental so Staci and I waited outside with our luggage while the guys went and got the car. They ended up getting us upgraded for free to a convertible! Not sure the lady would have done that if us girls were with them. We ended up with a brand new convertible and were super stoked.
All of us were extremely hungry so after we stopped and got the condo rental keys (we stayed at the Turtle Bay Condos) and boogie boards we looked for some food. The car was already full with our luggage so we had to put the boogie boards in back with a big suitcase and me and Staci. We stopped at a little bbq place, the food was alright and Greg was kind enough to point out all the little cockroaches crawling all over the place. ICK!
When we got to the condo we unpacked and the guys wanted to go check out the golf course. Staci and I went to the Turtle Beach right by the condo.
We met back up with the guys and decided to stop at a little fruit stand to get some pineapple and go to the Sunset Beach to watch the sunset. We bought a couple bags of pineapple, some coconut and the lady gave us some corn for free. We thought we were so lucky...free upgrade for a car and free corn?!?! As soon as we got to the beach and tasted the pineapple we all realized that it had a funny taste and it was not so fresh. No wonder she gave us free corn! The sunset was beautiful. That was my first time watching the sun go down. We then went to Foodland to pick up some snacks and dinner for the night. We ended up buying some sub sandwiches for dinner.
On Wednesday we woke up early (5:30am Hawaii time), and headed to the swap meet. We wanted to get some souvenirs and also needed to buy some beach towels. There was a stand with local jam so Staci and I stopped at it. The lady was very nice and very persistent that we try the jam. Soon the guys came over and we were all enjoying the yumminess. We ended up buying a bunch of jars. I also bought a dress that I could wear while in Hawaii.
After the swap meet we stopped at Walmart because we thought we could find a better deal on beach towels (we were wrong...oops). Then we stopped at the Dole Plantation. My brother told us that the tour wasn't worth the money so we ate some food there and walked around for a little while. I had no idea how pineapples grew. They are so cute when they are little! On our way out we bought a pineapple ice cream drink that was delicious. We also bought some candies and things to bring home.
We went home and changed into our swimsuits and headed over to Waimea Beach. The waves were really strong so I stayed back up on the beach while Cirdan, Greg and Staci went down to check out the waves.
We went back to the condo to get dressed and go get some dinner. By the time we started looking for food we were all starving and getting grouchy. We finally decided to eat at a place named Laie Chop Suey. It was pretty intense for a while with all of us starving trying to nail down where to eat. There was a lot of people there so I figured it would be good. We all ended up that night with stomach aches. It was not good food at all. The chow mein had this weird gravy stuff on it and the mongolian beef and sweet and sour chicken was not as good as we had hoped. After food we stopped at the temple. The visitor center was almost closing so we walked around and went to a couple of the presentations. We had a sister missionary helping us who was from the Philippines. The temple was so beautiful...I was looking forward to going back to see it in the daylight.
Some funny things that happend that made us laugh...
When we got to the swap meet Cirdan took off his shirt to put some sunscreen on. He had asked Greg to spray some on his back for him. While he was letting it dry Greg said..."Ummmm are you going to go to the swap meet with your shirt off...errrrr?" He was hesitant and really thought that Cirdan was going with no shirt on. It was really funny and we laughed about it the whole trip.
Also, while we were at Waimea, Greg, Staci and I were sitting there on the beach (Cirdan was off getting me water). I looked over and and made a comment about the scenery looking like a scene from Jurassic Park. We then started talking about dinosaurs and what if they came down from the mountain that we were looking at. We each said what we would do (run into the water etc) if these dinosaurs came charging at us. The conversation went on for about 5 minutes about these dinosaurs until we realized what we were talking about and had a good long laugh.
When we were at the Dole plant Cirdan starting video taping the Koi fish. Greg, Staci and I walked away thinking he would soon follow but as we were walking we kept turing around and Cirdan was still video taping the fish. He probably stood there taping for 10 minutes. We were laughing so hard at him because instead of taping us and our trip he was standing there taping a bunch of fish. Good times.
