I love how much Layla loves Chance!!^^

WHAT WE ATE!

Haha, okay disclaimer, I love food, I really do, but I found it hilarious that when I posted on facebook for the "must see/must do"s of Hawaii, about 90% of what people suggested were things to eat. Like I said, I love food, but I was really asking for like... activities. Chance and I are penny pinchers (literally and metaphorically, tell you later) and eating out is something we do not do often... and when we do, we eat Cafe Rio and share a salad because then it's only $9.00 to feed two people, which is really a good deal. Anyways, there were so many things that people told us that we had to eat, but we really just don't justify blowing our money on food. We are more of adventure/activity people. Because of the condo we stayed in, with the kitchen, Ashley cooked a few meals (she's so creative and a GREAT cook!) and we bought some snacks to munch on. But! We did go out sometimes. Another disclaimer, I'm SO not picky when it comes to food. I'll eat an enjoy almost anything (except ketsup, mayo, and mustard...). What I am "picky" with, is what I think is AMAZING food.

We went to this restaurant in our little resort town called The Monkey Pod. Chance and I split a burger (see what I mean, penny pinchers, but really it was enough for both of us. America portion sizes, am I right?) and some fries. Very good! Everything was fresh and local, so that was pretty cool. We loved the atmosphere too! We ate on the upper level and it was outside where there was some live entertainment we could hear, and tikki torches everywhere. Very cool place!

We stopped at a fruit stand one day, and had this WAY tasty banana wrapped in a sugar spring roll.. or something. It was so good (no picture...). Chance always was determined to drink out of a coconut, so we did that too! Not too bad. I didn't love the juice, and it kinda seemed carbonated to me. But what a fun experience! The ladies at the fruit stand are very aggressive and just like shove stuff in your face haha. Tanner and Ashley were kind and shared some of the mixed fruit that they got, and the mango was my favorite!

Lots of people raved about Matsumoto's Shaved Ice, and yes it was good... haha but to be honest I actually thought it was just as good as some of the shaved ice I've had in Utah! But.. I also don't eat a lot of shaved ice so maybe I just didn't have anything recent enough to compare it to. But it was good! We got... I don't even remember the flavor, haha, but I love the condensed milk and ice cream in it.

Everyone also told us we had to eat at the food trucks! Food trucks are such a craze and I always expect them to be cheap... but then I always find out they are just normal priced. Lame... haha. So we didn't actually eat at the shrimp truck or crepe truck pictured above, but I thought the pictures were fun. We did eat at the burger truck, which was pretty greasy, but it was good too. Not like... amazingly impressed haha...

From the very beginning we all knew we wanted to go to a Luau! It was fun to see the pig whole and all that! Again, I don't even remember exactly what we ate... pig obviously, salad, kalua pork, mango, rolls with poi in it, pineapple... real good meal! We were all stuffed. They had these really yummy pineapple bars that were like lemon bars, but pineapple. I really liked those, and of course didn't take a picture.. haha.

Last! We had Dole Whips from the Dole Plantation! It was yummy. I'm just more of a chocolate ice cream kind of person, I guess... haha!

Well, I think that's all the places we ate out.. that's all I can remember/have pictures of anyways. So if we did eat out more, I obviously wasn't impressed enough to remember it. Like I said, I'm not picky! I liked all the food we tried and it was good, but I am picky when it comes to determining what is "AMAZING" food. It sounds ungrateful, but I'm really not hahaha. I LIKE FOOD OKAY! I attribute it to growing up with AMAZING cooks in my family. So when there are people that tell me a restaurant food is amazing, I'm pretty skeptical, and figure that they probably just didn't have as amazing food as I have while growing up... haha. Really, ask me what my favorite food is in all the world and I will tell you it's my Grandma Nilsson's rolls. That's it! My favorite thing we ate was probably that banana thing at the fruit stand haha! Anyways, again, we enjoyed the fooooood! It was a fun experience!

(Next is the "WHAT WE DID" post, and that will be by far the longest, and hopefully I can get around to posting it soon...)

View from the balcony^^

These trees and flowers EVERYWHERE^^ They smelled so good!

Our condo's lagoon^^

Our condo building^^

HAWAII!!!!

We have been waiting for this vacation for 6 months!! We seriously cannot thank Tanner and Ashley enough for inviting us to come along with them on this trip! Now, typically I would go through each day, but I decided I was going to document the trip just a little different. Where We Stayed, Where/What We Ate, and What We Did! I'll just say that I really didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to, yet I really have tons to post... the struggle haha.

SO! Let's kick it off. We stayed in a beautiful resort/condo at the Ko Olina on Oahu. We had 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a full kitchen, living room, and the best part, the balcony. I really should have taken more/better pictures of this place but... oh well. Haha. I didn't take a picture of it, and you can't see in the picture above, the doors to the balcony didn't just slide open. They slid ALL the way open. So when they were all the way open, the kitchen just extended to the outside. It. Was. Heavenly. Like, that is a must have in my future home. We had the prettiest view of our little lagoon from our balcony. It was so fun to just sit out there and just take it all in. 

The resort had 2 swimming pools, a lap pool and large hot tub, and then a fun-er shaped pool for playing in. They had those little leaf seats you could sit in and partially be in the water which was so cool. There was a part of the other pool that was also a sand pool. We didn't ever get in that part, but it was a cool little edition. They had a tikki bar and live music in the evenings. Then! Our condo had it's own lagoon! THIS WAS SO COOL! I cannot even tell you how much I loved that we felt like we had the place to ourselves. There was hardly anyone else there. We never felt crowded at all at this place. It was hot and humid, and of course there were palm trees everywhere...It was so so beautiful. 

We LOVED where we stayed, and we were really happy to have stayed in a really nice place. It was kinda like the honeymoon we never had, since for our honeymoon we just road tripped and stayed in some sketchy hotels almost every night... haha. We are pretty easy to please, but staying in a really nice place makes a difference!