Hawaii, baby!

So I know I have been out of touch and the time gets longer and longer until I finally post, but I am sorry. I need to make this a little bit bigger priority. But I just thought I'd let you all know that Brad and I just got back from Hawaii! We went there with my sister Brianna and her husband Owen. We had so much fun! Yes we missed the kids but it was so nice not to have to worry about what to do with them and keeping them entertained the whole time. Instead we enjoyed the 10 days with just us. Thank you so much Erika, Mom and Dad (Stapley), Shanell, and my friend Shay. You guys were so awesome to step in and help take care of the girls while we were gone. Thank you, thank you!

To begin our adventure, we caught a plane on Jan. 20th from St. George to SLC @ 10am and met up with Brianna and Owen to fly the remainder of the route straight to Oahu. We stayed in Waikiki for the first 3 days. During those days we visited the North end of the island where we passed right by the Dole Pineapple plantation (which btw has the most tasty Pineapple sherbet ever!), we briefly visited the temple because it's been under complete rennovation and will continue to be until the summer sometime, then continued on to the PCC. We decided to stay for the luau and show and it was worth staying the evening for. It's one of those places you have to go atleast once but then you're good! We also took the opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor and shop at the famous Aloha Stadium Swap Meet.



Then the other part of our adventure began. We flew to Maui on the 23rd and as far as we're concerned, we were a whole lot more impressed by the beauty of this island over Oahu. Between Jan-Mar is Whale season and the whales are so common during this time that was saw them everywhere we went right off the coast. Maui was more like what you envision Hawaii to be, with just enough conveniences yet the right amount of remoteness. We stayed in a town called Lahaina on the west side of Maui. We rented a car and cute two room condo for a week. It was nice to not be too far away from places to eat. If any of you know Brad, no matter where we go, our vacations always revolve around food, so this town was perfect! One of the first things we did was sign up with a bike tour that takes you to the top of the volcano(dormant) Haleakala (means "house of the sun" because they say it looks like to sun comes right out of the volcano) at 4am to watch the sun rise then we hopped on bikes and coasted down the mountain for about 24 miles.
It was beautiful but freezing at the top.
One day we drove on the famous road to Hana. This is a small, winding road that takes you along the back side of Haleakala where there is lush Rainforest. We were in hopes to see some large waterfalls, but the rainy season over there (which was then) is sort of in a drought, but who knew! we did see a couple of waterfalls, at some super good, warm banana bread in a small village, and hiked over lava tubes.



Another day we went on a snorkel boat which ended up being a whale and dolphin watch as well. We saw whales all over the place and large pods of dolphins. The captain sailed us out to the island of Lana'i to snorkel in a few spots.
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It was a long boat ride but it was fun. Later we found a hike called the swinging bridges that takes you to a waterfall and a natural pool. That was really neat.


The rest of our time there we pretty much snorkeled, ate, shopped, chilled, and drove around.

The final day we went snorkeling and I finally got to see a turtle up close. I was literally within inches. Loved it!! We had so much fun!