Oh, this happened.

Every year, my Dad takes my sister and I on a business trip with him. It may sound strange, being that I'm 30 and my sister is a few years older, but the fact is, I have the best Dad in the world and it doesn't matter. No matter where we go, we can just revert back to our days of adolescence and my dad takes the wheel. The trips are quick and well planned. We always squeeze a lot of good stuff in. This trip was special for a few reasons. 1. It was to HAWAII 2. It was earlier in the year than usual, and 3. I lived on Oahu, so it was going to be fun to revisit with family.

Day one: Travel

We stopped in Seattle then had a LONG, TURBULENT flight to Hawaii. We landed around 9 or 10 and headed straight to our hotel in Waikiki and slept.

Day two: The North Shore

We had breakfast at Eggs'n'Things, which I went to ten years ago and his has since burnt down, and been rebuilt. Then, we drove to the Dole Pineapple Plantation for some pretty atmosphere and delicious Dole Whip. Then through Haleiwa, Kahuku, Laie, Kaneohe and finally back to Honolulu. It was awesome to see where I lived in Kahuku. More, surreal than I imagined. Lots of things were the same, some had changed and I really struggled to grasp the fact that I lived there for a short while- and voluntarily LEFT.

That night we had dinner at the Yard House in the center of action on Waikiki.

Day three: The Bike Ride

After Dad read his paper and finished up the business portion of the trip, we rented bikes and rode them down the beach of Waikiki and up around Diamond Head crater. There were a few unexpected hills..

On our way back down we discovered the soon-to-be favorite market, Diamond Head Market and Grill. It had lots of fun things to eat from scones, to cheesecakes to taro chips. That night we had dinner at Duke's, one of my favorite seafood grills, then saw Mission Impossible in the loudest theater ever built. I actually had to wear my ear buds in my ears to prevent damage to my ear drums.

Day four: Pearl Harbor

We ate breakfast at the new found Grill- and planned to return again for dessert.

I'm ashamed to say I had never been to Pearl Harbor. But in the time I lived on the island I only went to Honolulu 3 times. So this was a treat. It was well constructed and very informative. We watched the film then took the boat out to the USS Arizona, that lies just below the surface of the water where the memorial hovers over. The ship is still leaking visible oil... from the 500,000 gallon tank fueling the Arizona. The reality of what happened there really settled in. After Pearl Harbor we went back to Diamond Head to see the monument the huge crater. I started up the trail to the top of the crater with my reluctant family members. We were all wearing flip flops. Laura stayed behind and my dad I kept going. There's something about starting a hike and needing to finish it. We ascended 400ft up a windy switchback that scaled the inside lip of the crater and after a HUGE flight of stairs, we finally got to the top to see an amazing view of Waikiki. Good decision, I thought.

That night we ate at Tiki's... a seafood bar and grill located on Waikiki beach.

Day five:

We left our hotel at 6:45am and traveled to LA, where we had a four hour layover... I don't remember much... except the football game that everyone assembled to watch. We touched down in Salt Lake around 10pm. LONG day. But so worth it.

I'm so lucky to have a dad that not only enjoys spending time with me, but enjoys traveling with me enough to treat me to wonderful, memorable trips. He said Hawaii would be hard to top, but honestly, it doesn't matter where we go. These trips are always fantastic.

These are just pictures from my phone. The REAL pictures from my camera are here on flickr.