Visiting Hawaii as a family has been on our list of things to do for a long time! It’s always been one of those things that I’d briefly look into, but then decide that it was way too expensive! We started planning our trip a year ago, then decided that we wouldn’t go! But for some reason, I couldn’t get Hawaii off my mind! I’d research other locations but always ended up coming back to Hawaii!

After lots of Youtube videos, a ton of research and negative Covid test, we headed to Oahu for the first time! I was so nervous about the flight as it was the longest we’d ever been on! I was especially nervous about how Kee would do on such a long flight! But thankfully, he did amazing! When he wasn’t sleeping, he watched TV or played on his tablet. The girls enjoyed watching TV and playing games on the plane too! After about 10 hours of travel and showing our negative test results to the agents at the airport, we were on our way to our hotel!

There is a 6 hour time difference between home and Hawaii! I had imagined that we’d be pretty tired when we arrived, but after sleeping for hours on the plane, we were ready to party in Waikiki. Not literally, but we were ready to find some food! We grabbed pizza and wings and spent the evening relaxing at our hotel.

I find it comical how I spent so much time creating an entire itinerary for our trip! But then left home without it! I remembered most of what was on our list, but I quickly realized that we would much rather go with the flow! We had a few things scheduled, but other than that, we enjoyed adventuring around the island on our own time. We hiked Diamond Head early one morning! We went on the choppiest sunset cruise ever! The water was so choppy that Brian almost got sick. We ate Hula Pie at Hula Grill and Duke’s Waikiki. Everyone tried body surfing for the first time. Brian and the kids loved it while I almost drowned. Not really, but it definitely felt like it at the time! Brian celebrated a birthday and the guys at Tanaka’s of Tokyo sang to him during dinner.

We ate way too many malasadas at Leonard’s Bakery. We fell in love with the North Shore and realized that Waikiki really isn’t our cup of tea! The girls made friends at the pool and tried drinking from a coconut. We saw lots of portuguese man of war on the beach and almost didn’t want to get back into the water! We played with crabs on the beach and made quite a few sand castles.

I’d heard people say how it took them time to find their Hawaii and never knew what they meant. But after spending time in Waikiki, visiting the North Shore and several beaches, I totally understand what they mean! Oahu is such a beautiful island, but some parts of it feel more like my idea of a great beach vacation than others! Some beaches were super crowded while others were so peaceful and relaxing! It seriously took me about 5 days to discover “my” Hawaii! Now we can’t wait to visit this beautiful island again!

We had an amazing time and can’t wait to visit again one day! Check out a few highlights from our trip! I definitely didn’t take as many photos as I’d planned, but I decided to enjoy the moments.