Oahu, Hawaii

We just got back from visiting the Island of Oahu. When I say we I mean Matt, Nathan and I. The three little ones stayed at our house with Matt's parents. We were very lucky that they agreed to watch the kids for 8 days. It was nice getting a break from them, but I missed them so much I was ready to go home after 4 days. I think Nathan needed a break from his little siblings too.

View from our room

We stayed right on the beach of Waikiki, but we left almost everyday to go explore. We first went snorkeling at Sharks Cove. The water was nice and clear there and we saw some fish and coral, but no turtles. There was a beach just down the street called Turtle Beach, and sure enough there were turtles there, the only problem was you couldn't really snorkel in that area, the water was too murky. I was just glad that Nathan got to see them, one even came up onto the beach, very cool.

Sharks Cove

The next day wasn't as sunny so we thought it would be a good day to see Pearl Harbor. We started off at the USS Missouri, then headed over to the USS Arizona Memorial. They show a short movie about the events that took place on December 7, 1941, it was a little hard to watch without tearing up. And I think Nathan has a good understanding of what happened and why they built the memorial.

The next day we hiked to the top of Diamond Head, it wasn't that bad of a hike. I say that now, but if you would have asked me that day I would have complained about the heat, and the crowds. It was crowded at the top, so I didn't we didn't have an opportunity to take a family picture, but I did get this great panoramic shot.

We thought we should try kayaking since we heard of this "sunken island" which is really a huge sand bar, and wanted to check it out. This was our first time kayaking but we were going to stay in Kane'hoe Bay, so it's somewhat protected by the waves. We rented a 2 man kayak with room to add nathan in the middle, but that meant he didn't have to paddle. I was a little nervous at first because the water was very deep until we got to the sand bar. Once out there we could get out and walk around in the very shallow water. It was pretty neat, and I'm glad we went, but boy were my arms sore the next day.

The rest of the trip we just did a little more exploring, found a couple of other spots to snorkel. We found a beach way in the northern part of the island that had huge waves and watched people surf there for a while. We took another hike up to Manoa Falls. This was more of a jungle hike, very lush and super muddy. I enjoyed this hike much more than the Diamond Head hike, other than the part where my feet came back covered in mud.