Hawaii Part II

Our time in Kauai was much different from Oahu....as soon as we landed you could feel a difference in the activity.  Kauai was much more laid back and it was a wonderful place to get some much needed relaxation.

The biggest highlight in our trip was an hour long, doors off, helicopter ride.  To see God's beauty in that way was UNBELIEVABLE!  Most of the time it felt as if what we were seeing was fake - because it was so beautiful.  We got by far the best pictures of the island during the ride. 

We actually flew over our hotel.  It is located in the center of the picture.

Kauai has tons of waterfalls!  The more it rains, the more waterfalls are created.  Patrick found out how much I love waterfalls! :) 

This waterfall, you may recognize - The Jurassic Park Waterfall

 

 This is Waimea Canyon - the Grand Canyon of of the Pacific Ocean.  The coloration of this canyon was beautiful! 

After Waimea Canyon, we headed toward the beach

 Looking down into the ocean at the reefs

This side of the island is amazing!  80% of Kauai is inaccessible from the ground.

The tropic scenes in the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie, was filmed exclusively on Oahu and Kauai

The other adventure we went on was a 8 mile hike!  The first 2 miles into the Kalalau Trail (which is actually 9 miles in and takes longer than a day to hike), the second two miles were inland to see a waterfall!  If you look closely at this picture you can see the Kalalau Trail. 

This is Tunnels Beach.  It has reefs with tunnels in them and is a good place to snorkel.  We snorkeled there and it was very cool.

This picture is to show the different types of trees, which provides an array of different shades of green.

One last waterfall!  They all have names, but its hard to remember them all!  This one you could also drive up to, but the view was much better from the air.

We'll see if I get anymore picutres posted from vacation, but these are the creme of the crop!

Hawaii - Part 1

Our Hawaii vacation was on 2 islands, Oahu and Kauai.  We took somewhere around 800 pictures total, so I'm only going to post a few :)  These are from our time on Oahu.

Oahu as we were flying in!  YAY - we were finally there! 

Pearl Harbor

The day after we got to Hawaii, we went to Pearl Harbor.  I have a whole new appreciation for this piece of history after visiting the memorial.

The Missouri battle ship - this is where the treaty was signed by the Japanese surrendering to the US.

Looking towards Pearl Harbor 

The second day - we went to the Dole Plantation.

Baby pineapples! 

Its kind of difficult to see in the picture; however, this is gum tree - it looks fake because of the coloration - as if someone painted it.

We were asked if we were honeymooners!  Pretty good after 8 years :) 

None other than a Pineapple Whip - hmmmmm!  so good!

After the Dole Plantation, we headed up to the North Shore....this is the pipeline - you would never guess this is where surfing competitions were held. 

 

Different type of pine trees than in Minnesota! 

Pineapple fields - they were so beautiful on our way to and from the North Shore 

The third day we headed up the east coast.  This is Hanauma Bay - supposedly a great place for snorkeling, we didn't partake in snorkeling in Oahu - but it looked so refreshing!

A small beach we found on our way up the east coast - if only we had our swimsuits 

We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  Our time their included a guided tour around the 'park', a Luau and a show!  It was a lot of fun!

 

Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head in the background

Our hotel on Oahu

Oh How I Love This Little Girl......

The month of May, the blog has gone under some silence; however, I think with some what of a good reason.  Patrick and I went on a vacation to Hawaii for 11 days!!!  The other days were spent in preparation!  So to make up for the silence, below are some random pictures of Amelia throughout the first couple weeks of May.

 We tried a new hairstyle!

Amelia started to pull herself up into a standing position.  She was also starting to just crawl a little more in an exploratory way. 

 Amelia chillin' after supper.  She originally had her legs crossed, but I was too slow on getting to the camera.

I was upstairs in the kitchen and Daddy called me down to see where Amelia was at the week before we left!

'Oh Really?!' 

Just about ready to start clapping... 

'YAY!' 

I loved this little outfit and this pose!  I didn't even prompt her.   Thanks Auntie Mel for letting me borrow this dress! 

Super cute! 

Hello everyone!  I'm growing up so fast!