um, i went to hawaii

my mom, thru her job, won a trip to freaking hawaii and my sister and i were lucky enough to tag along to maui!

after 12+ hours of travel time we finally arrive in hawaii and promptly receive leis
me and mom

we get to the hotel room and it was very nice
bathroom (duh)
beds (duh)
porch (duh)
view from porch (beautiful)

next is the meet and greet at the hotel - god i look good
me and my only mai tai (that was for jill)

after the meet and greet we head back to the hotel and get settled, shower and try to go to sleepy (our body clocks would never adjust). the next day we go shopping locally and visit the biggest tree in hawaii or biggest tree somewhere, or something.
banyan tree (i lost my sunglasses there)
here is me in my new hat (i still don't know why i bought that)

that night we went to a luau and there was all sorts of hula dancing and fire twirling and hawaiian singing and all the things one would expect from a luau.
me at the luau (hawaii is very windy, i had to put my hair up)

the next day we went to pearl harbor. it was a very somber (our tour guide's word) experience and kinda creepy in a serious type of manner.
the plane we took to pearl harbor
the memorial at pearl harbor
the uss missouri (which overlooks the uss arizona)
the punch bowl (arlington cemetry of the west)

we got back very late that night and pretty much crashed. the following day, i finally got to spend some time at the pool (yeah!).
pool area with ocean view

and later that day we did something that would make you think all three of us had lost our minds. we took a 2 hour 10-seater plane trip over a volcano. see, we all have motion sickness issues in varying degrees so - yeah, i know.
mom and i all fired up about the volcano

we were all excited and packed ourselves onto the the tiny airplane and off we went snapping pictures, look right, looking left and then. . . mom gets hot and puts her head back. she is burning up and i try to direct my air conditioner hole thing towards her whilst trying to comfort her. she is not having any of it. i start to get hot and think i may get sick. i try to relax but to no avail i have a mini claustrophobia attack and think i am going to have to rip the door off and rip everyone out of there seats and off the plane. i eventually calm down. once my internal hysteria is over, i notice my sister's head (she is two seats up and on the other side of the plane) is leaning against the window. at this point i begin to laugh at us and question our sanity. but we all managed to see the lava hitting the ocean (the steam) and katie even got a picture. i took a little movie, i never did see lava but katie did - at least someone did. despite the worst plane ride i have ever been on - it was the smoothest landing ever.
waterfall mid-flight
the teeny tiny plane we staggered away from
the most expensive sprite ever (bought to calm my stomach)

the rest of the trip i spend at the beach and by the pool - gorgeous. mom and katie went on some van ride to another volcano - i, for one, had had enough of vehicles i was not in control of.

here are more random pictures of the trip:
rainbow (duh)
waterfall at hotel
mountainous area
me at waikiki beach
random boat in indescribably blue water
gorgeous sunset
some building with a king kamehameha statue
me sipping volcano themed drink (alcoholless)
it's hard to see the people atop that rock thing, but they were jumping off into the water
beach and ocean and strangers
blue hawaiians (katie's drink of choice)