ALOHA!!!!!

My dad surprised me about a month ago and asked me to go to Hawaii with him for a week.  He needed a little getaway and thought I would be right companion.  Hopefully, I didn't disappoint him!!  We had fun walking along Waikiki beach, hiking up Diamond Head, snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, going to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and going to the North Shore (mostly Pipeline Beach) to take photos of the surfers.  Thanks Dad for the fun trip!!!

(PS - click on photos to see them larger!)

from the top of Diamond Head...

Here's us!!

Me at the International Market Place - check out those goldfish!!!

the view from the balcony on the floor of our hotel (our room window had an ocean view)

my feet!

some cool building...

ALOHA!! (continued)

These next few photos are from the Polynesian Cultural Center.  They don't allow flash photography so I had my shutter speeds soooooo slow (sometimes 1/8th of second)!!!  Needless to say, I had to hold very still.  These are the ones that turned out the best.  The PCC rocked!!!

Now on to the surfing.  They certainly start young and impressive as illustrated in these first two photos.  The first four photos are from the first day we went to watch and I thought the squalls were decent sized.  The rest of the photos are from the day we left to head home and a professional photographer I chatted with told me the day was one of only three really good days of the season.  So, the squalls were HUGE.  I'm not even sure if I captured the biggest ones.

I was playing around in photoshop with this one.  It's a little different.

No one fell off of their board in any of the following photos.  :)

Poor guy broke his board!

Don't know if you can tell, but here's a photo of a bunch of surfers waiting for the waves to come.  Wish I knew the correct terminology.  Click on it to see it larger.