Monday, May 26, 2008

Our Hawaii Vacation

In february, we got the chance to spend a week in beautiful hawaii. Ryan won this opportunity for his outstanding work performance at Infusionsoft. I am so proud of him! His company flew a handful of employees there, all expenses paid, as a thank you for a great year. There was no relaxing, however, because there was so much to do and see and not enough time to do it all. And of course we wanted to take advantage of all hawaii offered because who knows if we would ever get a deal like this again!
We stayed in a gorgeous hotel right on the beach called The Westin Maui Resort. This is a picture of us in the lobby. Isn't that crazy? A waterfall in the lobby?! There were flamingos just hanging out and parrots talking to you, we even took a video of them dancing! Who needed to see the rest of Hawaii? Just walk outside the hotel room, no need to go any further than the lobby!
We took a hike through the rain forest to get to Swinging Bridges. It was a wet, muddy climb. And we were not prepared for it in our flipflops! When we got to the bridges, we were surprised to see the suspension bridge was like something out of an Indiana Jones film, but not as high and there were no alligators :). I had a blast running and bouncing across them as Ryan held onto the rope begging me to stop. He was scared, how cute! Maybe it wasn't so much that he was scared, but more like he didn't want to jump in the water after me and then carry me two miles back down a mountain! 
We went to the Maui Aquarium and saw all the amazing sea life they have in Hawaii. My favorite part was this tunnel aquarium filled with huge sharks and rays. Can you believe how big this guy is?
I thought this was a cool picture of an eel. When we went snooba diving, they swam right beneath my feet! I think our favorite part of the whole trip was our snooba excursion. Snooba is just like scuba diving only without having to carry your air tank. It floats on the surface and you are attached to it with a 25 ft hose. It was really scary at first being 25 feet from the surface and trying to breathe from only a hose. It it was like feeling claustrophobic, which sounds ridiculous because how can you be claustrophobic in the middle of an ocean!? After a few minutes and a few slow deep breathes it was an amazing experience. Ryan was having the time of his life too, wanting to explore everything and go everywhere, but only going as far as his air tank would let him(the downside to snooba). He kept tugging on the hose(like that would help) wanting to go further. If he could have cut the cord he would have!                                                                                  We couldn't believe all the exotic fish we saw and swam with including turtles and eels, and even a little octopus. The group before us actually came within feet of a small shark! How scary! I could tell you right now, if that had been me, the water would have turned yellow and gotten really warm! 


This is a picture of me in the uncomfortable equipment including a belt of weights to help me sink better. Ryan's weights were so heavy he sank like a rock. He couldn't stay off the bottom of the ocean! Luckily thats where all the cool stuff is anyway. In this picture the water was so clear, you can see fish all around me.

This is Ryan and I posing for the camera. Say cheese! Silly me, I actually tried to smile and sucked up some water.