Four Beached Whales 2015 part 1

Once upon a time my sister called me to see if I wanted to go to Hawaii with her for her MTC companions wedding. I had to think about it for about 3 seconds and then said yes. I gave her a hard time later, that she only invited me because I'm old enough to rent a car.

The preparation for departure was a little bit stressful, plane tickets, car rentals, places to stay, what to do while we were there, but we got it all nailed down and then we were off.

To say the least Hawaii was beautiful. We got in really late, or what felt like really late for our Mountain Time programmed bodies and we crashed when we finally made it to the place we were staying, after a ridiculous fiasco with the shuttle to the car rental place, getting turned around and trying to enter a military base, and driving on the very slow speed limit roads of Hawaii.

We decided to go for a walk the next morning and see where we were. We went up to the resort nearby and checked out the beach. Then decided to have breakfast at the resort. That was one expensive breakfast. Later that day we went and bought some groceries. Still expensive, but much more economical that eating out every morning. 

Our first day after exploring Turtle Bay we headed to Kualoa Ranch for a jungle tour. Our driver was very entertaining and aside from the screaming 8 year old who apparently hated life, it was a fantastic ride. It started pouring, but we didn't let that deter us from having fun. We got out to take pictures and got this gem. ^^ Beware of dinosaurs.

Friday was Rebecca and Eddie's wedding so we headed to the temple. We dropped Julie off to join the wedding party and then Kari and I headed over to the temple. Temples are all pretty standard and this one wasn't much different. A little on the small side,  but great just the same. And check out the landscaping. Definite win there.

Julie was with the wedding party the rest of the day so after the temple we headed to where the reception was going to be. Once we located it, we headed for the nearest beach. We were not disappointed by what we found. Can you say tropical paradise?

Saturday we went kayaking in the morning. That was a bit of an adventure. Everyone survived, but I can easily say that was my least favorite activity of the trip. Maybe if I had been wearing my seabands to fight the motion sickness and if we had stopped where we were supposed to to see the turtles. Live and learn. After kayaking we headed back to Kualoa Ranch for our movie sites tour. It was interesting to hear about all the movies filmed there. The most iconic one (and one of the few I had actually seen) was Jurassic Park. The famous Gallimimus stampede? Happened on this hill here.

And the stump they hide behind? This very same one.

The dinosaur was back with a vengeance and I was the sacrifice. At least Julie was trying to save me.