Mele Kalikimaka.

For Christmas of 2005 my family went to Hawaii! Ever since I can remember my mom has been saving up sky miles and money so that my family can take a trip to Hawaii! We finally decided to go right before Mike graduated High School. The whole month before we were all stocked about going! My mom was obsessed with the song "Mele Kalikimaka" because that is how you say Merry Christmas in Hawaiian. Looking back, I can honestly say that this is the best trip my family has ever been on!

This is the picture of us in the airport. Believe it or not, this picture was actually in the newspaper and talked about family's going places for the holidays! Yes... we are basically famous!

I remember the flight being the longest thing in my life! When we got there, it was night time. We took a taxi to our hotel and I remember driving by the ocean and being blown away by the beauty of this island! Our hotel was not the greatest on Maui but we had lots of fun! Below is a picture of my brother and me fighting! And yes... that would be Matt's finger in Spencer's ear!

We did a lot of fun things on the island of Maui. There are a lot of things to do and I would dare say... we did most of them! We took a day of "sight seeing" and drove around the island! We started at Pearl Harbor. It was so interesting and cool to see what happened there. We also took a tour on a battleship! I remember it being really hot but also very interesting! Below is a picture of the fam at Pearl Harbor!

We also stopped on our car trip at a lighthouse! It was off in the ocean and we stop and read a sign about it. As you can see in the picture below, the boys weren't very excited about it... Mike was just happy he had his beef jerky... and so was Matt! But I actually thought it was really pretty! You can actually see the lighthouse in the picture, it is between mine and Spencer's heads!

During the drive we stopped at some different places. I remember driving along the side of the road and being able to see guys surfing on these huge waves! It was fascinating to me! After a long and awaited car ride, we finally got to out last stop! The gorgeous Hawaii Temple! It truly was gorgeous and I was so glad we made the long trip out there! We went into the visitors center and they took us on a little tour of the temple! It was so cool to go there and see the famous temple!

We had a blast on the island of Maui but we didn't stay there very long... we actually spent most of our time on Kauai. It was beautiful! My favorite part of the island was the billions and billions of chickens! They were EVERYWHERE! It was so funny! Supposedly, back in the day they had a huge storm and it blew all of the chickens out of their pens. Then, chickens became wild and now they are everywhere! Our new hotel was a Marriott and it was really nice! There was actually a really cute hot dog place just down the street called Puka Dogs! They were delicious! I put mangoes on mine! Below is a picture of the fam eatin our dogs!

My favorite part about Kauai was the rope swing! Our friends the Blaylocks told us about it and then it was our quest to find it! We actually ended up talking to some locals about it! And eventually, we found it! It was in the core of the island and you had to hike a ways for it! Below is a picture of us on our way to the rope swing! When we got there I was blown away! It was absolutely stunning! There was a huge river which had a waterfall flowing into a huge pond of water. Then there was a huge tree with a rope attached to it! There was a ladder up the side of the mountain so you could climb back up! Since it was just a place for the locals, no one was there! A funny side story... we were walking across the river trying to go over to the tree and my mom, who was carrying all of our stuff, slipped and fell into the water. All of our stuff started floating down the river! We ended up catching everything and we laid out all of our electronics and luckily enough, nothing was broken!

Back to the Rope Swing! We (dad, mike, spencer, matt, me) were all standing at the top by the huge tree. My dad had the rope in his hand and asked, "Ok who's going first?" Everyone just stared blankly at my dad. A) We had no idea if it was safe and B) it was really high! So... me being the only girl and the only one scared of hights, finally volunteered to go first! Yes, needless to say I was about to pee my pants! But I gripped that rope tighter than anything in my life, said my prayers, and jumped! It was one of the biggest rushes in my life! The water was freezing but it was so worth it! We swung for a while and then, after we were all exhausted, we left.

On our way back from the rope swing, we stopped at Banana Joe's. It was a cute little shack that we had heard about. We went in and all got banana smoothies... they were actually really disgusting! Haha so we threw them away, but we got a pretty cute picture of matt and me in front of the shack!

Christmas was on a Sunday and we attended church! It was an incredible experience to go to church in Hawaii! The members were so welcoming and even made us leis (you can see in the picture below) We even ran into our friends The Smiths and went to church with them! It was such an awesome experience and I am so glad we decided to do that!

Since it was Christmas, my mom packed a cute little tree and stockings! The day we got to the island of Kauai we stopped at Wal*mart and picked up presents. We all drew names and then we bought a little goofy gift for our person! We also picked up a boxed Christmas dinner! Christmas was a lot of fun because it helped us realize the true meaning of Christmas! We went to Church and then we invited the Smiths over for dinner! They even brought a cute cake that said "Mele Kalikimaka"! So funny!

The rest of the vacation was pretty much spent chillin on the beach! It was gorgeous there! The water was so blue and the sand was so white! The sun was awesome because it made you really tan... it was weird actually! And it was winter in Orem so that was nice coming back and all!

Hawaii was amazing! I loved everything about it. I now understand why it was my mom's goal to get the whole family there together! It is still my favorite family vacation and whenever I look back on it, I always want to go back! I would dare say it is the greatest place on earth!

HAWAII.