HAWAII

We left Wednesday September 12, 2007 and flew from Salt Lake to Phoenix, Phoenix to Honolulu, and then Honolulu to Li hue (Kauai). The flight from Phoenix to Honolulu was torture. It was so small and cramped and the plane was so old there were ashtrays in the armrests still! It went smoothly, but, after what felt like 14 hours and was only 6.5 hours I wanted OFF! HeeHee. Ugh, it was not my favorite part of the trip.

Then we drove to our condo and went to bed.

This was the view from our balcony...

The next morning while the fam was at the Monk Monastery Shay and I wandered around the beach by our "home" and had some fun digging crabs out of their homes aka holes in the sand.

Friday we all went on a helicopter tour of the island. It was amazing and so beautiful. I did really good on that ride until we flew over the ocean. For some reason that made me have a panic attack. Luckily I've been able to learn a lot more about my "disorder" and it wasn't very bad and went away very quickly. I am so glad I went and would totally go again! I loved it.

Saturday everyone but I went and did a zip line course. I thought I would never be able to be that high attached to a metal rope but after i saw the pictures and videos I wish I had gone. However, the pool was awesome. (the first picture...)

Everyone got back later and showered and got ready to go to this yummy restaurant, The Beach House. It was about an hour and a half drive so we were super hungry. We got to sit by the walls (which open to a view of the ocean) and we got there just in time for the sunset. I loved eating in Kauai, I had fish everyday! It was so good and fresh. I ate Marlin, Mahi Mahi, raw Tuna, Salmon from New Zealand... Yum. I loved the food. Sunday we were all supposed to go on a hike but we decided to just have a lazy day instead. I just went to the pool that day and then later in the afternoon we went to Tunnels Beach to try and snorkel. That didn't work so well for me. I've never done it before so it wasn't my forte. Also, the bottom of the ocean we were walking on and swimming over was all coral reef so I kept getting hurt. I played a little bit in the water but spent most of my time in the shade. I really did not want to get sunburned, I wore SPF 45 and reapplied every hour or so but I still could tell I'd received my fair share of sun that day.

On our final day before we left, Monday, Shay and his father went on the hike and Jared, Kelly, and I went to Queens Bath. OOOHHH I LOVED this place. Queens Bath is ocean water trapped making a pool. It was 8 feet deep and I could see through to the bottom. It was so cool, I could see the tropical fish swimming around my legs and on the hike there we saw tons of sea turtles swimming around. I wish I'd gone there earlier in our trip and then gone back a few times. It was my favorite. While Shay was on his hike this huge centipede ran in front of him on the trail! He barely got it in the picture. (It's on the left side in the grass.) After their hike they went to Ke'e Beach and snorkeled. Shay got to swim with some sea turtles. They were all around him so he grabbed onto two of their shells and they all swam around together! I'm jealous. :)

We found this nasty Cane spider in the bathroom. The angle the picture makes it look smaller than it was. It was 4 inches from one tip of the leg to the other. YUCK! We caught it in a cup and then flushed it down the toilet, but the dang thing kept trying to climb out of the toilet while the water was spinning down. Luckily it finally went down. I have video but I yell the S word in it so watch out...

I will have you know I didn't get sunburned, I finally acheived my goal of WARM IVORY. However, Shay got fried. He peeled TWICE!

Our departure day, Tuesday, 3 am rolled around much too fast. We had to get up to leave for the airport to go back to crappy, cold Utah. ;) wink wink. That was an adventure also! Our flight left Honolulu to LAX and I fell asleep immediately. Then I wake up and see Shay yanking off his IPOD headphone and listening to the speakers so I did the same and the captain is telling us "we should be landing shortly and switching planes. We'll try to do this as smoothly as we can and we apologize for the inconvenience." WHAT! What's going on? Shay says "they've been circling the island for about an hour now." He apparently didn't want to wake me up and tell me this, VERY SMART OF HIM, cuz he didn't want to agitate me. I'm freaking out, I keep looking out the window expecting to see the wing (we were sitting over it) fly off, and then I was praying, OK Lord, if it's my time to go please make it fast and painless! At least we'll all go together... Me, the drama queen, but I had every right to be so! Apparently after 20 min. of flying it became apparent to the captain that some air bleed valve was broken and we can't fly at the proper elevation with out it. So he turned around and we circled the island for over and hour wasting fuel so we could land. The captain was doing "tricks" with the plane. He was going up and down and making the plane bank sideways-ish. Oh my goodness I was glad I took a Dramamine! Anyhow, we finally landed and I cried and then we got on the other plan and made to LA way later than planned so we missed our flight. We were able to make another flight, barely. We had 30 min. to get to the terminal, check in, go through security and get the the gate. To top it off, they searched everyone of us and our carry-ons. We made it though and the coolest part of that day was meeting Shaun White aka "The Flying Tomato". He won gold in the Olympics under the snowboarding competition and is very good at skating also. He was on our flight heading to Salt Lake for the Dew Tour. So after we got off the plane I got a picture of Him and Shay. He was really cool about it. I'd hate to have people asking for my picture and autograph everywhere I go! So nice of him.

Finally we wait and wait and wait for our luggage. Alas, no luggage. We assume it's still at LAX, report it and go home. I was so glad to be home. I was sad to leave but I had an amazing time and hope you didn't go crazy reading my novel! Here are some leftover pictures...

Shay caught these Horsefly sized frogs.