Going to Hawaii with some of our oldest and dearest friends was a dream come true. Troy and I were the first to arrive on the island because we traveled the shortest distance from California. We soaked up the views from the air as we spotted O’ahu.
We stocked up for eight people at Costco before arriving at our rental home.
Troy was most pumped about our rental car for the week…
After unloading all of the groceries, we drove to the beach to catch the sunset.
And then our friends started arriving. We were in for a major surprise when one couple adopted a newborn baby a week before our prescheduled trip. They had been hoping to adopt for months and the timing just happened to work out that way. They weren’t about to cancel their trip, so they brought baby Andi along. There were plenty of us to dote on her all week. Another couple hit some major setbacks during their travels and it took them an extra day to arrive, so we met them at the airport with welcome signs and a new baby to hold. Two of my friends are sisters, so “Aunt Heffie” (Stephanie) was dying to get her hands on her new niece.
Having a baby in tow didn’t slow us down one bit. We hiked to Diamond Head for amazing views.
We went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.
We had way too much fun riding around the island in the Jeep with the top down.
We stopped for shave ice multiple times.
Driving along the coast was our favorite.
We beach hopped daily.
We were constantly laughing. Like when a rogue wave splashed half my body and I tried to hide the wet spot behind Katie.
Or when Kristen and I were trying to remember a mutual friend from college and we were both 100% certain we were right on the last name. When we looked it up, it turned out we were both wrong, which made it even funnier.
Or when we asked the husbands to take a photo of us and they took selfies instead.
The boys played a ton of Spikeball while the girls played cards on the beach.
We spent an afternoon at the Aulani Disney Resort.
We did some makeshift sunset yoga on the beach.
We went to the Laie temple.
We did a mix of cooking and eating out since we had a full kitchen, but we couldn’t let the week pass without a Shem Burger from Seven Brothers and Peanut Butter Hulu Pie from Duke’s.
We rented a house on the north shore in Hale’iwa, but moved to Waikiki at the end of the week. We enjoyed overlooking a luau while eating Lappert’s ice cream.
We hiked to Waimea Falls.
I got distracted constantly by the beautiful tropical flowers.
Only a few were brave enough to enter the icy water. I was happy to stand on the shore with my camera and laugh.
We also hiked to Manoa Falls which was a muddy trial and a totally different type of waterfall than Waimea.
I loved all of the carved bamboo.
Our last hike was to the Makapu’u Lighthouse.
More beautiful views; surprise, surprise.
So many things had to come together to make this trip possible. We’ve been trying to plan a couples trip with our college besties for years and I’m so glad we finally made it happen. We had the best time relaxing, reconnecting, laughing and playing, and I can’t think of a better backdrop than beautiful Hawaii.
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