Friday, June 22, 2007

Aloha, Part 1

For those of you that have been patiently waiting . . .

Well, Mike and I made it safely back from our vacation in Hawaii. We got home two weeks ago and after about 12 hours of traveling (some delays - but who is counting), we were so excited to see the kids again and tell them all about our trip. Being we did so much and took so many pictures, I am going to break this into several parts over the next couple of days. We arrived on Wednesday, March 30th about 11AM local time but with the time change we were quite tired so on the first day we decided to just check out the hotel grounds and hang out at the beach. We stayed at the Hale Koa Hotel, which is an Armed Forces resort located on Waikiki Beach in Oahu. We had heard wonderful things about it but didn't realize what a wonderful and beautiful place it was until we got there. The hotel was built sometime in the early 70's and then another tower was added in the 90's. Our room was located on the older side but besides the lime green tile in the shower, you would have never known it was the older side. Our room was a "two view" room which meant we had two complete walls of the room that were windows. One faced downtown Honolulu and the other had a balcony that overlooked the ocean. What a view! Upon our wandering, we discovered wonderful grounds with three pools, a GREAT bar, and a beautiful beach that is only seen in postcards! The beach was much less crowded than any other part of the beaches that we walked along later. Mike spent the first day wading in the water as I watched from the beach. My hesitance with the water ended up dying down as the week went on. We then had a small dinner at Biba's Cafe at the Hale Koa and headed for bed early so we could have energy to explore the island the next day.Stay tuned for Part 2.

Our hotel - we were in the tower on the left.

The beach at the Hale Koa - it was so nice because there weren't that many people there compared to other beaches that we went to.
We decided to try one of the restaurants at the hotel the first night we were there. Mike looks like he is getting into the vacation train of thought . . .
The view out of our hotel balcony.
The beach at the Hale Koa - it was nice because it wasn't so crowded!

1 comment:

Shelley said...

I am so jealous! The colors of the water and sky really remind me of our honeymoon cruise...which is probably the only real vacation we will ever take!

I bet you guys had the time of your life without having to worry about naptimes, whining and babytalk! And I thought our 4 hours out on Fathers day was amazing!

Keep the pictures coming!!!