Hawaii

Andrea and I met in Dallas and began our 8 hour plane ride. Andrea was petrified, but it was not nearly as bad as we thought it would be.

We stayed at our friend Brett's apartment. He picked us up from the airport with leis in hand. This picture was taken on his porch.

This is also from Brett's porch. It's the perfect sunset porch.

Andrea and I went to visit Pearl Harbor. We took the audio tour while waiting for the boat ride over to the Arizona memorial.

The USS Arizona Memorial

The wall with all of the names of those who died.

I can't take credit for this one. I pulled it off the Pearl Harbor Memorial website, but thought the aerial view would give some perspective.

Part of the ship.

There is still oil leaking from the ship. I couldn't believe it.

The view from the memorial.

I was pretty proud of this shot. I took it from the inside of the memorial.

Our first beach day on Waikiki beach just down the road from Brett's. We could walk there! It was great. :)

Here is a picture of the dreaded ferry. We took the ferry from Honolulu to Maui. It was a 3 hour trip and the entire thing was miserable. I spent 3 hours sweating and trying not get sick. Unfortunately, Andrea was not so lucky. She got sick 3 times!! Needless to say we flew back. :)

I thought this was a cool picture. Find the hidden lizzard.

In the lobby at the Westin in Maui... BEAUTIFUL resort!

The parrots at the Westin kept us company.

We went to lunch down the road from the hotel in Lahaina.

This was our view from the table at lunch.

Poolside at the Westin

This was the mountain view side of the hotel. A beautiful golf course lies in front of the mountains.

One of the pools at the Westin. Can you tell I was a little obsessed??

Flatbread Pizza Company in a little surfer town called Paia on Maui.

Just north of Paia there was this really neat surfer area. The windsurfers were so cool!

The kitesurfers were pretty cool too!

We moved over to the Hyatt for two nights and had fun taking snapshots of their penguins.

Andrea and I went to dinner. This was just one of our views.

... this was the other view.

After spending the day on the beach, we caught the most beautiful sunset.

This is my favorite picture from the entire trip.

Our last night in Maui

Back at Brett's... this Hawaiian takes fetch to a whole new level.

We hiked up to Diamond Head. It was quite a hike.

This is looking down from Diamond Head. The short turquoise and white building in the center is Brett's apartment complex.

Another shot from the top.

and another.

If you look closely you can see where we started from at the bottom of Diamond Head.

This is from the bottom looking up. The little peak next to the twig sticking up is where I took the previous picture from.

The next night we went to a Luau. Andrea decided she needed as many flowers as possible.

She succeded!

I joined into the floral fun as well.

Brett's girlfriend Sara took this shot. We called it the "ring of fire" shot. We thought it was AWESOME.

The luau dancers were really entertaining.

This is a traditional wedding dance.  She is dancing to the "Hawaiian Wedding Song."

This picture is hilarious. I was trying to take a nighttime picture of a guy twirling flaming batons. Somehow I over exposed the picture and it traced the paths of the flaming batons, and combined it all into one crazy picture. Oops.

Andrea and I hanging from a banyan tree.

If you are not obsessed with "Dog the Bounty Hunter" like my husband, you will not appreciate this picture. This is Da Kine Bail Bonds where Dog, Beth and their crew work. Notice the "Keep Off Ice" sign. Classy! :)

Just so you can get the full picture...

Brett took us on a tour of Oahu. This stop was called Pali Lookout.

Pali Lookout

We stopped at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck for lunch in Kahuku on the North Shore.

Then we hopped over to Matsumoto Shave Ice for dessert. This place is well-know for their shave ice.

I pulled this off the website so you could see all the crazy flavors. You can add icecream to the bottom of the of the treat (very yummy) and/or beans (very strange). The beans are called Azuki beans, which are red beans soaked in sugar. No thanks.

Not exactly sure where this is, somewhere along the North Shore, but it was gorgeous.

A close-up of the same shot.

Same look-out point, just different direction.

Another stop on our tour.

I waited and waited for the wave to crash to get this shot. Not too bad.

This is the area where the TV show "Lost" is filmed.

Another beautiful location.

I love this one because you can see our three shadows.

Brett made me so nervous here. He kept creeping closer and closer to the edge. I'm sure he was fine, but I kept my distance, as you can see.

Louie was not with me, but not forgotten. :)