Beaches, Sunburn, HAWAII

Matt and I got home from Hawaii today. We had an amazing trip!! It will be impossible to summarize it all here but I'll hit a few highlights. We were so excited to get back to the kids. That was a long time to be away but they had a great time with Grandma! My folks took them to their house last weekend and they got to spend time with cousins. My mom brought them back on Monday night and stayed here at our house and taxied them around to school, basketball, piano practice and dance class. She's amazing!! I think the kids missed Koda just as much as they missed us...maybe even more!

We spent most of our time on the Big Island and checked out all of the amazing resorts and beaches. We checked into housing and shopping too to see if a move there someday would even be possible. We've decided it's a definite possibility but probably not anytime soon. We went to church there and felt at home. It reminded us so much of the branch in Saipan. Our favorite memories of Saipan are of the branch and all we learned there. We were able to do a session in the Kona temple and loved that too.

We stayed at the Worldmark Resort on Kona which is close to the downtown festivities. The larger resorts are further up the coast. Each of them are set up on acres and acres of ocean front property.
A dolphin at the Hilton Resort in Waikoloa.

Enjoying the sunset on the beach at the Mauna Lani Resort. One of our favorites.


We took a day and drove all the way around the big island. We stopped at Volcano National Park. You can see the huge Caldera behind me. It is active hot spot. We weren't allowed to drive on the road around it because the gas levels were too dangerous for breathing.
We had a great view of it from the historic Volcano hotel though.


We spent our last day on the big island relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean. After I got FRIED we took a stroll up the beach and watched these turtles having their turn in the sun. It was fun to watch them come in with a wave, relax for a while and then head back out to sea.
On our drive around the big island we stopped at a black sand beach. It's hard to see how dark the sand was in this picture. It was a true "black sand" that you could sink your toes into.



We spend our last on Oahu. We rented a convertable in Honolulu and drove around the island. Definitely the way to travel and take it all in. The views were amazing.


We started out the drive with a stop at Pearl Harbor. We road a boat out to the memorial that sits over the sunken USS Arizona. It has a list of the people who died when the Arizona sunk...over 1000 people. It was a sobering experience. It is such a beautiful peaceful harbor. We were there at 8:00 am and the attack happened around that same time in 1941. I can not imagine what it was like to be taken by surprise with such a horrible attack.


The view from the memorial. You can see the sunburn I'm still sporting even as I type.






Some views from our drive around the island of Oahu. Can you say WOW!!?



Who's that hottie on the beach? Matt kept getting chased by these waves. We were on the North Shore and were able to watch some surfers catch some waves. It sure looked fun!


We stopped at the Honolulu temple and BYU Hawaii. The church bought over 6000 acres there in the late 1800's. The temple was built in 1919 I believe. It's some prime property and the church has made good use of all that land with the Polynesian Culture Center. We didn't stop there because we didn't have enough time to make it work our pretty penny.


We ended the day at Waikiki. What a happening place. We spent a few hours there, watched the sunset and then headed to the airport last night. Our flight was during the night and we slept through most of it. We arrived in SLC to cold rainy weather and shortly after we got home it started SNOWING!! Big switch from the world we just left.

We had a great week. It went really quickly and we feel lucky to have gone. It was great to get home to our little family. They were well taken care of while we were gone and had a great time.
While we were gone I made the decision to not do Real Estate full time anymore. I had applied to another job looking for a more regular schedule but decided that I didn't want that either. It really hit me when I was sitting in the Kona Temple. I hadn't gone in thinking about it but it's amazing how clear my perspective gets in the temple. I really don't want anything else to focus on but our little family. Matt will look for a job back in the hospitality industry. I will keep my license and maybe use it once in a while but it will not be my focus. Real Estate consumes me too much. I had decided that last year in Boise but then we made the decision to come to CV, we thought it would work as long as we made sure Matt could be home with them. He is amazing with them and they've been lucky to get so much time with Dad the past 7 months. It is I that has been missing out! These kids are growing up too quickly for me to be so busy focused on anything but them. I feel lucky to be their mom. Matt and I have been married 10 years and it has really hit me hard that in 10 more years our kids will be starting to leave home and in 15 they will all be grown! 10 years is not very long! If I put half the energy I put into real estate into running a household I might actually get organized. ha ha!
Until Matt is able to find a full time job I will still do real estate a bit or maybe pick up a lunch shift waitressing. I like to work but I need a job that I can leave at work.

So, that might mean a move in our future! Now, that is exciting! ha ha