It's Hard to Leave Paradise

On our final day, we enjoyed breakfast on the beach in town. Steph and Lester had made appointments to get vacation tattoos, while Robb and I had booked a charter boat to take us to a prime snorkeling spot.

It was absolutely beautiful out on the water. We were the youngest people on the boat by about 20 years, but it didn’t matter—we were having the time of our lives. They took us to a fantastic snorkeling spot, and after a couple of days of practice, I finally got the hang of my snorkeling mask. I no longer felt like I was suffocating or having a panic attack the second I put it on!

We had two hours to explore while the boat anchored nearby. They gave us cards with pictures of different fish and coral to identify while we were out there. The snorkeling was incredible! I saw so many amazing fish—it felt like swimming through a tropical fish tank. There were tangs, angelfish, pufferfish, and that was just the start. One of the most surprising things I saw was a striped eel, which freaked me out a little. I called it a sea snake, and that made the guide laugh!

Robb and I made the most of our two hours, swimming side by side and pointing out all the cool things we saw. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip. On our way back, the guide pointed out the island that inspired the movie Moana and shared other interesting facts about the area. One thing that surprised me was learning that Hawaii has very few native birds because the mongoose and weasels they introduced have been killing them off.

We had to try Hawiian Ice

Our last night in paradise.

It was time to fly back to reality—and to cold Nebraska. Robb is very social on the plane, as you can probably tell. We didn’t get to sit together on the flight home, so this is how Robb spent his time. As for me, I’m not really a social person, and I definitely don’t like talking to strangers. But for some reason, on planes, I tend to make friends with whoever’s sitting next to me. When Robb asked me why I’m so chatty with strangers, I told him, “I figure I’ll need them if we crash.” He just shook his head and smiled.

If the flight there felt long, the flight home felt like an eternity. We were lucky that all of our flights were on time and that we made every connection. As we were flying into Omaha, a big snowstorm was predicted for the following day, so we pretty much sneaked in just under the wire before flights started getting canceled.