Warm ocean, perfect weather, and good vibes… these are just a few things that I got to experience all week long when I traveled to Hawaii during February break. Things that Sacramento does not offer on a daily basis.

My mom, my brother Erik and I stayed in the massive Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. It consisted of five towers all lined up within walking distance of the beach, and each of them 20-plus stories tall.

Our room was on the 24th floor facing the ocean and the views and sunsets were beautiful from our 24th floor room.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the scenic walk from our tower to the beach, so many different little restaurants, stores, mini waterfalls, ponds filled with fish and turtles. Even rainbow colored birds would be walking around the village.

In between our tower and the ocean, there was a giant man-made lagoon where we all learned to paddleboard. It was incredibly fun.

Another one of my favorite parts of the trip was the snorkeling. To start, my brother and I went right out on Waikiki Beach to snorkel and there were fish everywhere starting from just three feet deep.

The next day we went to Hanauma Bay, a nature reserve and a specialty for snorkeling. Instantly when I got in the water, I was seeing fish everywhere that I had never seen before. I even saw an octopus.

An hour went by and was still having a blast and seeing new fish. All this being captured by my GoPro that I’d been videoing with all week long.

Then later that week we finally got to swim with the sea turtles. The one thing I had been waiting for all week. We went about a mile offshore to this “coral canyon” where all these huge sea turtles would hang out.

It was my favorite day of the trip. Hours of hovering over turtles. Occasionally they would swim up to the surface for air and get up to within 5 feet of you.

Last but not least, we visited the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. Obviously it was not the most happy and thrilling part of Hawaii, but it was still one of my favorite parts of the trip, getting to learn all about the tragedy that occurred on Dec. 7, 1941.

That just about wraps up the best six days of my life. A week I will never forget. The week that I spent in Hawaii.