Ten Years!

Ten.  TEN YEARS!  The beginning of May, Jacob and I celebrated our ten year anniversary.

A lot can happen in ten years.

A lot has happened in ten years.

We started as a family of two and are now a family of SIX.  SIX!  It's really amazing what ten years will do.  Yes, yes, I know it's all relative.  Many people have been married for a lot longer than that.  Someday in our gray hairs we'll look back and giggle.  But for now, it's a big deal and we wanted to celebrate!

For the past few years Jacob and I have talked about doing a big vacation for our 10 year anniversary.  We toyed around with a few options but eventually decided on.....

....HAWAII!

Can't you just hear the waves?  Taste the pineapple?  Smell the salty sea air?  Want to pull your hair out from saying "Aloha" 76 times a day?  I miss it already.  It was beautiful.  So without further ado, I hereby document OUR HAWAII TRIP.  

Since we flew out of Vegas Friday morning, we decided to get a cheap room in Mesquite the night before.  We made it down just in perfect time to hop on our plane and be on our way.  With the exception of the first hour, this is what I saw the remaining 4 1/2 hours on the plane:

 Water.  More water.  I always love being able to watch out the window when I fly, so I got a window seat.  Well, I didn't clue into what it would mean to be squished next to the window for the nearly 6 hours we would spend in a plane.  So I got smart and changed our returning flight seats to an aisle seat.  I prefer leg room over the hours of watching the Pacific Ocean and figuring out a new way to move my legs to get comfortable!  But, we made it, and it didn't take long for me to turn into the ultimate tourist and start taking pictures at the airport.  I just couldn't help myself.  I WAS REALLY, TRULY IN HAWAII!  Pinch me, Jacob!

We made it out of the airport, found the shuttle for our rental car, got a car all situated and headed on our way to our new home for the next 7 days.  I just have to add it was a HUGE bonus to have packed the GPS.  That little device saved our bacon and made our trip so much better!

We took some appreciated advice and decided to get out of Honolulu and stay in a condo out near the North Shore.  The drive up there was amazing.  I felt like I was driving through the exotic plant section of the Home Depot.  We were both in awe.  The vegetation was gorgeous!  And the flowers- oh the flowers!  Jacob loved all my little pit-stops to get pictures of flowers.  Like this:

And this:

And these too!

 Oh my heart.  So amazing! 

Here is the view from our lanai (balcony):

Um, can you say heaven?  I LOVED listening to the waves each night and morning.  

Speaking of night,  Hawaii is 4 hours behind us.  So what that means is that by 7-8:00 Hawaii time, we were so beat!  Thank goodness the sun goes down early so we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything.  Early to bed, early to rise.  Like, 5:00 in the morning rise!  Not too bad considering we got to watch the sun come up.  This was our little welcome gift for our first morning in Hawaii:

The best things in life really can't be bought.  So incredible.

Okay, all this talk of flowers and sunrises got me off track.  I need to finish off our first day.  So, we got to the condo then decided to get out and tour around our new little area and grab some groceries to have on hand.  While out and about, we drove past this awesome little fruit stand.  Pull over, Jacob!

I MUST try some coconut!  Grab a good one Jacob!

This guy and his wife own the fun little fruit stand.  For all you BYU football fans, come to find out the man who runs it is the father of Reno (Junior) Mahe.  Kind of fun!  He was a really nice man and cracked open my coconut in no time: 

First, drink the coconut water:

Second, try not to gag on coconut water.  Who really pays for this stuff?  Bleh!  I wanted so bad to like it!  Nope.  Not gonna happen.  I didn't want to offend the Mahe's so I had to pretend.  Did you know there is a LOT of water inside a coconut?  Well, there is.

Third, eat the coconut.  Ok, so here's the deal.  Jacob botched the whole getting a good coconut deal.  I at least like to throw some blame his way.  I think mine was a really young coconut because the inside was....how do I explain it?  Gooey?  Chewy?  Soft?  Rubbery?  Once again, disappointment.  But hey, the flowers were amazing.  And it makes for a great drinking-out-of-a-fresh-coconut picture, right?  Of course!  At least we came back to the condo with an amazingly fresh and ripe pineapple so it more than made up for it.

And well, that pretty well sums up our first day getting into Hawaii.  Oahu, to be exact.  So far...amazing!  Despite some coconut issues.  Stay tuned for day two!  And three and four and five and six and seven.  And wishing there was eight and nine and ten and eleven and.........