Hawaiian Honeymoon

Hawaii was almost two weeks ago, but I still wanted to blog about it and just let everyone know how fantastic it was. It got off to a VERY rough start when I forgot my license (which had expired anyway so I needed two other forms of I.D. on top of the expired license), left my purse in the bathroom (luckily a good Samaritan turned it in), and had to throw away all my shampoo, toothpaste, shaving cream, body wash, lotion, etc. before going through security (I forgot about the stupid 3 oz. rule). But the rest of the week couldn't have been better. We spent a lot of the time laying on the beach or staying in the awesome pool and two hottubs at our hotel and just enjoying being together. But we tried to go out and do something fun every day: Monday we got a massage to start the week off right and went to a Mai Tai party at our hotel (there were Mai Tai's and open bars EVERYWHERE. But don't worry, we didn't drink a drop!). Tuesday we went horseback riding on the beach, over lava rock, and up into the mountains for a gorgeous view. Wednesday we went to the Aquarium where we saw sharks, eels, sea turtles, and tons of fish. The next day was beach day and we played frisbee and football on the beach all day. That night, we went to an authentic Hawaiian luau, which wasn't as great as it was cracked up to be. But I guess it was all part of the experience. Friday was our favorite day because we went sailing. We went snorkeling off the boat and saw SO many sea turtles. One even swam right up to Richard! We saw a lot of fish and beautiful coral and even a nasty eel (I decided that eels are what I am the most afraid of now. They are so creepy!) The crew, food, and experience were all wonderful and we were very lucky to see so much. They caught two Mahi Mahi's on our trip, which they said had never happened before. In fact, they hadn't even caught one fish for over a month! Then, even though whale watching season is over, we saw a whale out in the distance and stopped to watch it flip it's tail at us a few times. We even saw a flying fish as we headed back to the shore. It was a great day. Saturday we had to check out of the hotel early and so just drove around for most of the day seeing the sights. We tried the Road to Hana and decided it wasn't worth it about 1/3 of the way through since I was fighting carsickness and Richard couldn't even talk to me because he had to concentrate so hard on the road! So we walked around Lahaina and went to Hard Rock Cafe before heading to the airport. On the way, we saw the most beautiful sunset we had seen in Hawaii. It was the perfect ending to an amazing week!!!