Im back :)

Well, I am back!!

I had the opportunity to be able to go to Hawaii with my best friend with out husbands and without kids. It is so weird how smoothly it went!! Seriously, it just seemed like everything just fell into place. We had so much fun and made so many great memories. Here are some pictures.

About to take off
One of the hotels next to ours, we got so lucky at the place we stayed, it was awesome!! Right when we got there we got our suits on and went down to the pool (this is the sight from the pool)

I love this picture of Tara, way too cute :)

We loved these trees

There were tons of beautiful Koi ponds with HUGE fish in it.

How many hotels have flamingos walking around?!?!

View from our window
About to go out to meet up with a good friend...for some reason the guy who took this picture couldn't get it centered :)
We got to meet up with an old friend from school who lives there, we were so excited to meet up with her and got to go out to a great dinner and did some window shopping on Waikiki
Out of our hotel room window after getting back.


The next day we check out and laid by the pool and then went to the Ala Moana Mall and shopped and had lunch then headed for the airport to go to Kona.

Leaving the Hilton Hawaiian after laying out by the pool.....little did we know how much sun we actually got. We were bummed that we weren't getting any sun and then like 3 hours later we were burnt.

The first day in Kona we went to go find this beach. We seriously walked a good mile or two through sand and rock. It was worth it in the end though.
After swimming with the turtles.
This is where we snorkeled/swam to get to the Turtles. We saw about 5 and one swam past me (and scared me) and then when we got back to the beach there were 2 more
After our long walk back we went to a great beach called Kua Bay. It wasn't as nice as it was when James and I went 2 years ago, but still the sand was just as soft and the water was just as clear :)

I was very intimidated by the waves...they were really hard to judge....we would say we were going in and then chicken out after a huge wave would barrel over a bunch of people
That night we got to go to the Kona Hawaii Temple. Unfortunately it was closed so we had to only take pictures from outside the gates.

Aren't those some of the coolest trees?!

My sister showing off her 12 week belly :) isn't she cute?! This is her first and it is just so exciting because she never thought she would have kids and neither did any of us. We all knew she would be a great mom so when she got pregnant we were just so excited!

This was a great night, we went to a restaurant/bar on the beach and listened to some wonderful music
Listening to music, it was a great live band and some dancing....we got to watch a lot of couples who had had a bit too much to drink go out on the dance floor...pretty hilarious!

Getting ready to go Kayaking. We went to a place called Kealakekua Bay where Capt. Cook arrived and discovered Hawaii (I think that is right) It is such a historical place and I can't wait to learn more about it.

Starting off on our journey. It took about 30 minutes to get to the other side of the cove. See the land ahead of me?? that is where we went.

Tara and I trying to stay ahead of the group.....no such luck, they passed us and left us in their dust. Right after this Mario decided to get us totally soaked. Also right after this........I got so sea sick....I have decided that kayaking is not for me. It made it so hard to kayak back....and I got just as sick on the way back as I did there.

I love my sister :)

Waiting to start swimming

There were so many different fish and creatures down there, it was fascinating!!

I love the different colors here

This is the newest family member of the Toranzo family, we went to a really old church that is historic after kayaking and this little guy was sitting there patiently waiting for a loving family....he was so so so dirty and so so so skinny. He came right up to us wanting some "love". Mario gave him a ham sandwich and he gobbled it up and Shan and Mario (and me) fell in love with it, it is seriously one of the sweetest cats ever!! My sister was worried that it belonged to someone (you could tell it had been homeless for a long long time) and my reaction is that if it did belong to someone, they didn't obviously care for it and it is now in such a wonderful home. Welcome Sam Toranzo!!!
We were totally in love with Shannon's yard, they had mangoes, pineapple, these lime type things and tons of different types of flowers....so I had to get some pictures of them :)
Hibiscus flowers, are they beautiful?!

The cutest little pineapple you will ever see!! How many of you knew that they grew on the ground and NOT in a tree?! oh come on, fess up :)

Finally after the whole trip the last night we finally found a penny machine. Tara was looking everywhere for them. Jason even asked one night on the phone if she had found one....they collect them where ever they go.

After everything we had a great trip. We had such a long day on Monday and drove home from Portland after. I am definitely glad to be home, but then I wish we had more time there. I am so glad that I shared this experience with such a great friend.

Although everything went so dang smooth I do have a funny story which was honestly the only "bump" we had in the whole trip. Last week I went to renew my license which was expired. I didn't realize they only give you a piece of paper and you have to wait 2 weeks for it to come in the mail. I asked them if I would have any problems with it and they said "no" and that people have to accept it. I didn't have ANY problems the whole trip with it....nobody questioned it. Well, on our last day when we went to the airport we were about to go through security and they took my license and started questioning me, they were questioning that it was fake. The lady that the main security lady called over was sooooo not nice and was so mean!! they wanted me to go through another screening (which would have been fine) but the lady was so mean and seriously was treating me like I was a felon!!! they had to pat me down search through all of my stuff and quarantined me in front of everyone!! it was one of the most humiliating things I have been through. I just stood there and bawled my eyes out....that was pretty embarrassing in it self :) I can only laugh about it now and hope I gave all the on lookers a good story to take home with them!! I can picture them sitting with their family saying "you should have saw this girl just in hysterics at the airport! It was sooo funny!!"

:)