ALOHA!

As many of you know, for the last two weeks Nate has been on his deployment R and R. To make the time as stress free as possible, we decided to go to the BIG island of Hawaii. The trip was absolutely amazing, not to mention we actually got to spend some time together.

To start with Nate got to spend a day or two before we left. I will give you a hint on who else was very excited about this fact...

While in Dallas we had a little mini-date down town. I surprised Nate and took him to Dakota's steak house where they somehow knew it was his birthday. =0)

Then we ventured to the Dallas Museum of Art. It was their "Late Night" so there was music and the museum is open later than normal. We both enjoyed winding our way through all the exsibits. On the way out we even saw some lady be zipped tied and arrested.

The next day was full of packing and getting ready for our trip. We had to fly through LA and as for getting any rest on the flight, yep, still can't sleep on air planes. When we arrived in Kona, the sun was already down so we drove to the hotel in nothing but star light. We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village, and just like everything with the trip, the hotel was awesome. It is on 62 acres of prime ocean real-estate, it has three guest buildings (we stayed in Palace Tower), an ocean lagoon, three pools, seven resturants of all different kinds, and to get around the hotel you had three options — walk, take the tram (like one you would find in a Disney resort) or the boat. Nope, not making this stuff up.

Not to mention, as you walked around the hotel they had art/artifacts from all over the world.

Even had a giant Indian statue that people called "Buddha Point" where you could sit right next to the ocean and see, what seemed like, a million stars.

As for what we did around the hotel, well that's simple, everything! We hung out with some fun animals including snorkeling with sea turtles and whale watching every day, ate some yummy food, explored the beaches, kept up my training for the half marathon, rented out one of the numerous water fun toys, and of course relaxed.

Because there was so much going on around the hotel, here are a few other pictures from our explorations.

There were two big highlights of hotel outings. The first was that Nate and I got to SWIM WITH DOLPHINS! It was so much fun! We had three other great ladies in our group, and our dolphin trainer Lindsey was so sweet.

We were also lucky enough to swim with the alpha male, Nimbus, a 41 year old (that's ridiculously old for a dolphin) Eva, and her five month old baby Ipu. He was so adorable, fisty and fun!!!!!!!

It was such a great experience I really can't put it into words.

I will come back to our last hotel adventure later. Next, I will talk about our island adventures, and before I do that, a side note about Hawaii. As you drive around any of the islands, you hit pretty much every type of landscape and climate you could imagine. From farm land to jungle, desert to snow capped mountains, it's just amazing all you see in a one day island drive.

On our second full island day we explored the North part of the island all the way down to Hilo. We lucked out on the weather, making the drive even nicer and our rental car, we were given a Jeep. Our biggest stop, Akaka Falls National Park. It was so pretty, so green and so lush.

Our next trip, two days later, was to take that same North route to get to the South part of the island and Volcano National Park. I know that seems weird, but from where the hotel is, it was half of one, half of the other. We also finished the drive going the other way so we made a full island loop. Also, for our car on this leg, a convertible.

Sorry, I digressed. Volcano National Park is awesome. You feel like you are in a movie with the steam vents and all the lava. It was in the top moments of the trip for Nate and I always find it fascinating. Unfortunately, unlike the other times I have been there, there was no close flow to see. Still amazing sights.

Now, back to our other resort adventure, the Luau. Our last evening we spent enjoying a modern day luau, with great food and good company. We were sat at a table with a lovely older couple who seemed to really click with me and Nate. As for the performance, it was very entertaining with so many different styles of dance. Not to mention, the audience participation parts...classically hilarious.

Our last day (flight was at night) was spent packing and relaxing by the ocean. The last sunset we had was an amazing way to end the trip, and as we were watching it set, Nate joked that it would be cool if a whale would pop up in-front of it. Well guess what, one did (left hand side of the pic). Just a magical way to end the trip.

Oh my goodness, I can't believe I almost forgot this part. I LOVED THERE FRESH MANGO SMOOTHIES!

When we returned to Dallas we celebrate Nate's birthday with one of his favorite homemade meals and a birthday cake and two days later we were making our way back to the airport to send him off for the last part of the deployment.

All-in-all, our first R and R as a married couple was better than I could have imagined.