Aloha!

Apparently I'm all confused! Tues-Parasailing Wed-Plantation Thurs-Snorkeling Fri- Sat-lagoon We had the most amazing opportunity to go to Hawaii this past summer with Chris's parents. I have ALWAYS wanted to go there, so this was a dream come true and Landon and I got to share this "first" together. We were hesitant for a long time about going because it meant 12 hours of flying with a 7 month old, but how could we pass up such a tempting offer? It will only get harder with older or more kids and schedules will always be full, right? We had to jump on this! Well I'm so glad we did, because it was SO worth it. Landon did great on the flight out (except that we left his formula on the first flight...thankfully there was a sweet couple who also had a baby who donated some formula for our little guy) and Marmee and Grandpa were waiting not-so-patiently at the airport to see us. Let's be honest, they only wanted to see the cute little man. We got to our hotel room just in time to see the sunset. What a blessed sight after a long day!

(not bad for a hand held, slow shutter speed shot if I may say so) Our first day in Hawaii was a Sunday, so we started the day off by going to church! I love that they start off by saying "Aloha" and that locals do wear leis to church. The building had an open courtyard with the classrooms around it. I thought that was pretty cool!

We only stayed for Sacrament meeting and then we went for a drive so I could see this beautiful place! Some of the pictures are taken from a moving vehicle, which = a little blurry, but it was so beautiful that I couldn't help it! I definitely took about 1500 to 2000 pictures on this trip and it's so hard to sort through them and pick my favorites, so these are just ones that aren't necessarily the best but jumped out at me for some reason.

We stopped at a pretty little beach, my first Hawaiian beach!

We also stopped at the Halona Blowhole. So cool to see how lava hardens and makes such interesting features and scenic views!

After we had been driving for a little while, we stopped on the side of busy 2 lane road and had food from a stand. Landon got a chance to get out of his carseat and LOVED looking out his window at the passing traffic. He wouldn't track with just his eyes, but his whole head, so his head would follow one car or motorcycle and as soon as it was far gone, he would turn the other direction really quickly and follow the next car and so on. It was so cute! He wasn't too happy with us when he had to go back to his car seat though.

We finally made our way up to the Laie Temple. Most of the fountains weren't on, but it was such a beautiful temple that we spent quite a bit of time there and we had a great time talking to the sister missionaries who were serving there. Such a fun visitor's center!

One of the most wonderful things about the architecture and landscaping is all the symbolism. I love that everything was so thoughtfully planned out, yet so beautiful to the unknowing eye. I can't remember everything but here are a few of those things. The fountains weren't on, but normally water is flowing out of the shell and then into the cascading reflecting pools, which symbolizes love (I think) flowing from generation to generation. It looks like the fountains flow to the sea, just as generations go on and on into eternity.

The green mountains around the temple are so lush and picturesque.

Alongside the cascading pools, were 12 palm trees on each side. They represented the 12 Apostles, one set for the modern day Apostles and the other set represented the original ones who lived in Christ's day.

Of course our first full day in Hawaii couldn't be complete without some oh-so-good Hawaiian shaved ice. This ain't yo momma's sno cone! This is the real stuff! The ice cream on the bottom...mmmmm. Love the lilikoi flavor!