Scott and Julie's Hawaii Adventure!

We went to Hawaii for our 5th anniversary and we had a great time.  Here are a few highlights:

Pearl Harbor was the first thing we went to on Tuesday morning.  This is us at the Visitor's Center with the USS Arizona Memorial in the far background.  There were several museums here and we watched a 20-minute film about what happened here.  Then they took us out to the USS Arizona Memorial by boat.

This is the entrance to the memorial as you get off the boat.  And here are some photos of the actual ship:

It was very sobering to think about what they went through and the lives that were lost.

We also went to the Dole Plantation that day.

It was really interesting to see the tiny pineapples just starting out.  We ate the YUMMIEST pineapple we had ever tasted and the Dole Whips were very refreshing on a hot day!

On Wednesday, we went to the beach in the morning, and then went to the temple in Laie.  It is a very beautiful temple, although much smaller than we had thought.

On Thursday we spent some time at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  There were six different cultures or villages we could visit and they each had presentations/shows/activities to see and do.  It was lots of fun.

As you can see, we were treated to a colorful display of dancing and entertainment.

On Friday, we went on a catamaran that took us out to a place where we could go snorkeling.  We saw lots of fish, a sea turtle, and an octopus!  After we were finished snorkeling, we sailed on the catamaran for awhile and saw a pod of 7 dolphins swimming together -- it was pretty cool!

That evening we went back to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a luau and their evening show.  We weren't allowed to take pictures but that show was one of the highlights of the trip.  It was amazing.

We saw some beautiful areas of the islands all during the week.

And in our in between times, we spent some time at the beach.  The water is beautiful and it's really nice to swim in.  Those were my favorite times.  It was cool and relaxing and so "Hawaiian!"

We had a great time and hope to go back one day to visit one of the other islands.