Hawaii - Sunday (Day 1)...............

We were fortunate to spend last week in Hawaii. Yes, we went as a family! I think the best part for the kids, was to get out of school for a week (it's really quite sad that the best time of year for us to take a family vacation is during the school year). The island we went to is Oahu! We stayed most of the time at Waikiki - about a block away from the beach. It was fun to be right in the hustle and bustle of everything, and we really weren't too far away from the other places that we visited. To recap our trip, maybe I should break it down day by day.

Sunday - Pearl Harbor, The Swap Market, Pali Lookout, The Beach......

The family at the USS Arizona Memorial

As you can see by these photos, the ship did not sink very deep. It's very tragic that 1177 people were still aboard when it sank and this is their memorial. The second photo shows oil spots - oil still seeps to the top after nearly 60 years (the belief is that the oil spots are tears from the soldiers - there were lots of tears while we were there).

Wendy and Tommy on the boat to and from the memorial.


Cousin Ashton on 'Little Ty Ty's' shoulders.

Pali Lookout...the view from here was incredible as indicated by the photos below......

The beach (at Bellows Air Force Base)........

Ryan bought this boogie board at the swap market and had a lot of fun with it. The only time he didn't have it in the water was when he was snorkeling. And, yes, we even managed to fit it in our suitcase to bring home!

At the end of this very exhausting day, we headed back to the hotel. The first couple of nights, we all fell asleep by nine in the evening (okay, really it was eleven in the evening our time - at least this doesn't make us sound as bad and make us out to be older than what we really are!).

Day 2 to be continued.........