Hawaii - Day 1: Honolulu, O'ahu

Once upon a time, two people met and fell in love. (Those two people would be us, if you hadn't caught on yet). Then came the ring, and then...Brad and I got married on August 18, 2012. We went on a "Mini-Moon" for a few days in Charleston and then Nashville. (If you missed that post, you can read about it here.) We had a wonderful time on our Mini-Moon, but we were VERY much looking forward to our Honeymoon! And let me tell you, a Mini-Moon and a Honeymoon is the way to go! We got to celebrate us, vacation, and be "newlyweds" twice!

Since we got to see and do so many things in Hawaii, I am splitting up our trip posts Day by Day. Seriously, we got to see tons of things! So here we go...

Hawaii ~ Day 1: Honolulu, O'ahu

  

Friday night (April 19th), Brad and I drove down to his sister's house in Cedar Rapids. *Smartly", we all stayed up until about 1:30 am talking, laughing, and catching up. Unfortunately, Brad and I (and sister) had to be up at 3:00 am to get ready and get to the airport! Bless his sister's heart for taking us to the airport so early!! Thanks Sister. We got on our plane, and off to Hawaii we went at 5:30 am Saturday morning. We flew to Chicago, then LA, and landed in Honolulu, O'ahu at 4:00 pm that afternoon. Hellooooo time change!

Saturday, April 20
Our first stop was the rental car place. Brad had asked our travel agent to reserve a Jeep Wrangler (my dream car!) for us on each island. We picked up our Jeep, threw out suitcases in the back, and traveled on to our hotel. We stayed at Outrigger Luana Waikiki in Honolulu. We were about a 2 minute walk from Waikiki Beach! and all of the downtown shopping. After we got to our hotel, we freshened up, got dressed, and went exploring for somewhere to eat! We found this cute little sushi restaurant that had awesome reviews online! The sushi. Was. Amazing! Fresh island sushi - can't beat it. After dinner, we were pretty tired from all the traveling so we walked around some more, but headed back to our hotel somewhat early.

Sunday, April 21
Sunday we slept in, went to the gym (of course), ate some breakfast, then went of to enjoy the gorgeous sunny weather at Waikiki Beach! Can. You. Say. Fabulous?!? Lordy, I love the beach. I'm pretty sure I should live there...at all times. The beach was beautiful and we loved soaking up the sun, the sand, and the scenery. Beautiful.

On our way back to our hotel, we happened to walk by the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii. Since I come from an Army family, we walked around outside taking pictures. This is for you dad!

After the beach, we got cleaned up and wanted to drive around Honolulu for a while. We were also looking for another beach that one of the locals told us about. It was so pretty on O'ahu! We drove around in our Jeep with the top down and enjoyed all of the beautiful scenery. After driving for a while, we finally found the beach we were looking for. I. Died. It was picture perfect. I could have stayed there all day!

After spending all day on the beach, we were pretty hungry. We asked our hotel's concierge for a dinner recommendation. They recommended "Ocean House" on Waikiki Beach. Um, it was literally...ON Waikiki Beach. Our table was next to the wall of open windows that overlooked the ocean. It was perfect. Honeymoon, delicious dinner, bottle of wine, dessert, and an ocean view. Love! (Right before we took some pictures, it started raining! All of the staff jumped up on the half wall and pulled the sliding glass windows shut. In about 3 minutes, it stopped raining and the windows were opened back up! Pretty nifty.)

And that completes Day 1! See! I told you we got to see and do a ton of things!!
Next up...Day 2 of Honolulu, O'ahu!