Hawaii Vacation

Pops took us to the airport early Tuesday morning

We flew to LA then to Honolulu and it was pretty great. Both flights had a screen on the back of every seat with a ton of movies, tv shows, games and music so everyone was content.

We arrived in the afternoon and got layed.

It was a little chaotic finding our shuttle and getting to the hotel but we made it and did a little wondering around and found some spam sushi an some other stuff in an ABC store for lunch.

We were a bit wacky from the time switch so took the standard Prewitt 60 min vacation nap.

Then we hit the beach of course.

We played till it got late

and then we got starving and found a pizza place.

We got a Hawaiian and a Luau pizza and they were both great. We got to bed early and slept hard. Heath and I got up fairly early because Bean was awake and also we had a car reserved at 8:30am.

This is the view from one of our two little porches. That tallest looking hotel in the background with the blue glass down the middle was the Kotani’s hotel and you can see we would walk across the street and the park next to their hotel and were at the beach. We could look down from the porch and see our pool and grills and stuff.

So since Bean was the first one up she got to go shopping with Heath and I when the rental car showed up. I used Turo and rented a 2010 Toyota Camry for $33 from 8:30-4:30. First we planned to go to Costco but they were not open so we went to Walmart. We had a big shopping list of stuff we didn’t bring and food for the week. It kind of took us forever and afterwords we went on to Costco and finished off our list. The prices at Costco seemed the same as at home. Then we went back to the hotel and unloaded and put away all the stuff, grabbed the other kids and headed on.

We had picked a few spots to check out but ended up stopping a ton looking at all sorts of cool shoreline.

The highlight was spotting some turtles

They bobbed up and down and swam all around the turbulant water pretty quick so I had a hard time getting good pictures of them.

This was near the Halona Blowhole Lookout. We drove on and looped back around and stopped in the mountains at a cemetery parking lot and stepped onto a trail and into an awesome forest.

It was a short easy hike to the swimming hole we were looking for but the bugs were rough, the reviews said the water could be contaminated, and we had not brought our suits but it was fun to watch the kids jump off the big rocks.

We also had to get the car back and get dinner going. I dropped the family off at the hotel and parked the car a couple blocks away for the owner to pickup. We got mexican dinner going and headed to the pool.

The hotel had a little happy hour 3 times a week with beer and wine and snacks. Heath shuffled beers and empty glasses back and forth between the bar and the pool for us.

The Kotani family had arrived from Japan and got settled into their hotel and rested up and joined us for dinner.

We had a great night catching up and getting to know their kids but got pretty worn out and headed to bed. In the morning we had breakfast

Then met them at the beach.

There was some good snorkeling right by the hotel and Pumpkin and I saw another turtle right away.

After lunch we checked out one of the pools at their hotel.

It was out of the sun and super convenient but a bit windy.

We went back to our room for a bit and that evening we walked down to what we called The Duke area, named after this famous surfer.

It was an easy walk and once there we found the waves were way stronger then by our section of beach. There were lots of surfers and both girls immediately accidentally got soaked in a surprise wave.

We grabbed a good spot to sitdown and found the Kotani’s.

Then watched a hula show.

At the end the kids went up and danced too.

It was pretty fun and got over just as the sun was setting.

We went across the street to Maui brewing for drinks and dinner/snacks.

We all walked back together and came across a break dancing street show.

It was great till they pulled me up and jumped over me then wanted $20 for the show. Evenyone else really enjoyed it though.

When we got near the hotels we were ready for dessert so got some frozen fruit ice stuff that was great.

The kids had found this place from a top things to do at Waikiki beach youtube video so were pretty excited when we actually went.

We all went back to our rooms and headed to bed.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was being the first one up and having an hour or so in the morning. I ran about every morning 3 miles or less, most mornings I’d use the hotel gym for a bit and jog up the stairs to our room on the 9th floor or go all the way to the top of the 16th floor. I even snorkeled mornings before everyone was up. One morning Heath jogged with me and another morning Pumpkin came.

The days all kinda blend together at this point but I think the next night we had a big curry dinner at the Kotani hotel.

We also watched the fireworks outside their hotel together.

That next day they had some friends to see so we headed back to the Duke area with our boogie boards.

The waves were super fun to play in.

We spent the whole day taking a little break for a ramen lunch

Then back to the waves.

We spent almost the whole day then met up to grill some dinner.

The next day we were a bit burned so stuck to the shady pool in the morning.

and after lunch went to a waterslide pool that was a ton of fun.

This was the Kotani’s last night so we got some good group pictures.

And we cooked an amazin’ dinner.

The next day we rented a car from Turo again and started the day with a hot humid crowded hike up diamond head crater.

This was something I really wanted to do but turned out to not really be worth doing

other then some cool views.

We drove on to another hike after that and it was way better.

Mostly we were out of the sun and in some really new environments.

This hike was like following a treasure map. We were often lost or turning around. We saw lots of other hikers but they were all most lost then us.

It was such a pretty area though so we kept going.

And we found enough clues that we were on the right path to keep us going.

And then we found the giant waterfall. It went a long way up that we could not see from the bottom.

It took most of the day but it was really fun.

Afterwords we stopped in a little authentic Hawaiian cafe type place and had a lot of new food that was good. We rushed on and drove a giant loop around almost the whole island. We stopped at shark’s cove (not because there are sharks there but because the shore is roughly shaped like a shark).

This was another of the coolest spots but it was all below the water.

My pictures are pretty crummy but this area was loaded with great fish. We saw a bunch of different colorful fish and some shrimp and eals and swam through giant schools. We were short on time though and had to rush back. We dropped the rental off at a lot near the beach by us and hung out in the water till sunset.

Meals from this point were just getting rid of as much of the food we had left as we could. The next morning we used some coupons for the hotel breakfast bar we got and stuffed our faces so full. Then we walked back down to the Duke area for some fun in the waves.

We took a few snacks and with such a big breakfast we made it all morning and most of the afternoon before we got hungry. Then we walked back to the room changed and went to a burger place and a brewery.

We nailed happy hour at both places but got to the brewery one just in time and the kids were not as interested in that spot.

So I walked them back to the hotel and we picked up a movie. The hotel gave us a card and we could rent free movies redbox style from a kiosk in the lobby. So they watched a movie and recovered while Heath and I had some fun a the bar.

That night we mostly relaxed in the room and started packing up. In the morning we rushed back to the beach one last time.

We mostly clowned around in the sand.

Then we went back to the room and got all packed up. We checked out but left our stuff there and walked over to a really cool military museum that used to be a crazy bunker.

Then our shuttle came and picked us up and took us back to the airport. We left around 4pm.

We flew to Minneapolis and it was like 6am when we arrived. On the 7+hr flight we all watched a few movies, had dinner, had breakfast and then arrived about ready for bed. We laid around that airport for an hour then flew an hour or two home. It was early in the day but we were all out of wack.

We extended the Prewitt 60 min vacation nap by an hour and then everyone was super angry with me when the alarms went off. We pushed through it and went out for fried chicken and spent the rest of the day putting everything away and looking forward to an early night.

For more of the best pictures from the trip here is a little gallery. https://prewitt.smugmug.com/Best-of-Hawaii/