Hawaiian Cruise

At the end of December '09, we did indeed get to go on the Hawaiian cruise with Josh's side of the family (courtesy of Grammie!). It was a seven day cruise and we got to experience several different islands. One of the greatest parts about this particular cruise was that the boat sailed at night (which rocked us to sleep) and was docked during the day, so we got to spend all kinds of time on the islands. This is the second Hawaiian cruise that the Guldjord family has gone on.

We went to Maui first. In Josh's family, Lahaina is THE place to go (I love it, too, and we did happen to honeymoon there). We got to spend two days there. We spent the first day soaking up the sun and snorkeling at Black Rock. The second day, all the kids, except for me since I was pregnant, went surfing:

Josh and I ate at our favorite restaurant, Pacific'O:

We ate at Pacific'O on our honeymoon, and I can honestly say I have never had better food, yum. We also ate at the family's favorite pizza place, BJ's, which has since changed names to Lahaina Pizza Company.

Next up was Hilo. We made sure to shop at Hilo Hattie's, but other than that and spending some time on the beach, Hilo was pretty uneventful. As we traveled between Hilo and Kona, we got to see the active volcano, Kilauea:

Kona came next, we shopped a bit, got my parents some Kona Coffee, and went to a rather rocky beach. It was breezy, but there was incredible snorkeling there.
We then spent two days on Kauai, which is incredibly beautiful. By this time in our trip, it was warm, yet breezy. The beach we went to on Kauai wasn't just breezy, it was WINDY. Gusts that attempted to blow us over. The beach was rocky, so we didn't swim much, but there were some really cool waves. A few of the pictures taken:



After Kauai, we went back to Honolulu, where we had departed from. Josh, Jenica, and I went to the Peter Lik gallery there. If you have never heard of Peter Lik, check him out here. He is an amazing photographer that Josh and I discovered on our honeymoon. His gallery on Maui was closed for renovations while we were there this time, but we were lucky enough to get to go to the gallery in Honolulu. If only we were rich...

As far as my pregnancy went on this trip, I was 26 weeks along, but my doctor signed a note saying that I could go on the cruise (cut-off is 24 weeks, our doctor figured that ultrasounds are accurate plus or minus 2 weeks, so I technically could be only 24 weeks...)I felt pretty good the whole time, no sea sickness, no major food aversions. I ate PLATEFULS of fresh, juicy pineapple every day. I craved it. People stared at me as I loaded up my plate, Josh still laughs about it. SO SO SO good.

Here are a few random photos from the trip:
Our niece, Elayne

Elayne and Mima

Dinner on the cruise ship

Our cruise ship

I highly recommend Norwegian Cruise Line. Everything went really smoothly. Our family has several people with special diet needs, and they catered to their every need! In fact, they catered to EVERYONE's whims - chocolate milk whenever we asked, special dinner orders (especially me - the menu didn't always appeal to my pregnant stomach), multiple desserts... and so on.
All in all, it was a miracle we made it on the cruise and we had a fantastic time. The best part was being with our family. We were so blessed that Grammie took us all on this trip!