BEN!

Just a few hours ago I dropped Ben off at the airport. Here are some highlights of our trip:

Day one:

Go shopping for real board shorts, regular shorts, new t-shirts and his first pair of flip flops... You cant live in Hawaii without flip flops :D

Day two:

Head up to North Shore! 

We went to my favorite beach: Chuns Reef.

I taught him how to cut through the waves so that he didn't swallow too much salt water. 

We saw several sea turtles and ended up with wicked sunburns! Ow!

This is Sharks Cove (I think):

(see the blow hole in the back ground?)

We checked out the tide pools at sharks cove and had some AMAZING plate lunches from the 3Plate food truck. I had the mystery fish and Ben had the shrimp. They both were mind blowingly delicious!

We saw another sea turtle there.

Our last stop was a fruit stand where Ben bought a perfectly ripe pineapple and a yellow mango.

Day three:

Went on an awesome kayak tour of the windward side of the island and paddled out to the Mokulua Islands right off the coast.

 

We got to see some awesome reef and the entire small island was a nature preserve and nesting ground for Shearwaters (mini Hawaiian albatross) You had to be careful because their nests were everywhere! We also got to take a dip in the 'Queen's Bath'. It is a large refreshing tide pool. Ben brought his camera so I'll have to update this section with pictures after he gets back to California and can send them to me.

Day four:

Richard got to hang out with us today!!! Armed with a stack of 'Daily Deals' did the Honolulu tour.

Honolulu Zoo in the morning (I'm making a separate post about this)

Then LuLu's for lunch. Richard got an amazing Mahi Mahi sandwich, I got the Angry Hog (a bbq/kalua pork sandwich) and Ben had their fish tacos. Its an open air restaurant and we could watch the surfers out on Waikiki. 

We tried the Hamster Balls, they were EXHAUSTING! 

On the way back to the beach we did the window shop walk. We spent the last few hours of daylight swimming at Waikiki Beach. After getting cleaned up we ate some very authentic Japanese food. We all enjoyed it but I can't remember what any of it was called :)

And ended the day with Menchies! 

Day five:

The boys did some go-kart racing and then we spent the rest of the day relaxing in the park

Day six:

Hanauma Bay! It was Ben's first time snorkeling and he got really lucky. The water was PERFECT! Plus the Best fish variety and some of the biggest I've ever seen. We saw a few that almost out-weighed me! I saw this one that was so sparkly and so rainbowy that if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it. I wish I had a way to show you.

Day seven:

We were going to go to the Bishop Museum but turns out they were closed :( But we had a relaxing day instead and finally got to see the crabs that make these holes:

Aren't they funny!! 

flip flops and palms

a fresh puffer

Then we caught the last sunset of the trip :)

Thanks for coming to visit Ben!