Oahu 2013

Oahu 2013

Posted by Kristy

We had such a good time on this trip. My sister, Kacey, wrote all about it here. You should definitely read her views of the trip. Always entertaining. She broke hers into 3 parts, so make sure to read them all. Trevor and I had been looking forward to this trip all year. Last year we had lots of adventures in Kauai, but this year we were looking forward to a more relaxed vacation. We had the pleasure of staying at the gorgeous Marriott Ko Olina Beach Club in Oahu.

Why did we ever leave?

Our traveling companions were: my mom and dad, Jon, Kacey  and their four kids (Scarlet, Rhode, Asher and Jude). We had a blast. We spent most of the time just lounging outside, swimming, reading and napping in the sun. I'm telling you, it was paradise.

The kids were easy to entertain, and just wanted to swim and build sand castles. 

Of course, nothing is more fun than destroying what you worked so hard to create. I love how happy Scarlet, Rhode and Asher are in these pictures. 

The joy of destruction

We also spent a lot of time at the pool. Trevor was Scarlet and Rhode's favorite swimming buddy. Whenever they were in the pool they were looking for Uncle Trevor. We had some fun games of pool basketball, but could never find any decent competition for volleyball. As Kacey described, my dad will scan the crowd around us and only the most worthy are invited to join our game. If they refuse, he will then usually call them a girl and move on to the next candidate. It's kind of the greatest. It should also be noted that I was undefeated in my pool basketball Hawaii career. 

For the majority of our meals we heated up things we bought at Costco. We bought just about every frozen/pre-made meals you can buy. Everything was delicious. My favorite were the ice cream bars called Melonas. They are basically honey-dew flavored creamies. 

We bought 4 boxes (and they were Costco-size)

Occasionally, we did leave our paradise to go off on other adventures. One of these adventures was hiking Diamond Head. The hike would have been fine if it wasn't for a demon named Siri. We were driving around, trying to find a place to park, and Siri tells us to park our car down by the beach. We kept missing the turn-off for the hike and just decided to walk there as Siri suggested. It was 90-something degrees and we ended up walking for a couple of miles. I didn't calculate it properly but it seemed like forever. We finally get to the start of the hike and Trevor, and my mom and dad, and I are already tired. We stop for a quick water break and begin the arduous journey upwards. I have to admit, it was a pretty cool hike. The non-cool parts of the hike were the endless amounts of stairs. By the end my legs were burning. That's probably the sign of a good work out, but I was not a fan. Here's proof that we all made it to the top. 

The Nielsen's eat hikes like these for breakfast

Asher, Rhode and Scarlet

 Somehow still smiling

They would make the best Amazing Race team ever

The whole gang

The Nielsens

Asher was not impressed

We also decided to take the group to the Dole Plantation. The only thing on my Hawaii bucket list was: eat a Dole whip. Trevor and I ate one when we got there and had another one on the way out. Best idea ever. 

Asher with his One Direction hair

Trevor loves trains

Not creepy at all

Nailed it 

After our awesome photos, we headed into the Pineapple Garden Maze to see who could get through the fastest. The teams were Jon and Asher, Mom and Rhode, Scarlet and Dad, Trevor and me and Jude and Kacey. Trevor and I were doing well until I snapped one of my flip flops and it put us out of the race. We decided to drown our sorrows in another dole whip. 

Drowning our sorrows

Jude and I chilling

Our next adventure brought us to this lookout. It was windy, and I was cold (not surprising) but it was gorgeous. The view looked like this:

Because of the wind, our group looked like this:

Even the wind can't make us look bad

This was right after Scarlet was warned she might fall off the cliff if she got too close

We ate some fun treats along the way. My favorite by far was Leonard's Bakery. They're famous for these delicious scone-like deserts called "malasadas." They look like this:

And they taste like heaven

We also watched a lot of terrible terrible movies. Our resort had a red box type machine that let you rent DVD's one at a time for free. We watched: Man of Steel (started out good, but the fighting scenes were WAY too long), Fast and Furious 6 (super slow and terrible, 5th one was much better) and The Lone Ranger (terrible all around). The movies we enjoyed were: The Great Gatsby and Moonrise Kingdom. Moonrise Kingdom is a quirky movie made by Wes Anderson. It's odd, but also full of random stars and it's pretty funny. Worth watching for sure. 

And we spent a lot of time hanging out at the beach. I love that my mom captured this moment:

Another good moment came when Rhode took a turn on the boogie board. 

Best video ever

The sand crew

Tyra's got nothing on Scarlet

 We had such a fun time and we're so grateful we were able to go. I'll leave you with this family picture we took at Christmas.

Bryan has way too many sisters