Hawaii Vacation Day 6 - Our 10th Anniversary

Friday was our 10th wedding anniversary, and we planned to celebrate by relaxing by the pool all day long!

We woke up around 8 and just ate something quick in our room. Then it was time to his the pool! But first, we had to stop and say hi to Stitch!

 We were at the pool all day long. It was great.

We played at the Menehune Bridge

We played at the Octopus Splash Fountain thing.

And Michael made a friend at the pool!

So he was happy as could be playing with his cars and planes in the shallow end of the pool while Andrew and I watched from our lounge chairs. We ordered lunch and it was brought right to us! What service! We didn't even go back to the room for naps on this day. Michael was having fun, we were relaxing, and everyone was happy. We had finally gotten over the time change, and were feeling normal again!

This was the first day we were at the pool during the afternoon pool party! Thank you photopass for taking random pictures during the pool party!

It was fun, but totally different then the pool parties at the other Disney Resorts. Michael even got up with all the other boys to dance with Mickey!

Then after they were done dancing, Mickey was available to pose for pictures.

After the pool party, Michael finally worked up the nerve to go down the big water slide!

He wouldn't go with me, only Daddy! And after the first time down, he loved it! And went down several more times!

 Then they went around the Lazy River a couple times!

Around 5:00, we went up to the room to get ready for dinner. Michael was going to Auntie's Beach House, and Andrew and I were going on a "Date". We weren't sure what we were going to do yet, but we knew we were going to do it by ourselves.

So we dropped Michael off at at Auntie's beach house around 5:45. We found a couple photopass photographers, and we got some pictures by the pool and down by the beach.

We also walked around to the other side of the lagoon to take some pictures of the resort.

It was a beautiful evening, and looked like we might get another pretty sunset.

But the clouds rolled in, and there was no sunset to see.

Michael had a great time at Auntie's Beach House! We signed him up for the Eruption Disruption (volcano) activity. I'm so glad photo pass takes pictures of these activities, because now I know what he was doing, while we were out.

We weren't really too hungry, so we went to the sundown member mingle again to grab a few appetizers. Andrew won a DVC Bottle this time! We each had a couple of things to eat, and left early, in hopes of watching the sunset. We walked down to the other side of the lagoon, but like I said, no sunset. We did go down to the beach to have the photopass guy take our picture, and we got some great shots. I wish Michael had been with us to be in the pictures.

By then, we were hungry for dinner, so we decided to go to the buffet for dinner. The other table service restaurant on property was just too expensive, and I couldn't find one thing on the menu that I wanted to order. The buffet was great! There were so many items to chose from, and the dessert selection was wonderful!

I went and got Michael a little before 9:00 and he said he had a great time! I took him back with me to the buffet, while Andrew was paying our bill. I also grabbed Michael a giant cookie.

Then it was time for bed. We watched a movie in room and went to sleep.

It was such a nice relaxing day, and a wonderful way to spend our 10th anniversary!

Up next, Pali Lookout, and the Halona Blowhole.

Hawaii Vacation Day 5 - North Shore Drive

Thursday was the first day we slept in to a normal hour, 7:00! That is still early for us for vacation, but more normal to our every day lives. I had read a trip report about a couple going to eat at Denny's for every meal, so we had to go try the Denny's and see what the fuss was about. Well, it did not disappoint. But it was still, just Denny's!

After breakfast, we went to the local Goodwill store to see if we could find some Hawaii shirts, cheap! Since Andrew works for a thrift store, we knew we could find some great deals, we just had to look for them. (I know people are rolling their eyes right now, but I don't care.You can save a lot of money by shopping thrift stores!) Well, we did great, and were able to find 2 shirts for Andrew, an Aulani shirt for me, and a shirt for Michael. Total spent on 4 shirts: $8.00!! I don't think the Aulani shirt had ever been worn, and new would have cost us $25+.

So after our adventure to Goodwill, we got on the highway and headed for the North Shore. There wasn't anything specific we wanted to see, just the area in general. 

The first place we went was the town of Hale'iwa, We just drove through pretty quick, because we knew we would be driving back through and stopping for lunch. I know a lot of people go and get the shave ice from Matsumoto's, but we didn't. The shave ice at the resort was so good, and we had one or two everyday, that we just skipped Matusmoto's. 

From Hale'iwa, we headed north to turtle beach to try and find some sea turtles! The beach is actually called Laniakea Beach.  

When driving down the road, you will see a bunch of cars parked on the right hand side of the road, and tons of people crowded around the beach on the left. Park, and walk down to the beach. 

 I promise, there are turtles in those pictures, you just have to look close.

We saw a bunch of turtles in the water where the rocks are. We didn't actually see any up on the beach, like I had wanted, but it was still really cool seeing them swimming around in the water. We ended up seeing close to a dozen turtles! As a plus, the beach there is beautiful! 

 After the turtle beach, we continued driving north. We saw where the pipeline would be, if it were winter time, and their were big waves. But in the summer, it's just a quiet beach. We turned around and headed back to the Hale'iwa for some lunch. We had wanted to go to one of the shrimp trucks, but the one we wanted was closed, and the other one, was up on the other side of the north shore. So we used urban spoon and found a Mexican restaurant with a great rating and tried that. Luibueno's was really good, but more expensive then we realized. But we were all really happy with our meal.

After lunch, we walked around a couple of shops, but by then it had started raining, so we got in the car and tried to drive all the way around the island. We got to where the road ends, but had to turn around.

That blue dot is as far as we could go. 

 It was a beautiful drive. The mountains on one side and the ocean on the other.

So we found our way back to the resort, but kept driving past it until we met the dirt road again. 

Andrew wanted to see where we would have come out, had we been able to go the whole way around. It turns out there is about a 2 mile space between the roads. People park and hike from one side to the other. Again, it was a beautiful drive. Luckily, Michael was in the back seat napping during this adventure. 

Once we did all of this, it was back to the resort for some dinner. We ended up just getting a pizza and eating it in our room. It was a long day of exploring, and we were not really in the mood to go eat somewhere. We watched a movie while we ate dinner. After the movie, Andrew asked Michael if he wanted to go swimming! Of course Michael super excited about swimming at night, so off they went to the pool, and I went to bed! It was a busy day, and I was tired. Michael loved swimming when it was a "Black sky"!

Up next, we celebrate our 10th anniversary with a lazy day at the resort!