Hawaii- July 2014

After our crazy Japanese exit, our first stop in the good ol' USA was HAWAII. It was a perfect combination of the tropical island we just left, and the country that we love and missed. Our hotel was directly across the street from Waikiki beach and the kids could not be any more excited. All we had to do was throw on our swimsuits and walk over. 

When we were organizing our suitcases in Okinawa before we left, realized that in the craziness of the typhoon and all the rushing around, half of the boy's clothes got left at the Fryar's house and we couldn't go to their house to get them. So our first order of business was to buy the boys a swimsuit. Luckily there was a Ross just around the corner with two $5 swimsuits. Sweet. Problem solved.

It was so nice to be in Hawaii, relaxing and spending time together now that all the hard part was over. We were back in the states, all of our paperwork, checklists, cleaning and everything else we had to do to get off Okinawa were done. Now we could just have fun!

It was so funny to think that this was Taylor's first experience in the US. Our little Japanese baby was clearly enjoying himself. He did so good through all of the craziness and we were grateful for that.

One of our days there was spent on the other side of the island. We saw BYU-Hawaii, the temple and the Polynesian Cultural Center. The kids were a little sad to not be running around on the beach that day, but we all ended up enjoying it.

This temple and the grounds are amazingly beautiful.

If you have never been to the PCC, it is a must see. There are so many fun cultural experiences to be had. I would love to go to Hawaii with just Justin some time, but even with the kids, it was really fun.

They had little stations where you could get a temporary "tattoo" stamp. We all went to get one, except for Anderson. He could not understand why we would want to do that. We even put one on Taylor to show him that it wasn't a big deal, but he was not having any part of that.

Another must see is Pearl Harbor. Justin and I both enjoy history, but war history is one of Justin's favorites. So this was right up his alley. It's an emotional place to visit, when you realize all of the devastation that happened there.

The boys loved all of the ships, guns, missiles and submarines. It was all very fascinating for them.

This is the spot where you can go and look down at the USS Arizona that is still in the water. There is still a drop of oil that will float to the top every few minutes. They leave the ship there as the resting place for so many that died inside the ship.

This was our view from our hotel room. Pretty crappy, right?

Lots of our time was spent just playing on the beach or in the pool. We bought these little floaties for the boys and they went back and forth on the waves for hours. Honestly, they could have done this all day.

This was making us contemplate getting on the plane to leave. How do you ever get sick of that view??

We went to church close by our hotel. We ate lunch out on the lawn after and did a little swinging on the tree vines. 

Justin was having a little too much fun. :)

Then we took one last drive up to a view point before heading to the airport. We were a little disappointed that it was cloudy but the lush green hills were amazing nonetheless. And even though we were sad to leave this amazing vacation spot, we couldn't wait for what was coming next... FAMILY! Our next stop was Utah.