Paradise-day one

The one place I have always wanted to visit was Hawaii. So, we decided it would be the perfect destination for our 10 year anniversary trip. (Before I go on I just want to recognize this milestone. Thank you, Joe, for the last amazing ten years. I love you more everyday and can't wait for many more years on our adventure.) so, after a few years planning, we booked our flights, got hotel rooms, and left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa Weldon to take the trip of a lifetime. 

We started in Honolulu. I wanted to see Pearl Harbor so we booked three nights there first. We left home early Sunday morning and got on our direct flight.

After a very uneventful, yet long (7 hours, the longest flight I've ever been on), flight we landed in Honolulu.

We walked outside to baggage claim, got our bags, our car (a nice Ford Mustang convertible).....

...and headed out to find Teddy's Bigger Burgers for some lunch. We had purchased a new Garmin before leaving to make sure we had updated maps. Unfortunately, our first outing following it did not go well. Teddy's Bigger Burgers was not to be found. After many u-turns,  we parked and headed out on foot where we found Southshore Grill. I had a pastrami sandwich and Joe had their famous (at least a according to them) fish tacos and a steak taco (which he preferred). It was a pleasant GPS mistake. 

After lunch we headed to the hotel. The Garmin messed up again but we found it anyway. And boy was it nice. We got upgraded to an ocean-view room (way to work the system, babe!),  which was amazing.

After getting settled, we put on our suits and headed to the beach. The hotel has a man-made lagoon, which was great for me. No sharks!

We brought out some reading material, got a couple Mai-Tais and soaked up the late afternoon sun. After watching a wedding (how fitting), we went inside to change for dinner. 

Before we left, we walked around the hotel grounds for a bit and took pictures on a beach used in the show Lost. Pretty cool.

For dinner, we found Brick Oven Pizza. Not the lite, thin crust dinner we were hoping for but it was pretty good. We even finished the dinner with a snickers pizza to go, which we ate on the patio at the hotel. 

We ended the evening by falling asleep to the sounds of the waves through the screen door.

Good start to a great vacation.