Hawaiian Vacation Take 2

More thoughts on the island of Hawai'i - the flowers there are just amazing. I liked the lava - but there's a lot of it to see. You just look and look and look, and hey - there's more lava! I wouldn't mind visiting there again, because we had only a few hours to look around, but of the four islands we visited it was my least favorite. I'd totally give it another chance, I'm sure there's more there to see then what we got a taste of.

The next day we hit Oahu. I have been there a couple of times, and John had been there before too, and we haven't been that impressed by it. I mean, come on now, it's HAWAII, right? How bad could it be? But Honolulu is a big city, and the traffic is horrendous. Getting out of Honolulu is a must if you want to spend much time enjoying the island.

This time, we got off the beaten path and John's cousin found an island we could snorkel to called Goat Island. Once we got there, we had the beach to ourselves save the two people that walked by at one point. Snorkeling out there was a bit rough, and on the way back we all decided to walk across the rocks instead of swimming. The water had gotten even more rough, so I'm glad we did.

We spent some time just tooling around the island, taking pictures at all the appropriate places, eating Shave Ice and hitting a cute little farm. The drive from Honolulu to Goat Island was beautiful and it was the best experience I'd had on Oahu. I would happily go back and probably want to stay on the North Shore. I liked the beaches there and the slower pace was nice.

We had a longer time on Oahu, (the ship didn't leave until 11pm) but we had to have our car back at a certain time, so we got back on the ship around 6:00 and went to dinner. We played some games on deck and took it easy the rest of the night.

Here we are at China Man's hat - Matt tells us that you can snorkel out to that island too - we'll have to try that some day!

Cruising - Hawaiian Style

We got home this morning from a 2 week cruise to the Hawaiian Islands with our friends Matt and Shaunee. We left out of LA and cruised 4 days to the islands, hit Hawaii, Kauai, Maui and Oahu and then headed 4 days to Ensenada, MX and than back to LA.

What a great time! We really enjoyed our time with Matt and Shaunee and the cruise was wonderful. We ended up being fairly busy, which of course I LOVE, and John was able to relax while I was running around doing 'stuff' with Shaunee.

Princess has hired a great couple who make the Hawaiian experience authentic from the minute you get on the ship. They teach ukelele classes and hula dancing classes as well as being in a band that plays in various places on the ship and they bring a general 'aloha' feeling to the ship. The four of us took ukelele classes and participated in a show at the end of the cruise that showcased the class. We probably learned a dozen songs and got fairly efficient by the end of the cruise.

I talked Shaunee into taking line dancing and we had a great time learning the dances and trying not to get stepped on. It's pretty funny trying to dance on a ship that is constantly rolling with passengers who are not exactly spring chickens! :) I had always wanted to take the lessons, and it was fun to do it with someone. My next project is to talk John into taking the real dance lessons.

We hit Hilo, Hawaii first and rented a car to tour the island. Here we are in a lava tube. We hiked into two of them and this one we needed flashlights to go through. John hit his head pretty hard on the ceiling coming out of the tube, you're concentrating so hard on watching your feet that you don't watch your head - ouch!




We also drove to the end of the road where lava had destroyed a subdivision and was still covering the road.








At the same place where lava had covered the road, there was a great lookout over into the ocean. I guess at times, the lava cliffs slough off and the area has lost acres of cliffs to them just heading into the ocean. If you know me at all, you know I was freaked out about falling into the sea never to be seen again. So I moseyed out for pictures and then moseyed back to the road! :)



This is getting long - so I'll sign off here and post more later!

John and I had a "Murder Mystery Party" at our house last week - Lethal Luau.

We had a great time, I've never seen John hamming it up quite like that. I never got a photo of all of us together, but I wish I had because the costumes were so great.

I think I'll do it again and this time I'll host - it was hard to have a part and keep the game moving. Now that I'm a little more familiar with how the game needs to flow, I think it would go more quickly and smoothly.

John's character was a bumbling tourist and my character was a bikini model. Yeah, a bikini model, that ain't happening folks. SO I dressed up in my best Hawaiian dress and called it good! I'm practicing for our upcoming Hawaiian vacation - people you need to practice for vacation, everyone knows this :)