Join me on my adventure (and many photos) as I embark on Honolulu for the first time!
Over this summer at the end of August and into early September, my family and boyfriend all flew to Honolulu for the first time EVER! We spent 10 days at a house we rented on the North Shore. When we first stepped foot outside of the airport in Honolulu, I couldn’t believe how humid it was. It took me a couple days to adjust, but after that I barely noticed it. Driving from the airport to North Shore took about 45 minutes. The house we stayed at was beautiful! There was so much greenery and the view of the ocean from the lanai was amazing.
We spent most of our time exploring the island and shopping (of course). One of our favorite spots was a city called Haleiwa, just about 10-15 minutes from where we were staying. Here we went to Laniakea Beach to watch the sea turtles, we went shopping, and tried many of the food trucks around the island. Most of our days were spent driving to different beaches and swimming in the ocean. I had never been in water so warm or so blue, it was amazing to me how clear the water was!
The beaches here were so beautiful. The sand was soft and the water warm.. what else could you ask for? 
Another thing that really surprised me about Hawaii was all the little geckos everywhere, both inside the house and out. There were also a lot of chickens running around. Here are a few photos I captured of the geckos. These were really hard to take, they move really fast and taking photos of them on an Iphone was a challenge! But being on “vacation time” I had all the time in the world to try and capture how cute these guys looked:
This was taken in Waimea Valley 
A little blurry, but so cute! These little guys move so fast!
As you know, I love taking photos of flowers. The North Shore didn’t disappoint with all the beautiful flora and fauna. It was really cool to see the difference in plants and animals when comparing my home in the Pacific Northwest to a tropical island like Oahu. Check out some of the flowers below:
These other photos are of different places we went including the Waimea Valley (where some of the photos of flowers above were taken). The Waimea Valley is known to be sacred to the Hawaiians. Here you will beautiful botanical gardens, a waterfall, and a place that holds a luau in the evenings. We also went to La’ie Point. This was probably one of my favorite places we visited while on the island. You can walk around these cliffs that over look the water and see the huge waves crashing below you. As you look out in the distance you can see a rock with a huge hole in it that was cause from a tsunami hitting it.
Going to Oahu this summer was something I will remember forever. It was so beautiful, the beaches were so warm and inviting, the people there were very helpful, and the food was amazing. I hope to explore the other islands in the future and make my way back to Oahu someday. But for now, I have all the photos to reminisce about all the places we went and long for the warm sun on my skin, sand in my hair, and spending time with the people I love the most.
My Not-So-Secret Diary 