ALOHA!!

I'm finally here in Hawaii!  It has been an adventurous week discovering the island and trying to find a place to live!  Getting here took forever... I booked a flight through Seattle.. to Sacramento.. then on to Honolulu.  This was done in an attempt to save money - but once I racked up the baggage fees for all the different airlines I soon realized I may as well have flown direct for a little more expensive ticket!  At any rate... I made it!  Mike greeted me in the typical Hawaiian fashion at the airport with a beautiful lei...

Between trying to find a place to live and getting settled in - we have had fun exploring different parts of the island.  It will be hard to get used to getting around here - all the street names sound the same and have way too many vowels to attempt figuring them out.

The first week we were here Mike took me to Bellows Air Force Base, which is a teeny base but it has a super beautiful beach and there is NO ONE there.  I loved it.

We're staying on Hickam Air Force Base, which is a joint base with Pearl Harbor.  It's an awesome base - totally different feel from Hill!  There is a building that was hit pretty hard in the attacks on Pearl Harbor that they haven't completely repaired yet - to always remember the victims of the attacks.  This building used to be barracks for the troops, so the Japanese targeted it only second to the aircraft hangar, because they knew there would be a lot of soldiers in the building.  This is what one of the walls outside of the building looks like today -

We have also been able to see a few really beautiful spots -

The last picture was awesome - Mike took it right as a huge gust of wind blew a piece of hair right in my eyeball.  We couldn't stop laughing!

The Dole Plantation is fun too -  we walked around the gardens there, which of course were super beautiful!

We also took a drive around to the other side of the Island and found some awesome pretty beaches!  We also drove past the BYU-Hawaii Campus and saw the Laie Temple.

My other favorite thing so far is the Ala Moana Shopping Center! We spent an evening just exploring and seeing all the places within the mall.  It's HUGE!

We are in the Makiki Ward... which we went to today!  We met a couple people and it's always fun seeing the different traditions in a new place, especially one as diverse as Hawaii!

Can't wait to meet more people and discover more... Missing home but having fun discovering Oahu!