Having a great time, wish you were here

I tried to email some pictures from our trip to a few people, but I don't have a way to make the files smaller and the messages weren't going through, so I decided to just post them instead.

The view from our hotel room balcony.

Just to get it out of the way: Yes, it's beautiful here. Yes, we're having an awesome time. No, we're not ready to come home yet. And No, we don't want to move here. We are sticking to Oahu only, although we did look into visiting the Big Island (Hawaii) to see the active volcanoes (would have cost $200/person at least and taken a full day, leaving around 3:30am!). Instead, we rented a car for a day and drove around most of Oahu.

For Reece, who loves Lilo and Stitch.

Things that have surprised us:
Except for the mountains (and a few other differences), it looks and smells a lot like Florida.
Even the newscasters wear Hawaiian shirts - on air.
There are tons of Japanese tourists here, and everything is written in English and Japanese. When I used the ATM, it asked if I wanted English or Japanese, instead of the English or Spanish choices I get at home.
Everyone uses "Aloha" as the greeting and "Mahalo" as Thank You. And everyone is very friendly and helpful, and seem genuinely so.
The sun sets at 6:30pm.
How hot or humid it is depends on whether or not the trade winds are blowing. We LOVE the trade winds.

View of Diamond Head from Waikiki Beach in front of our hotel.

We arrived Friday at 8:30 Hawaii time (so 2:30am our time) after flying through Memphis and LA and were completely exhausted. We fell asleep about 10:30, woke up about 6:00, and have kept that schedule ever since. The first day we checked out the beach and the grocery store, the second day we hit the Swap Meet (a flea market at the University of Hawaii stadium that runs 4 days a week year-round) and did the Oahu drive, which included visiting Waimea Valley and Waimea Falls, and the third day we took a sailing/snorkeling tour (pictures to follow) and swam in the hotel pool. Next up is a visit to Pearl Harbor, a trek up Diamond Head, and some shopping, plus whatever else we can fit in between my conference obligations. Dan will probably rent a surf board and try to surf while I'm busy standing at my poster and making work connections. We're also trying to soak up as much Hawaiian culture and feel (and vitamin D) as we can so we can remember it in the middle of February in Ohio. If we figure out a way to bottle any of it to bring back, we most definitely will.

Dan (very tiny!) in the Waimea Falls