Hawaii Part 1: Oahu

The Monday after Austin's Homecoming, all of us McKells boarded a plane for Hawaii!  We spent our first two days on Oahu.

The first of our two days we relaxed on Waikiki beach and walked around the shops.  I loved the blue, warm water and the perfect weather.

Our second day we climbed in to our cars and went out for some sightseeing.  Sadly, we missed the tickets to see the USS Arizona, but we ended up at USS Missouri Memorial and I was really glad we were able to tour that ship.  I had just finished teaching my students about the USS Missouri--how WWII ended on the battleship with the Japanese signing the Instrument of Surrender--so I loved seeing the battleship in person and learning more about the ship's history (the Missouri was also used in Desert Storm in the early 90's--who knew?!).

After touring around the Pearl Harbor sites, we made our way up to the North side of the island to see the LDS Hawaii Temple, BYU-Hawaii and the beautiful beaches and scenery along the way.  I kept thinking about how my friend Susan lived here just a couple of years ago and had her first two kids here!  I wished we could have visited while her family still lived there.  While on the North Shore, we also stopped at Giovanni's famous shrimp truck and stuffed ourselves full of shrimp.  So good.

That night, we made it back to our hotel and then Mark and Susan treated us to a delicious meal at Duke's.

We packed a ton in to just two days on Oahu and it was so worth it.  Take me back!