Hawaii! Part 2

Fitting so much in to our week in Hawaii left way too much for one post! So, here's the second half.

Sunday

Just like pretty much every Sunday, we went to church. It's nice to be part of a global church where you can find a congregation to join in so many places in the world! 

After church, we stopped by a small cave (really tiny and right next to the highway, not much else worth saying) and then did the Ka'ena Point Arch trail. And as "Ka'ena" actually means "the heat," it was definitely named well. There were a few spots of shade at the start of the trail, but the rest was all sun! Thankfully, though, it was pretty flat which helped after doing the Koko Crater Railway Hike a few days before. One super cool thing though was that there were a bunch of little pools along the way, so we took a break and swam in one on our way back.

Next, we went to the mermaid caves. There was really only one place you could go in safely at the the time we went and the water was a bit to high for us to feel comfortable swimming. The rocks above were pretty sharp too so there were not as many places to comfortably sit. Haha!

Monday

After a quick breakfast at the time share, we headed straight to the Dole Plantation. We hit it perfectly by getting there just a few minutes before it opened and we got right in line for the train. I'm so glad we did too, because after waiting for 20 minutes in line and doing the 20 minute train ride, we got off the train to find out that the line was now almost 2 hours long and the parking lot was completely full! 

We grabbed a quick dole whip and headed out to our next stop which was...

The Polynesian Cultural Center! Most of the people we talked to before coming said we had to do the Polynesian Cultural Center! And even though it was hands down the most expensive thing we did on this trip, all the money goes towards scholarships for the students at the nearby college. Plus, we got to go to a luau, which was a must on my list of things to do.

I can't say there was a favorite thing we did there, but there were definitely some highlights! A few of the fun things we did were spear throwing in Tonga, weaving in Samoa, almost win the giant stick game competition in New Zealand (I should've put my hair up! Haha!), and see the Ha: Breath of Life show. 

Tuesday

Not seeing the other waterfall we had originally planned to see was fine because we knew we'd be hiking to see Lulumahu falls later in the week. And I'm so glad we did! Although the way to get there was more difficult (we definitely got lost a few times and John had to use his phone's GPS to get us to it. Haha!), it was way less crowded with only one other small group there at the same time as us. Not only that, but it was beautiful! The falls and the hike. If we ever come back, I am doing this hike again!

After our hike to Lulumahu Falls, we drove to the Hoomaluhia Botanical Gardens. This is also a place I would come back to! It was once again, beautiful! Each area has plants that are native to different countries which was very unique. One of our favorites was the giant palms on the tree John is by. They don't look that big in the picture until you compare John's size to them. I also loved the giant tree in the park. And in front of those mountains! So cool!

As if we hadn't done enough walking that day (lol), we decided to head to the Polynesian Cultural Center one more time to see a few more of the cultural demonstrations. 

The last thing we did this day was a spur of the moment thing. John spotted a swing while we were driving and asked me to turn the car around. He was able to climb onto the swing pretty easily, but I definitely needed his help. Haha! This was such a fun ending to our day!

Wednesday

As our last day in Hawaii, we didn't really have much time before our flight. We ended up chillin on the beach by our timeshare until about 9 am so we could check out of our hotel by 10. 

My parents picked us up in Sacramento and the kids wanted to surprise us by coming along! That was fun, but it also meant that Zack had a very late two hour nap since he woke up when we got back to my parents' house. Which also meant that it was incredibly hard to get him to bed that night and he ended up in ours for half of it. Welcome back to life. Lol.