Aloha! We made it to Hawaii safe and sound with all of  our luggage. We flew all day on our actually anniversary but were still able to cheers with a couple flights of wine during a layover.

We are now staying with friends on the Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu. It has been so convenient and they have been the most gracious hosts. Sarah and Zane trade off making dinner, we pack lunches and drinks to travel on the cheap during the day. We have been running along the waterfront on base each morning and doing the no nonsense workout (thanks Wendy!), everyone thinks we are in the military doing our morning routine.

The first day we drove up the west coast and were lucky enough to catch spinner dolphins putting on a show of jumps for us at sunset, this is a rare sight we are told. Yesterday we tried paddle boarding for the first time, it is tougher than you would think! We spent another sunset at Ko’Olina, Secret Beach, which is the beach we got married on with a bottle of bubbly. This was so special to be back here 5 years later. We again were lucky enough to see a couple of whales out in the distance.

Our Hikes in Hawaii

1st hike Mariners Ridge (if you look close we are on top of the mountain in the pic)

Super locals hike outside of Hawaii Kai. Medium to easy hike with a little scrambling if you continue to the second outlook. Views are amazing and not overrun by tourist… oh yeah we tourist. You won’t find this hike without a local.

2nd hike Diamond Head (sunrise)

Easy one mile hike to the top, but surrounded by tourists (mainly Japanese). We left to get there at 6:00am started hiking at 6:30am arrived at the top in 20 min. just in time for a beautiful 7:12am sunrise. One way to get the most out of your day…. get up to watch the sunrise. All the Japanese tourists were very nice and made us want to visit Japan sooner than later.

3rd hike Koko Head

Hard but not overly long. I have never hiked a trail that was as straight UP! Wow were our legs burning! We literally climbed railroad ties all the way up and 3/4th of the way there heavy rains soaked us to the bone and robbed us of any view other than cloud, but it did allow us to meet some nice people. We found an abandon tunnel and all took cover in it for about 30 minutes. It is amazing the galvanizing power of a big hike and lots of rain. All the people were really nice and the time flew by as we swapped traveling and hiking stories. Once the rain let up a bit we made our way slowly down the muddy, slick and STEEP path. Once we were at the car we had a choice to go home and dry out or go the the Kona Brewing Company. We did what any good Coloradan would do… we had a couple beers! Cheers!

Zane is going to start blogging about our food experiences. We have added a page called ‘Food & Drink’ so check it out soon. We will also be posting all of our pictures to our web album on Picasa.  Here is the link.  https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos

We are trying to fit in some Mandarin lessons in the mornings. We just did a lesson on tones, it is going to be a difficult language to learn.  For now we are off to swim and snorkel. Mahalo!