We *heart* Hawaii {Part I}

Our first blog of the year will be about our trip to Oahu island, Hawaii. We had a chance to go to Hawaii for a 10 day vacation in November 2010. I never had a chance to update our blog with the pictures from the trip. It was such a blast. After the break, we were so busy moving in completely to our house, with work and other things I just never had time to work on the pictures and update the blog. Now, I'm slowly getting back to it. Hopefully, when our new computer arrives it will speed up my photo processing time so I could work on the rest of the pictures from the trip as well as from the holiday season :) I'm still quite behind on everything.

The whole family of 7 of us cruised around town like locals in our big giant white Suburban. It was packed with luggage and 7 people--quite amazing. I'm thinking about getting one if we have more than 4 kids. Spacious!

Because we are in a big family, my in-laws decided to rent a condo that we could all stay in together and feel more like home. This is the picture right outside of the condo in the North shore of Oahu Island.

 

And the big golf course as our back yard, too bad we're not into golf otherwise we certainly would enjoy it here

 

The whole time we were there, it was so much fun to see the wild chickens running around. We even heard the rooster singing every morning, which woke Megan up almost every single day we were there. It reminded me of the old days living in Vietnam and how the chickens ran around in our back yard since my grandma used to raise them.

 

Because we were there during the winter months, the waves were monstrous. These pictures are from Waimea beach on our second day being there.

 

The kids loved playing the game 'last man standing', lol

Brett was so proud that he didn't get knocked over by the previous wave. But wait, there's a big one coming his way :) 



Beautiful beach scene; ahh writing this blog made me miss Hawaii so much.

We were there on an overcast day so it was raining a little bit. I was able to capture this picture of the sun ray hitting through the thick cloud.

The famous rock where we saw a lot of people jumping off. I don't know how to swim very well so I didn't have the guts to do it. One thing about the beach here, it drops into deep sea very quick. It was pretty deep right by the little rock there. Molly and I used a boogie board to swim out there once.

Molly was being buried under sand, then made into a mermaid

Tasty dinner at Haleiwa Joe's, a must have when you're in town. We loved the food here.

The family at the dinner table

Huntington Beach {California}

What a lovely Saturday today! It's been raining the whole morning and finally it stopped. The weather is supposed to cool down next week and snow in the Salt Lake valley. I'm not totally excited for that since the last time it snowed here was at the end of May. Oh well, I'm sure excited for the holiday season though as Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

Yes, I should have posted these pictures a while ago. I just haven't had time to process all of them yet. I finally finished that today although I'm still behind on a lot of food posts. I still have pictures from a year ago that I haven't done anything to. Also, I've been baking like crazy so stay tuned for some yummy delish bread, muffins, and cupcakes :) Just figure, I need to take care of this first...

After checking in to our hotel by the PCH, we went out for dinner at The Crab Cooker. One of the best seafood places in the area. Everything was so tasty and fresh. If I lived here I'd have to come here probably once a month or so. It's so good but could drain out your wallet in no time. We spent over 100 dollars just for 2 plates of seafood and a small bowl of clam chowder.

Snapshot of the chef making delish grilled lobsters  

Brett's plate: lobsters on a skewer, rice pilaf, and cold slaw. Seriously, the best lobters ever.

 My king crab legs were also very yummy

The mashed potatoes were also my favorite. It was so cheesy and delicious...

 
And a very interesting and good clam chowder...

They also sell fresh seafood for home cooking. I wish I could take some home with me.

 The store across the street

 After dinner, we rushed over to the Huntington Beach pier to watch the sunset.

One intersting thing I learned was the palm tree is not one of California's native plants, but it's everywhere and makes us feel like it is.

The pier

As we walked on the pier, we saw a man catch a small leopard shark and processed it right there :)

The paranomic picture of the pier: I took 5 different pictures to make this one

Cannon Beach - Oregon

During our trip to Portland, Brett and I took half a day to go to a beach nearby. Cannon Beach is about 1.5 hours from Portland, so we decided to go there. I've heard a lot about how beautiful it is and was so excited to visit for the first time.

Since it's a pretty short drive it's a very decent half day trip from the city. The drive there was very beautiful. We really enjoyed the rain forest, scenic drive in the Pacific Northwest. Everything about it is beautiful: the huge green trees, the moss growing everywhere, the fresh cent of the forest, the variety of wild flowers, etc... It just felt so fresh and good being there.



The water was really cold, and I actually dipped my toe into the water once to test it out.



We were somewhat lucky because it rained 3 days out of 4 days we were there. The day we went to the beach happened to be mostly cloudy; the sun would come out for a minute, then disappear behind those thick clouds. Also, a perfect day for horseback riding. Looks so much fun!



Cannon Beach is known for the haystack. It's very unique and reminded me of Halong Bay and the famous view of the limestone.






Yes, I'd love to have a beach house someday. This beach house is just steps from the sandy beach with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. One day we might have the money to buy one. I like the colorful paint of this cute one.



Brett loves the water... look at him enjoying the view :)



The view of the town. This is such a cute little town. It didn't take us much time to walk back and forth from the beach to the stores downtown. As I recall we walked back and forth about 3 times. First, we were so excited to see the beach we walked down there after lunch. The second time, I realized that I wore the wrong shoes and left my flip flops in the car. The third time we got to the beach we forgot to bring our beach towel.



We went to this store to buy our beach towel that we forgot to pack, haha.



Did I mention that we had a great lunch at Ecola Seafood Restaurant? They have the best fish and chips I ever had in my life.



Inside view



Can't forget the food. It was so tasty. We ordered halibut, salmon, and a cup of clam chowder. Love every single bite of this meal. Just wishing we have fresh seafood in Utah. I guess we just have to come back more often.



Ahh, it was a fun trip. Goodbye, Cannon Beach! Hopefully, we'll see you again soon!