HAWAII!

Last week I was lucky enough to get to go to Hawaii for work. It was amazing! It was such a fun trip, a great get away, and just a wonderful experience. We have some facilities in Hawaii (we do therapy in skilled nursing facilities), and we were there to do annual quality assurance visits. I went with my cute boss and friend, Carol. We had a really good time. Here are some pictures from my trip (there are a lot!)

Waiting for our flight out~ I was so excited!

The view from our hotel room. We were on the 25th floor of the Ilikai on Waikiki. It was very awesome.

The mountain side of the island always had clouds hanging over it.

On Sunday we took a drive up to the North Shore. It was such a beautiful drive and so fun to see everything so green and tropical.

I thought these mountains were so cool looking! I later found out that they filmed King Kong here.

We stopped at Chinaman's Hat.

The ocean is so amazing!

This is the road leading up to one of our facilities. Isn't it beautiful?! How would you like to work here!

We drove by the temple. It was raining really hard at this point on our trip.

We also stopped at Turtle Bay. This was a fun trip down memory lane for me~ when I was 14 I came to Hawaii on tour with my performing group, and we performed at this resort. I loved seeing it again.

And the Dole Plantation was fascinating! I loved it! It was so cool to see how they grow pineapple. {This was just a cute display, not really where they plant the pineapple}

The best part was the incredible PINEAPPLE ICE CREAM. Oh my, it was delicious! One of my favorite things I ate the whole trip!

This is where they were growing cocoa. I took a picture to show Ben what I want our backyard to look like. Chocolate garden? Yes please!

Monday night, Carol took me the famous restaurant, "Dukes" which is named after the famous surfer, The Duke. They had some awesome pictures of old surfers with their old surf boards and it was just a fun atmosphere. After we ate, we walked down to the statue of The Duke and walked around Waikiki and all the shops. It was really fun to see all the people and all the stores. Not something I would want to spend my whole vacation doing- one night was plenty for me- but it was fun.

On Tuesday night, Kim, our regional manager over there, was our tour guide and took us to some awesome places. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. She knew all the cool places to go to and just took us to see things we wouldn't have been able to if we didn't have a local with us. I loved being away from Waikiki and all the people and the buildings, and just enjoying the beautiful mountains and ocean. This is what I had Hawaii pictured like. This is what I thought of when I thought of Hawaii. It was just beautiful. I couldn't get enough and I took lots of pictures.

This was the first look out we stopped at.

Carol, Kim, and I

Kim showed us some WWII machine gun nests literally in the mountain. It was so cool.

Kim and I went down in it.

And I took this picture from inside

There were stairs leading down to it, but you couldn't see them unless you were right there. It all blended in with the mountain side. It was so cool.

This is the mountain we were on, and there are actually quite a few machine gun nests in there.

The beautiful ocean. I could look at it all day.

This was a really cool house that was shipped here from somewhere over in Asia. I can't remember the story, but it was really cool. :)

They took us to a secluded beach that I would have loved to spend more time on. It was so nice to not have all the people!

As you can tell, it was really windy. :)

This is Dog the Bounty Hunter's house. He has a giant picture of himself on his front gate!

We also stopped at Blow Hole.

These are pictures I took from other days, just during our travels.

Kim and her husband took us to their favorite place to eat- The Shack- which was such a fun restaurant. One of my favorite things about Hawaii was all the outdoor seating everywhere we went. This was right by the ocean and had torches all along the dock. So very awesome. Kim is amazing. I loved spending time with her and her husband. I was so glad they spent their night showing us around and I wish we could have had more time to see all the wonderful things she knows about. Kim is one of the very nicest people I have ever met and just so sweet and so fun. It was a great night.

On Thursday night, we took a catamaran ride. It was so much fun! Below is the boat we were on as it was coming in with the ride right before us. Then we sailed off and came back when the sun was setting. The scenery was beautiful. The people on the ride were a little crazy, and since it was all you can drink, they really were drinking all they could drink! But we met two really nice couples from Australia and talked with them for most of the trip. It was really fun to meet them and hear all about them. One couple was stationed in Hawaii for the Australian military and the other couple was there visiting them. Oddly enough both of the women were occupational therapists. So we put a plug in for our facilities! :) The ride was about an hour and a half and it was just fun to be out on the ocean and enjoying the wind in my hair. :)

Looking back at Waikiki

This guy was standing on what I think is called a standing board, and paddling his way out to sea. He was going faster than we were sailing! And even at this point, we were really far out from the coast. We were surprised to see him out this far. We found out later that they have races on these standing boards between the islands of Molokai and Oahu, which is like 28 miles! Crazy!

Beautiful sunset!

Friday morning I had my own private surfing lesson! Matt, an office manager at one of our facilities, graciously offered to teach me to surf. I was asking him and some other surfers where the best place was to take surfing lessons, and he told me he would come out and teach me. He was so nice! So we got up early and took to the waves! It was a blast! I got up once and am very proud of that! I rode in on my knees the first few times to get the feel of riding the wave. It was an awesome feeling! I loved it! But it is a lot of work! You have to paddle all the way out over and over again, and my arms were so worn out by the end! As the morning went on, more and more people came and it was pretty crowded. I was having to steer my way around people and watch out for the newby's who didn't know what they were doing so I wouldn't get run over ;). My last ride in, I literally had people right next to me on both sides. I was too scared to stand up in case I fell on them or something. But it was an awesome awesome experience. I loved it!!! I can't wait to go again! :) I look like a natural, don't I?!

We had some really great food while we were there. My favorite was anything with pineapple- it is just so much better over there! This chicken and a Hawaiian pizza were my two favorite dinners we had.

These next pictures are all from the walk we took everyday down Waikiki. Wherever we went- to eat, shop, to the beach, etc., this is the route we took. Isn't it beautiful?! It never got old, just walking along the beach.

On Friday, we ate our last lunch at Dukes and had their famous fish taco's. They were delicious! A perfect last meal on the island!

It was a great trip and such a fun week! I feel very fortunate that I had this opportunity and I loved every minute of it!

By the time I got home, I was excited and ready to see my boys! I fell asleep on the couch and Payson crawled up next me and fell asleep too. It was good to be home.

{not to mention I needed to save Pays from this fashion faux pas! }