HITZ CLAN: A Waikiki New Year

Last year we went to Waikiki for the New Year since we'd only lived here for a couple of months and we didn't really have any friends to celebrate with or know what fun things there were to do around here! So to town we went and stayed at the Marriott where we had a blast!

It's now become our new tradition! Although this year we wanted to go a day early so we could spend more time and have it be relaxed instead of stressing about timing and trying to find parking and all those kinds of headaches. Anyhow, we went to the Marriott again and had two rooms this time- which was great for sleeping arrangements with FOUR children in tow!

We were on the 30th floor and this was the view from our room!

Zooming in you can see all of the surfers at Waikiki

'Sup dude?

Trying out the comfy beds as Ryan and I unpack a few things

And we're off to see the sights and have some fun!

Kolea insisted on walking. Half the time she had her play phone to her ear too :)

Yum!

I love this pic :)

CHEESE!

AND CHEESE! Haha, just kidding. I don't know why this scary looking thing was in front of this store. But it freaked us all out as we passed by!

I grabbed a cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. It was gone in about 9 seconds.

Where's my cheesecake?

These dudes are pretty entertaining street performers. Well they don't really "perform" as much as they just stand in silence...

But it's worth giving the guy a couple of bucks :)

This dude moves like a robot- it's pretty sweet!

As the sun sets on Waikiki on December 30th

Ryan took this one- you can see my silhouette as I'm looking down at River

This is only a few steps away at the Banyan Tree. It's amazing to me how different the light can be depending on what direction the camera is pointed in.

This one is a beaut! I'm thinking about framing it. And it's totally undoctored.

Gooooood Mornin' Waikiki!

Another Banyan tree on our way to the Aquarium

Wheeeee!

I'm posting a bunch of pictures from our adventure at the Aquarium for one reason... We see these animals a lot- in the wild. When we go snorkeling, many of these animals are what we get to see in the deep blue sea :) Anyhow, I wanted to share that with you!

Cute fish :)

This is an octopus. It's small, yes. I've seen this in the wild!

OK- I haven't seen these, but the jellyfish are my favorite exhibit!

They are so beautiful!

This is a jellyfish about the size of my 5 yr old's palm. I said to Ryan, don't you think this picture I took is amazing?" He replied, "what's amazing is that there is really a creature like that!" OK, he wins.

Ya see that long fish with the yellow on it? That is a trumpet fish, or pencil fish. We see those ALL the time. Along with that big piece of poo looking thing. It's a sea cucumber :)

This is a Grouper. It's HUGE! I remember scuba diving in Cozumel and almost running right into one that was the size of a large ottoman! It scared the crap out of me!

Gotta love the hermit crabs and sea stars...

Hands...

This is a monk seal. We also see these beached periodically. They are endangered (I think)

After the Aquarium we walked back to the hotel and happened upon this cute little bird along the way. Yes, it's wild.

But this crazy bird lady thinks she needs to domesticate him and take him...

We seriously stayed and watched forever. This crazy lady was almost more entertaining than her birds!

But we finally made it back to the hotel and River went "swimming" for the first time!

Later we went to Waikiki Beach and rented a surf board. That's Ryan in the middle of the picture bringing it in at the end of our "one hour sesh." We each took it out for a half hour. At least now we can both say we've surfed Waikiki! :)

After cleaning up back at the hotel we took the kids to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner!

We were all really excited to eat there- we love that place!!

Fun at the fountain where Hunter misjudged the spurts of water :)

No blur mid jump- this camera rocks!

My monkey!

He'll be working at the PCC soon enough climbing their coconut trees for the tourists! :)

Finally a smile!

We're getting a little tired here...

And even more tired here...

The kids went to bed and Ryan and I hung out waiting for the fireworks show at midnight. Funny thing though, we fell asleep. Ryan woke up with a start saying, "it must be getting close because I'm hearing a bunch of fireworks!"

Sure enough, it was 11:55 pm but TONS of fireworks were already going off. We went out on the balcony and it looked like this...

Everything was totally smokey! It was insane!