Hawaii 2018 - Oahu

{April 21st - 24th}

Brian and I got to take another amazing trip to Hawaii with his sister Cathey and her husband this year.

My parents were so amazing to watch all 3 boys for us for the week so we could go.

Last time we went to the Big Island and Kauai... this year we picked Oahu and Maui.

We flew into Oahu on Saturday afternoon and immediately hit Waikiki Beach after checking into our hotel.  We stated at the Marriott Waikiki and it was right across the street from the beach.  We had lunch at Duke's and laid out for awhile before hitting happy hour and dinner over at Tiki's next to our hotel.  There ended up being a really fun live band so we had a great first day.

The second day we got up early and hit Pearl Harbor first thing.  None of us had been before and it was such a cool experience!  I felt like everything was much more powerful visiting as a mother (of boys).  We took the tour of the Arizona Memorial first and they do an awesome job of explaining the history of the day (and war) and how the events unfolded. 

The statistic that stuck with me the most as a boy mom was that of 38 sets of brothers on the USS Arizona, 23 sets were lost.  This amounted to a total of 79 individual brothers service on the USS Arizona, of which 63 died as a result of the attack.  There were 3 sets of 3 brothers: one from each set survived. 

I cannot even imagine that for my boys or as a mother.  So heartbreaking!

The memorial is very somber and they really emphasize that you are visiting a gravesite with several hundred men buried beneath you.

The USS Bowfin submarine.

We opted out of touring this one.

The view of the USS Missouri from the Arizona Memorial

Since 1982, the U.S. Navy has allowed survivors of the USS Arizona to be interred in the ship's wreckage upon their deaths.  Following a full military funeral at the Arizona memorial, the cremated remains are placed in an urn and then deposited by divers beneath one of the Arizona's gun turrets.  To date, more than 30 Arizona crewman who survived Pearl Harbor have chosen the ship as their final resting place.  

The ship still leaks about 2 gallons of fuel every day- referred to as the tears of the Arizona.

When we finished up at the USS Arizona, we took the bus over to tour the USS Missouri battleship.  

We did the quick tour beforehand where we had an awesome guide.  He explained several things about the ship as well as the signing of the treaty that ended WWII on the USS Missouri in detail. 

After the tour, we got to explore around all over the ship.

We finished up checking everything out around noon and left for lunch.

We hit up Kono's for some awesome pulled pork sandwhiches/burritos and then checked out Lanikai Beach and Kailua Beach over on the southeast coast.  We were really turned off by the city of Honolulu but we loved the sweet little surfer town of Kailua!

We had a quick dinner at Maui Mike's Chicken and crashed out early again.

These pics are all from Lanikai Beach.

(I didn't get any at Kailua Beach)

It was breezy and a little overcast this afternoon but still might be my favorite beach we went to.

We took the 'long' way home and drove the southern coastline back to Honolulu.

An awesome over look just after sunset.

The third day on Oahu we drove up the eastern coast to the North Shore.

I loved this day!

We packed a ton in and started off at Sunset Beach.

The waves were good but there was a super strong rip current that made it hard to do much in the water without getting exhausted.

We stopped and checked out some surfers at the Banzai Pipeline next.

It was pretty windy and the waves were much too big for us to get in the water... but super fun to watch surfers surf under the huge waves.

We went up to the surfer town of Haleiwa for lunch at the food trucks.

We tried the shrimp from Giovanni's (not my absolute favorite) and had some poke/tacos.

We hit up Matsumotos shaved ice next and then headed back east to snorkel at Shark's cove.

We hung out at Waimea Bay next which was awesome.

We didn't luck out with calm water, so there were more huge waves that the boys liked to play in.

Cathey and I got tumbled pretty good and it scared us out of the water after that.

The lifeguard even came on a few times saying only strong swimmers should be in the water and no kids!

On our drive back down to Honolulu, we made 1 last quick stop to check out some turtles at Laniakea Beach (also known as Turtle  Beach) and sunset.

We made a quick pit stop at Leonard's for some donuts before bed and our early flight to Maui the next day.