Where were you one year ago?

Can you guess where we were?

Hawaii!! I started our blog shortly after our trip and so I thought it would be fun to share our adventure a year later. We got to spend about five days in Hawaii. It was beautiful and relaxing.

One of the fun things about our trip was that good friends were vacationing there at the same time. It's our first trip we've been on that we actually have pictures of us.

Our first full day (well mine, Dallin had been there all week on a business trip), we met up with everyone at the temple. The grounds were so beautiful. And then everyone went inside and we drove up the coast until they were through. A little date had missed our inspection and so we missed out (a good lesson in keeping track of your recommend expiration). Driving up the coast was almost as good as spending the morning in the temple.

After our drive, we met the Norton's, Chapman's and Hamilton's and spent the rest of the day at the Polynesian Culture Center - what an amazing place. I loved learning about all of the different islands - and the entertainment was amazing.

On Sunday we took a literal day of rest. We skipped out on a hike up Diamond Head - for which the Norton's will always give us grief. But I've seen the pictures and it's amazing. We went to a ward near our hotel - planning to stay for sacrament, but it was so great we stayed for the entire block of meeting. Then we spent the rest of the day just hanging. We sat on the balcony for hours just reading and enjoying each others company (and napping). It was great!! I also met my little Hawaiian friend on our restful day. This bird decided that we had a pretty nice balcony - we had already seen him on the balcony before, but I felt sorry for him on Sunday as he stared at me while I was eating my lunch. I finally gave in and threw him a little nibble and that was the end of our friendship. He kept getting closer and closer to me - greedier and greedier. Then he called all of his friends over - we probably had almost 10 birds on the balcony at one point. Dallin wanted to know what I had done to attract so much bird love - I told him I just threw one little piece of food. He said, "Duh!!!"

We made up for our lack of activity on Sunday by spending all day Monday in the water. The start of the day began a little rough - the parking lot at Hananuma Bay was full so we parked at the bottom of a very busy hill and walked up. And then we walked back down to actually get to the bay. But when we finally got snorkeling it was fabulous. Okay - I'll admit, it was not my favorite thing to do. I had no idea I had such clautrophobia issues. However, I loved what I got to see and experience under the water (when I could relax enough to enjoy it). Dallin loved it - he even had a close encounter with an eel which I so badly wish we could have captured on film.

For the rest of the afternoon, we drove further north up the coast and spent time on the beach. The boys went boogie boarding and the girls chatting on dry land. It was so enjoyable and fun to be in such a fantastic place with good friends.
We spent the next several days on the beach, by the pool, driving up the coast again, eating famous shaved ice, having a fabulous anniversary dinner (how great is it that our last minute, not really planned trip, fell on our anniversary?). I wonder what people thought of us when we were relaxing by the pool - I'm confident they had no idea we were together. Dallin got too much sun snorkeling so he stayed in the shade watching movies on his laptop. I read my book and kept moving to find the sunny spots. We are such exciting vacationers - but we thoroughly loved and enjoyed our trip.