Hawaii Day 3

On our first Sunday in Hawaii, we woke up early (partly due to planning and mostly due to the time change), got ready, and went straight to Pearl Harbor. We opted to pay a few dollars to get the audio tour, which was really interesting but definitely not necessary. Before you leave to see the monument, you watch a 20 minute video about what happened during the attack. The area around Pearl Harbor is absolutely beautiful, which makes the realization of what happened there so much more crazy. Here we are on the boat ride over to the monument.


The monument is definitely awe-inspiring and touching, looking at the USS Arizona still underwater below your feet and reading the names of the men who died there. Before leaving Pearl Harbor, we got some ice cream because we were so hungry and hot.

We then drove over to the Swap Meet to see what souvenirs we could get. I know, I know, much less of a "Sunday appropriate" outing, but the Swap Meet is super close to Pearl Harbor and it's only open so many days of the week. It was fun wandering up and down the aisles, seeing all the different booths, despite the oppressive heat of the day. We got some fresh pineapple, which was delicious and cold, as well as some other souvenirs.

We then drove up north to the Dole Plantation, where we took full advantage of every activity they have available. We went on the garden audio tour...


worked our way through the pineapple garden maze, which in 2008 was declared the world's largest maze. We actually didn't make it all the way to all of the check-in points because it was going to close soon, but we got enough of it to be awesome.


We ran straight from the maze to the train that drove us around the plantation and told stories.


As we finally went inside the actual Dole Plantation building, we walked by a booth where they were roasting macadamia nuts with some sort of carmelizing going on. We love free samples, so we took the sample offered and realized they were very yummy. We meant to come back and buy some that day, but totally forgot until too late. However, they were seriously good enough that we made sure to come back and buy them another day.

We then came to the "piece de resistance" of the Dole Plantation... the best ice cream in the entire world!! Their pineapple ice cream is worth traveling for. We each got a waffle cone full of pineapple ice cream and loved it too much to even stop and take a nice picture.


After a long day of walking around outside in the heat, we were super tired. We came home to find that our nicest housekeeper ever had actually done all our dishes that we had gotten dirty so far. We then ate homemade burritos in our apartment for dinner. We relaxed by sitting out on our balcony and hanging out on our bed watching none other than...


LOTR!


We are kinda nerdy, I know, but I love it. We also watched Malcolm in the Middle. We usually ended up watching two episodes of Malcolm in the Middle (from 10-11 pm) most nights, because we were so tired and most things shut down by that time anyways. The show seriously reminds me of Hawaii and is hilarious. Since getting back from Hawaii, we've started watching the show reruns regularly.