Hawaii!!

The week of April 17-24 my family went to Hawaii for Easter. We went to the island of Oahu, which was a first for us all. Our hotel was just a few blocks from the beach, so we could walk there in just a few minutes. The weather there was amazing! It was 80's the entire time but also breezy for most the week, so that the heat didn't kill us. For the first few days, we just relaxed at the beach. The first beach day was so the first group of us could recover from the plane ride over, and the 2nd beach day was so my mom and sister (who came a day later due to her volleyball tournament) could recover and relax.  This beach didn't really have huge body surfing waves, but it felt great to float in and then just lay out on the sand. My dad had the unfortunate luck the first day to step on a sea urchin, so he had to spend most his time soaking his foot. Luckily that dissolved most the spines and he got the others out himself so he was good for the rest of the trip. Haha after that we all bought some water shoes so the same didn't happen to us. ;) We all got a tiny bit fried on Tuesday, so on Wednesday we decided to do Pearl Harbor. It was so amazing to get to see the museums and the memorial over the tomb of the USS Arizona. What an amazing part of our history. On Thursday we did the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was really cool. Before we got there, we stopped at the macadamia nut farm and tried free samples. They were super yummy. :) At the Center, we went to different villages that represented different places such as Fiji, Samoa, etc. and learned a bit about each of them. We then went to a  luau dinner, and then a show. It was an awesome day. On Friday we started out at a snorkeling bay and swam through some reefs. We saw some amazing fish, a few that were bigger then our heads! After that, we grabbed lunch and headed to a beach called Sandy Beach, that had waves over 8 feet high. It was a very popular body surfing beach and tons of teens - 30 years olds were there surfing, boogie-boarding, and body surfing. My dad and Nick immediately went into, and Alli went with them for a bit, but they waves were a bit much, even for her, so she just played in the brakes along the sand with Matthew. I watched with my ankles in the water, but never got in. Haha I knew one try would waste me.  That day we all came home pretty tired, and, even though we had all been good with sunscreen, we were all also pretty burned again as well. Haha was definitely an aloe vera day, with advil and lots of water as well.  Saturday we hiked to a waterfall and got to swim to it and take pictures under it.  We then rested at our beach again for a bit and went for the last time to eat at this amazing burger place we had discovered, that really has the best burgers ever. It was such a wonderful trip, and coming back to the cold weather was definitely hard. I so can't wait for summer here now!