Honeymoon with a Bear

Let me just preface with I don't do well on planes...I have to eat the entire time or I get sick to my stomach, I can't read because I get sick, so that leaves Matt with a lot of responsibility to entertainment for the duration of a flight. Kudos to Matt! :) We flew from IAD to San Fran and from there to Honolulu. Our flight into Honolulu was a little late, I don't exactly recall why but when we finally got off the plane we were greeted at the airport with leis and someone to carry my suitcase that wasn't Matt :) We also got our on personal charter bus to cart us to our hotel in Waikiki :)

Sorry for looking so rough this is what a long ass flight will do to me :P
We arrived at our hotel with no time to loose and hurried over to the Hilton Hawaiian Village for a luau! :) OMG the food was amazing!! The BBQ was amazing! And the fresh fruit! And hello Mai Tais and Pina Coldas!

They also had an awesome show with hula dancers and fire throwers! Once of the guys looked like Matt's good friend Nick so we had to take a pic with Hawaiian nick!

We had an amazing view from our room that looked out onto the beach

Our hotel included an all you can eat breakfast buffet that we put a major hurtin' on the first day :) Then we spent some time soakin' up some rays out on the hotel's private beach.

I wanna go back right now! We then hiked to the top of Diamond Head...yes I actually hiked with little whining. This is the view of Diamond Head from our room.

Proof that I made it to the top along with our amazing view of Oahu.


One night we had some amazing food eating at this revolving restaurant called Top of Waikiki. I took a picture of it, it's at the top of a hotel with an amazing view and WONDERFUL pork ribs! They know their pigs in Hawaii :)

We rented a car, mind you it was an old dodge neon that reminded me of Leon the Neon and made pretty much the same noise, and drove out to the North Shore for the day to swim with the sharks. Yes that is correct the one thing my husband (I have a husband! ah!) wanted to do on our honeymoon was to swim with the sharks. So I told him that I would go along for the ride...and by ride I mean swim. Since it was in a cage I figured I could do this. It was the getting in and out of the cage that freaked me out more then anything else. The instructions, or lack there of, did not put my nerves at ease. I wish I had a picture of the cage hanging off the back of the boat to give you an idea of the efforts that were taken to get in but unfortunately we were the first group. The water was so choppy that I kept swallowin' the salt water that by the time I was sitting on that rockin' boat I was feelin' quite ill. So back to gettin' into the cage...you had to face the boat with your back to the ocean and step down a ladder (actually the cage rungs) to get inside...there are sharks swimming all around at this point from another boat that had chummed the water. I'm attempting to step down this lopsided cage with only half a toe on the rung so that nothing will slip out and get eaten. After I reach a certain rung I am then suppose to gracefully swim over to the other side of the cage and hold on. Well I dove over (bruises then ensued at a later date from limbs meeting steel cage). I think had my hands place inside above whatever bar they instructed and barely half of each big toe on a bar. At this point I begin to pee and do not believe I stop peeing until I am safely back on the boat. So the conversation that Matt and I had about swimming with the sharks prior to going came true...I knew I was gonna pee myself...Thank God I was in a bathing suit! :P
Here is a view of the shark infested waters from the boat

Here are some pictures of our shark experience:




We then spent the rest of the day hanging out at a few different beaches on the North Shore...

We then had lunch at this fun little shrimp shack...AMAZING Coconut shrimp as well as corn,Matt got some spicy shrimp concoction.

We then wrapped up our last day on Oahu with a visit to the Dole Plant!

I had some of the most AMAZING pineapple icecream of my life and a pineapple has not tasted as good since all the fresh pineapple that we devoured in HI.

I think my favorite Hawaiian saying was 'Mahalo' I would say it any chance I got and I was so excited that Dole had a sign!

The following morning we flew over to Hilo on the Big Island. We visited some pretty cool places before heading to our B&B in Volcano Village. We visited this really neat little island off Hilo called Coconut Island and I loved the signs that were posted all over

We went to this awesome black sand beach and hiked around on the volcanic rock.


I was obsessed with NeNe, Hawaiian geese, for the duration of our time on the Big Island.


We drove around Volcano National Park at night and it was like we stepped into Jurassic Park, I was pretty certain at any moment a dinosaur of some stature would come barrelling through the trees at our rental car. It was wicked awesome.

We also took a helicopter ride over Hilo and the Volcano National Park. It was a pretty awesome experience. We got to see lava flowing into the ocean!! And we also flew over this one section of land that still had a house on it where the man refuses to leave...crazy. Once the lava takes your house and the land, technically you still own it and you can move back/rebuild, however the electric company refuses to come back and put down lines so you have to get a rain catcher as a water supply and use solar panels.



Did I mention the AMAZING coffee that we had the entire duration of our honeymoon...that is the one piece of hawaii that we did bring back with us :) Yummy! We want to go back and visit Maui as well as the Kona side of the Big Island as well as spending more time on the North Shore because it was awesome! :)
Aloha!