Last of the Honeymoon Pictures

I had to do one final post, because I hadn't mentioned Pearl Harbor.  In my mind, it is probably the most important memorial in our country, because it helps civilians connect to the realities of war.  Too often, as Americans, it is all too distant.  Of course, we think of the men and women serving, but not the country it ravages.  Thank you to everyone past and present who has served, or been affected by war. 

Honeymoon Inspired Giveaway

The question is...what is the giveaway? And I can't answer that for you. Not yet. The prize is one of the movies filmed in one of the locations pictured below. All you have to do, is be the person who gives me the most correct answers OR the person I randomly select (giving away TWO). In the comment, be sure to mark which movie you'd want to receive! Sorry, I'm not going to do television box sets, but they do count toward your total, so write 'em down!  And no worries, I won't post any answer-containing comments until the deadline of FRIDAY, JUNE 25th at NOON.  Have fun!

To be the random winner, you do not have to have any correct answers, so guess away.  Also, for a 2nd or 3rd entry in the random drawing, tweet about the giveaway or write a post, and leave a link to your tweet or post!

** Movie/TV show must have been filmed AT these locations, not just in Hawaii.

Honeymoon: Oahu

Now we leave the big island of Hawaii, and travel to Oahu.  Oahu, honestly, wasn't really our cup of tea.  Yes, it was fabulous, and I'm sure it is plenty of people's first choice, but we're not into the city scene as much, so the trade-off of having lots of restaurants to go to (and bars if you want to go that route on your honeymoon) did not make up for the quiet relaxation we experienced on Hawaii.  On the topic of bars....I don't really get it on a honeymoon?  Maybe I'm missing something.  You can always drink in a restaurant, through room service, or frequently even on the beach.  I'm not sure why a bar holds appeal if you're wanting to spend time with you significant other?  Maybe if there's dancing.  I don't know, excuse the internal monologue.

Now THIS is what you're supposed to be doing on a honeymoon, right?  Walking on a beach at sunset?  Much more my thing.

Just some scenery.  Taken from a VERY windy outlook point.

You can see our hotel in the background.

The beach by our hotel.  There was a break wall which made for calm swimming waters near the shore.

Hiking Diamond Head.  Chris wanted to kill me.  It was a 2.5 mile walk from our hotel to the base.  0.5 miles to the start of the trail.  0.7 up.  And then turn around and go back.  That may not sound TERRIBLE, but it was 2pm when we started (hot), and the 0.7 up was PAINFUL.  Literally hundreds of stairs to climb.  Although, we must be in ok shape because the sign said to allow at least 1.5 hours for the 0.7 up and back round trip, and we did it in 50 minutes.  And we spent a decent amount of time at the top.  It was beautiful, but I was amazed how many very young children and...people who seemed to be very out of shape were stopped to rest all the way up, but gosh darn it, were going to make it.

This is the state flower of Hawaii.  A yellow hibiscus.  And, yes, this was taken at a rest stop.

Amazingly, you see chickens roaming everywhere.  I did not expect that one.

Alright, it's going to take me another post.  Until tomorrow.

Honeymoon Part 2: Finally!

What an appropriate day to finally be doing this post!  We have now officially be married 10 Hollywood years...or 1 month in regular-person time.  How's it going?  Well...pretty uneventfully, to be honest.  I haven't discovered any skeletons I didn't know about, no big fights, nutin scary to report.  We're the same boring old married couple we were...before we got married.

I decided to do one more post on the Big Island, since I loved it too much.  I only made one attempt to run on the honeymoon.  I did a lot of HIKING, but very little running.  Even this day, because I ended up on a VERY rocky trail, and ended up enjoying the scenery and taking pictures more than pounding the pavement.  But, I took a picture as proof that I tried.

Resting on the edge of a cliff

Ended up in an archeological dig site of a village that had been on the coast.

What scenery to "run" by!!!

AND, what a great way to END the run!

No turtles were approached, this was a zoom lens.  But we couldn't believe we were sharing a beach with this guy!

This was one of the palaces on the Hawaiian Islands...I must say our standards of living have certainly changed.  It was lovely, but just smaller than I'd assume a royal residence would be.

We watched some boat races, while sipping some local beers.  (Don't think we found any duds.)

And, believe it or not, this is the Kona airport.  REALLY, it is huts.  This shot is taken from the seating area at our gate.

Alright, hopefully I'll have Oahu up tomorrow, and then you're just going to be back to the regular life of Katy and Chris.  Sad, isn't it?  Happy 1 month, though!

 

Honeymoon Part 1

So, my endearing husband downloaded the camera to his WORK computer.  And these are the pictures from Hawaii that he chose to send me.  I find the selection...a little interesting.  This is the man who took no less than 100 "water" pictures, yet, there are virtually no nature shots in the group.  Oh well.  I'll pester him until I get more.  Here's what we've got for now.  These are all from the first stage of the trip when we were on the Big Island.

We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village outside of Kona, which was nothing short of incredible.  A local tour guide did refer to it as "Hawaii's Disney World".  We would go back in a second.  Yes, it was painfully expensive, but we expected as much, so once you get over sticker shock (and hit up a grocery store for breakfast and lunch supplies), all is good.

The Hilton is home of Dolphin Quest.  They put on a short show once a week for FREE, so of course we had to check that out.  We did not swim with them, which we might regret a little, but they were pretty amazing.

This was the highlight of Chris's week.  I have a lot of pictures of the actual dancing that went on at the Luau, but his focus was obviously the talented dancers.  It was also really interesting to get to taste all of the traditional food.  Not surprisingly, I was a big fan of a raw fish seasoned with soy and various other things, but we were FLOORED that Chris enjoyed a salad made of salmon, onions, and tomatoes.  Our boy's growing up!

There were statutes approximately every 5 feet (no joke) in the resort.  This one reminded us of Harper.

This is a pool that had sand in it.  How crazy, right?  The filters must have to be magical.

We did a dinner cruise on a catamaran.  This is a photo that was taken shortly before I started getting seasick.  I'm pretty sure Chris still had a great time with the unlimited maitai's and chatting with the crew.

These were from Volcano national park.  Sure enough, their warnings that those with trouble breathing may have difficulty were true!  I just about killed Chris trying to go see a crater.  It was supposed to be a 4 mile hike each way, but 1) We think their measurements are off, and 2) We never made it because Chris's asthma acted up as we got into areas with higher sulfur concentration.  Chris was disappointed we never saw a Nene in the wild, only in an enclosure.  But, of course, we've been trying to see a moose in the wild for years, and haven't pulled it off, so we'll just have to visit a few more times until we find a Nene.

These are from Akaka Falls.  We hadn't planned on stopping here, but had time, and I'm so glad we did!  It really was a pretty short hike in, but so pretty!  Chris called the tree he's standing in front of the Ewok Village.

I'll shoot for more soon, but it's going to depend on how good I am at nagging!