Work Trip to Hawaii???!!!

Who would have guessed that anyone would send me to Hawaii ... for work?! How lucky am I? I spent the last week (10/26-11/1) in Honolulu for a psychiatry conference. Anyone who would spend a week indoors in Hawaii needs psychiatric services!

I wanted to share a few highlights from the trip:

Nikki & I arrived on Monday morning. We went straight to the hotel, got checked in, had lunch at a local burger place (Waikiki Cheeseburger with grilled pineapple & fresh avocado!) then went for a drive to the North Shore to explore. We drove to the Laie temple (closed for renovations) and took lots of pictures of the beautiful landscape.

Tuesday, we had to do a bit of work ... just getting registered for the conference and a quick trip to Kinkos. The rest of the day was spent at the beach. For the afternoon and evening, we went back to the North Shore to see the sights at the PCC. We spent several hours wandering around the villages, then attended a luau and the evening show. The show was incredible ... worth the cost of the ticket, just for that!

Wednesday was a real work day ... we had to man the exhibit booth from 9 am to 3 pm. I spent most of the day running around looking for our boxes and recreating some materials, only to have the boxes arrive at 2 pm. Oh, well!

Thursday: after a few hours of work in the a.m., we decided to head to Haunama Bay for some of the best snorkeling in the world. We were in the water by 1 pm and snorkeled for about 4 hours. The highlight was definitely seeing the giant sea turtles. Turns out, Nikki's kind of a "turtle whisperer" like I am the "eagle whisperer". She just kept spotting them ... we swam right along side of four different turtles!

Friday: we had to work all day, but wrapped up the booth quickly so we could get to Shark's Cove on the North Shore to snorkel in a secluded little spot. We spent several hours in the water, finally deciding to get out of the water when it started to get dark. (A little scary to be swimming in shark waters after dark ...)

Saturday: got up early and went to the super-swap at the Aloha Bowl. For sure, the most "crap for cheap" that I've ever seen in one place! We spent several hours looking and buying, then went back to the hotel for several hours by the pool. At 3 pm, we packed the car and headed north (again!) to see what the wind had blown in ... all week long we'd been hearing about the tradewinds and the HUGE waves that would be coming with them. They weren't kidding! We watched the surfers out in the ocean, tackling 10-20 foot waves. You can't imagine the sound of that size of wave when it crashes ... kinda like thunder and a mini-quake! INTENSE! We stopped for a quick visit at Turtle Bay to see one of the local old-timer turtles, named Brutus, then headed back to Honolulu. We had a delicious Italian dinner before catching the red-eye flight home.
What a trip!

Here's some fun photos --

Nikki & I at Turtle Bay, just after sunset!

Not quite the same shot as the last time I was in Hawaii on the beach ... I tried to clean up my act! (Sorry for the cleavage!)

Nikki on the beach at Haunama Bay ... she's so cute!

Just us girls at the Polynesian Cultural Center ... just before the evening show!

Visiting the Easter Islands ... I kissed this BIG GUY ... only real "action" for the week ...

Out in front of the Hilton that we stayed in ... real nice place!