Hawaii Trip: More beaches and Hanauma Bay

The next two days were spent enjoying the beaches.  We hit up Waikiki Beach on Thursday since it is close by and the kids were exhausted from the long day at the Polynesian Cultural Center the day before.  As you can tell from the photo below, Paige found a cozy spot under the beach umbrella to catch up on her sleep and was totally asleep for a good hour!

Then on Friday, we hopped on a shuttle to Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve for a morning of snorkeling.  This was one of the highlights for me, and it took everything in my power not to abandon Steve with the kids for the entire time so I could enjoy the fish!  Molly did a great job snorkeling, but she was SO scared that she would kill the coral if she touched it that she was fearful of getting too close to the reef.  Paige did a great job using the mask and got to see quite a few fish, but Garrett adamantly refused to put his face in the water and was much happier on land playing in the sand.  So Steve ended up just putting him on his shoulders so he could see the fish by looking down on them.  And Paige tired out quickly and enjoyed one more nap on the beach!  But all in all we got to see an AMAZING diversity of fish, including yellowfin surgeonfish, Achilles tang, convict tang, blueline snapper, threadfin butterflyfish, stareye parrotfish, Christmas wrasse, sea cucumber, reef triggerfish, ornate butterfly fish, spotted boxfish, blenny, and orangespine unicornfish.  It was one of the trip highlights!