That Casual Swing

Posted 02/20/2018

First I want to say this post is NOT sponsored 🙂

I wanted to make sure I shared the link (not affiliated just a killer deal) to this dress. You know how sometimes Shein.com has sales on top of sales. Well I bought THIS DRESS for $18 (Canadian that’s $14 US for reference) !!! Currently its listed on the site for $16 It was the perfect little number to throw on over my swimsuit instead of your traditional cover up because I knew we were going out for lunch. We went swimming right afterwards.

I have no idea what is going on with my photos but every time I try to add them to my blog it doesn’t work so then I had to compress them and now they are just annoying!

So seeing this look has me reminiscing about this day we explored the Hilton Hotel on The Big Island. It was one of the only days (pretty sure I think) that all 15 of us ventured out for a day of exploring. Its not easy to get that many people organized, even going to lunch can seem a bit overwhelming but we totally crushed it!

We made it to the hotel parking lot and had only managed to forget 3 kids floaties, and literally like 6 other things! EEk!

This hotel is massive..it’s crazy how big it is truly!

My sister in law Adrienne had mentioned they wanted to go see the Dolphins so we all followed along taking it all in. When she said Dolphins I 100% did NOT think she meant real ones. I do not know why, I just assumed it was like a statue or something. I mean we are just at a hotel right? So we get to the water where their are restaurants and I see several Dolphins. I panic. Sheer panic! I move to the corner and immediately start sobbing. I was so excited. I can’t even type this without tearing up. This isn’t even the first time I have written about it! I shared it on my Instagram first and cried when I wrote that also. I have loved Dolphins ever since I was little. So much in fact my family would gift me all things Dolphins, I was actually wearing my Dolphin ring on this day and I had no idea I would see them. All my coloring books and Lisa Frank stuff was DOLPHINS! BRING BACK LISA FRANK!!!! If you are clueless what I am talking about click HERE.

This is an example of every folder I had for school along with notepads

Many classroom assignments were proudly stored in these bad boys! And if I liked something, it was go BIG ….always. So I had the backpack, clothes, scrunchies.

You get it… I loved Dolphins. I was asked why I didn’t go swimming with them. I mean I totally wanted to….For sure, but we had discussed and planned on going Whale watching beforehand and that is what we budgeted for. You just cant always do everything. I think swimming with Dolphins was around $210 per person for 20 minutes with them. The boat ride and Whale watching ended up being around $240 (I think!) for all four of us and was a whole morning experience for.

I didn’t end up going swimming as I found the pool to be so cold but almost everyone else did take advantage of the water slides. They have a FREE boat ride that tours the grounds that was such an adventure. One of the stops takes you right up to a pool side bar. The boat stop actually drops you off right in front of the bar. SO Cool!

There is a train that takes you around as well but we did love the boat best!

The art they have on the grounds is just impressive.. Literally no words. Here are some of the hundreds oriental vases that I was freaking out over. How beautiful!

I also wanted to say that we had lunch at the Lagoon Grill which is directly beside the Dolphins! I ended up at this place twice and ordered the same thing both times! The Portebello Sandwich!!! Its actually more like a marinated mushroom burger but heavenly. It was so satisfying! If you dine on their property one valuable bit of info is that they validate parking so make sure you bring your ticket along with you. I think we saved like $25 or something. ALSO kids under 5 can eat for FREE when you order a hot dog or grilled cheese. We did this for both or kids and then gave them some of our sides for protein options.

This skirt didn’t want to come back to the cold and ended up getting left at this hotel 🙁