the freyed knot: Hawaii

This post is WAY overdue! Things have been busy and I haven't been in the mood to blog, but I can't put it off any longer. Gabe and I had a fabulous time on our vacation. It was like a honeymoon all over again. It was a much needed trip for both of us. Life with two small kids has worn me ragged and I was pretty burnt out. A trip with this cute boy is just what I needed!

We visited two islands...Oahu first and then Maui. I'll start with Maui because I accidentally entered the pics in the wrong order.

Haleakala:
This cute boy had the bright idea of waking up at 2:00am in the morning, driving 2+ hours in the car, and freezing our butts off, all to see a sunrise on top of this dormant volcano. Okay, it wasn't JUST a sunrise. It was a sunrise ABOVE the clouds. And it was FABULOUS. Well, maybe for him. But, not so much for me. In my opinion, if you've seen one sunrise, you've seen them all. It just wasn't quite worth it to me to loose that much sleep, especially in freezing cold weather.

Mama's Fish House:
The BEST seafood restaurant we ate at. Fancy, overpriced, but great food. It was right on the beach and was quite lovely! I'll have to admit that I do love to wine and dine. Minus the wine.

Hana Highway:
Oh, Hana. How I do not miss thee. Hana is a highway along the coast. AKA, a scenic drive. We rented a mustang convertible and had a lot of fun driving this windy road. We stopped a million times and hiked to beautiful waterfalls, fresh and salt water natural pools, and various beaches. It was great until our last stop. When we got stranded. And I was tired. I'll share all about this in a separate post because this little adventure deserves it's OWN post!

Old Lahaina Luau:

The BEST luau ever! We loved it. Everything about it was perfect. We were each greeted with leis made of fresh flowers. The pig was roasting underground when we arrived and we later watched them retrieve the pig right before dinner. Dinner was a yummy buffet and you got all the fruity drinks you wanted. The servers were fabulous. They were all Hawaiian. During dinner we watched a show complete with dancers wearing coconut bras and grass skirts made out of real tea leaves. They told the history of Hawaii. It was great! This was one of my favorite events.

Dinner Cruise:

Romantic and sweet. The food was good. It was hot until the sun went down, but I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with my man!

Now, on to Oahu. We rented a mustang convertible on this island as well and drove along some scenic highways along the coast. I really enjoyed all the beautiful scenery on this island. It was much livelier here, but if you got away from the shopping stores and restaurants and drove around the island, in my opinion, it was more beautiful than Maui.

During our drive, we stopped here and literally hiked through the jungle up a steep hill for about 45 minutes in search for our first waterfall. It was a little scary being out in this "jungle," but the the waterfall was well worth the hike!

The view from our hotel room...

Pearl Harbor: By far, one of my least favorites. Just not my cup of tea. On this ship you could take a guided tour OR a tour with an ipod. They had both a short version and long version. He decided we would do the tour with the ipod so we could "hear" better, along with the longer version. Geez!