Hawaii-Day 5

Saturday was the days Ben and Katlyn's sealing.  Mario and the boys asked if we really had to go.  Of course we did, that was the whole reason we had flown to Hawaii this exact week.  Of course, I think they were only joking.  But it was hard to pull them from Bellows.  We headed up to the temple early Saturday morning.  The sealing was at 10.  When we pulled up to the temple, we were told the power was out in all of Laei and that the temple was closed.  Fortunately, they have generators and were able to still hold the two sealings they had scheduled that day.  It was a beautiful sealing and I'm glad I was able to attend.  The temple president was the one that sealed them and I always love listening to their words of wisdom.

After the sealing, we left to go get some lunch.  One thing that is really popular in Hawaii is the food trucks.  As you drive around, you see these trucks parked on side of road that sell lunch.  We stopped and I got their speciality, shrimp. 

After lunch, we drove around until we found the "turtle" beach.  Up on the North Shore, there's a beach that sea turtles like to lay out in the sun all day.  It was exactly what I had envisioned because they are roped off and we aren't allowed to get too close.  But it was still cool to get within a couple feet of them.  They weigh over 200 pounds.

After watching the turtles nap for a few minutes, we headed out to the famous Matsumoto Shaved Ice in Haleiwa.  I don't really know why this place is famous because there are places all over Oahu that serve shaved ice.  I've been told the other places are equally as good too.  But you come to this one for the "experience."  You stand in a long line and wait while places just around the corner have no line and even offer discounts.  We were suckers and waited in line. It was delicious. It even has some ice cream at the bottom.

After shaved ice, we headed back to "the rock" as my kids call Waimea Beach with the cliff jumping.  They were anxious to try it again.  Unfortunately, the waves were a little too rough and they didn't feel safe jumping.  It is a little scary because there are signs posted everywhere that the surf is dangerous and the cliff jumping can be fatal.  The signs say not to jump but even the lifeguards just say to jump on one side so they can help if you get into trouble.  The boys didn't play much in the water because it was too dangerous that day.  But Mario and Eric had a blast playing in the surf.  It made me very nervous and I was so grateful when we left with no injuries.

We quickly showered off at the outside showers and changed into our nice clothes and left for the reception that was held at Laie point.  It was at a very nice home located right on the ocean.  We had some luau food which was great since that was the only time we had a traditional Hawaiian dinner.

It was another great day in Paradise.

Hawaii-Day 4

By Friday, I was getting really sad.  My time in Hawaii was going way too fast.  I started getting up each morning early and running out to the beach to watch the sunrise.  Most days, the clouds blocked the sunrise, but how can I complain.  The days were filled with sunshine and beautiful skies.

We had a plan to meet the Shumway family up on the North Shore to go snorkeling.  It was Eric's chance to see Ben Shumway before he got married.  They were good friends our first year here in Papillion.  As an added bonus, we got to see his other friends, Serena Moore, Katy McGuffin, and Kayla Cordon.  Apparently Nathan has never snorkeling because his excitement over seeing those first few fish underwater was so adorable.  The spot is called Shark's Cove.  Of course Nate wanted a lot of reassurance that we wouldn't see any sharks.  I am so grateful that I got Mario that underwater camera in Spain.  Although I'm horrible at taking pictures, I love the pictures underwater, especially of the kids.  

When we were at Kobe the night before, a couple told us about a great place to go cliff jumping up on the North Shore.  He said it was safe and all the locals do it.  Zach begged to go.  We talked all the girls from snorkeling into going with us, especially because Serena is from Hawaii and had done it before.  We headed to Waimea Beach just a short walk away. Mario and I were way behind them when the boys climbed to the top of the cliff (huge rock.)  I was shocked to see Nathan follow all the kids up.  

Zach and Eric jumped pretty quickly from the tallest part.  Nate and I went the spot that was about 20-24 feet up and just stared down at the water for a LONG time.  Everyone had already jumped at least once and were begging us to jump down and join them in the water.  We finally jumped when we saw a large sea turtle swimming down below us and we wanted to get a closer look.  Besides, it looked more dangerous to climb down than to jump.  It was awesome but so scary!  I only did it once, but Nate did it twice and loved it.

I think the cliff jumping was the boys' very favorite thing we did that week.  After cliff jumping, we rushed to get back to Bellows to return our snorkeling gear before we incurred another day's charge.  But we made a short detour on the way home at the Dole Plantation to get some Dole Whip.  We had never stopped before but everyone said we had to try it.  Good thing we didn't discover that stuff 12 years ago.  We would have wanted it everyday.  It is a pineapple flavored soft-serve frozen dessert that is only sold at Disney and in Hawaii.

The rest of the day was spent at Bellows and again, we had BBQ.  I wish we could BBQ every night on the beach for the rest of my life.  I'd be one happy camper.

Hawaii-My Birthday

Day 3 was my birthday so it was my pass to do whatever I wanted with no complaints from anyone.  I had thought about spending the entire day at Bellows but quickly changed my mind.  I wanted to do another hike.  This one I had done many times before.  Erin practically ran up and down this when she was 3 and 4.  I had pushed the boys up the trail in a stroller countless times.  I even remember taking Buzz several times.    We'd often see whales when it was the right season.  Unfortunately we didn't see any this time but it was still fun.  This hike is called the Makapuu Lighthouse Trail.

After our hike, we stopped at the tide pools and beach that Eric learned to surf. Then we headed back to Bellows with the plan to bbq for lunch and dinner and just play at the beach the rest of the day.

We did go back and bbq for lunch but then I decided I wanted to go down to Waikiki to watch the sun go down.  Mario decided that we should go to dinner at Kobe Steakhouse for my birthday especially since kids haven't been and it is right next to the Hale Koa military hotel that I had planned to swim and watch sunset.  The boys were very excited about Kobe and it didn't disappoint.  It's amazing how they ate food that they normally wouldn't eat because it as so cool to watch.  Nate loved his chopsticks.  Someone needs to teach Zach how to smile for pictures though.

On the way to the Hale Koa, we stopped to get a picture by the Hilton hotel that we lived in for a couple weeks when we first moved to Hawaii.  It was a cool hotel with penguins.  We wanted to get pictures of the penguins to prove that they really do exist but unfortunately were told that they all recently died.

The following are pictures at the Hale Koa by the pool.

It was a wonderful birthday.  I don't know how Mario and the kids can ever top that one.

Hawaii Day 2

I was recently talking to one of the youth at church that had just returned from Hawaii.  She told me her favorite hike was Koko Crater Railway Trail.  I hadn't ever done that trail and so I put it on the top of my to do list in Hawaii.  We drove by it and told my kids we were hiking it and they all thought I was crazy.  It was a trail straight up a mountain.  I assured them that we could do it and off we went.  It is a very popular hike with at least a couple dozen of cars parked at the bottom of the mountain.  Most of the people I saw coming down from the trail looked like they were in their early 20's and in fantastic shape.  In fact, most said they run it.  The boys had no trouble.  They didn't run but they only rested as they waited for me a few times.  Eventually I just told them to go on without me.  It was tough and I had to rest every 20-30 railroad ties after awhile.  There are just over 1,000 of those ties going pretty much straight up the mountain.  It must have taken me about 45 minutes to get up it.  The kids probably did it in 25-30 minutes.  Mario was kind and walked slowly with me.  The views from the top were beautiful and I guess worth that torture getting up there.  It was only about a mile from our first house in Hawaii so it was beautiful checking out Hawaii Kai from so high up. Going down was so much easier, but my legs felt like jello for the next 4 days. These pictures don't do that hike justice.  It was brutal, I tell you!

After hiking, we headed to Pearl Harbor.  We had tickets to go out the Arizona Memorial, but we didn't want to wait any longer.  We were all hot and tired from our hike and I still had plans to go to the swap meet.  So we toured the museums and headed out.

The swap meet was exactly as I remembered it.  Here is what it looked like all those years ago.  Thank you mom for this picture.  That's Mario with his "Spam" shirt.

 It is located at the Aloha Stadium and it has booths set up around the entire outside of the stadium.  Almost all the booths sell the same things. So you technically could just walk a quarter of a mile and see about everything there is to buy and the prices are all pretty similar.  But there was one booth that I insisted on finding.  It was unique. It is called Toe Jam and it sells toe rings that are custom fit for you. So they aren't adjustable like all the other toe rings.  I had one when I lived there and when it broke several years later, I have never been able to replace it.  So we had walked 3/4 of the way around the stadium and then I spotted it.  I was so excited. I bought myself and early birthday present.  Besides the toe ring, we picked up a couple shirts and souvenirs for friends.

Everyone was desperate to find the car at the end and get into air condition and find some food. We were a long way from the cabin, so we decided to take the kids to one of our favorite pizza chains there-Boston Pizza.  It was a lot more expensive than we remembered but oh so good.

We returned to Bellows for another evening of swimming and BBQ.  It was a great day! But hey, everyday is a great day in Hawaii!!

Hawaii Vacation Day 1

I had promised our boys that I would take them back to Hawaii one day.  We moved away when they were only 18 months old so they don't remember it at all. When my visiting teacher, Pam Shumway, told me her son was getting married in Hawaii in late April, and the plane tickets were a good price, I begged Mario to go.  He reluctantly agreed after much persuasion and promising that this wouldn't delay us paying off our Venice home.  We felt bad because Eric wouldn't be able to join us because it was the week of finals.  But at the last minute, he was able to arrange his finals and go with us.  I'm so grateful it worked out for him or else I would have felt really guilty going without him. He had to come a day late to take one final but that worked out fine.

We left Monday, April 25 and after some delays, we made it to Hawaii around 7 pm.  We grabbed our luggage, hopped into a rental car, and headed to our favorite beach.  We had reserved a cabin at Bellow's Beach for the week.  Unfortunately it was dark by the time our plane arrived into Honolulu, so we couldn't really enjoy the beauty as we drove to our cabin.  We were exhausted because of the time difference (5 hours) so we went straight to bed.  There's nothing like sleeping in a cabin on the beach with all the windows open and hearing the waves roll in.  We slept so well.

The next morning, we woke up early and drove up to Laie to do baptisms with the boys.  It was about an hour drive.  I wish I had pictures and videos of the boys' wide eyes as we drove up along the two lane road squished between beautiful green mountains on one side and an amazing ocean on the other.  Th boys now knew why I called Hawaii, their birthplace, Paradise.

The Laie Temple is beautiful.  I still remember President Hinckley coming to Hawaii to dedicate the new entry into the temple.  After the very long prayer, Erin who was only 3 or 4, said very loudly, "Wow, that was a long prayer."  I'm sure even the Prophet heard her.  The boys weren't excited about starting their vacation off in a car for an hour long car ride to the Temple.  But it was important to me to show Heavenly Father my gratitude for allowing us to come back after so many years.  I thought it was the perfect way to begin our vacation.  I hope they agree with me.

After the baptisms, we headed to our favorite breakfast spot, the BYU Hawaii cafeteria.  Mario and I would trade off with the kids while the other went to the temple when we lived there.  One would take the kids to eat and the other would take the kids to the beach while we waited on each other.  The boys loved their giant pancakes with strawberries and whip cream.  Mario loved his local breakfast that included rice, a meat patty, egg, and gravy.  

After breakfast, we headed down to Waikiki for Mario and Zach to take a chartered fishing trip.  Nate decided at the last minute to join them.  I had to pick up groceries and get Eric from the airport, so I didn't go.  They said the fishing wasn't great, but they did see a whale so I would call it a success (even if they look slightly grumpy in that last picture.)

With a trunk full of groceries and Eric with us now, we headed back to Bellows for a BBQ and evening at the beach.  Mario and the boys were in heaven and would have been fine not leaving that beach until time to fly back home.  But they have me for a mother (and wife) and I had a plan to see everything.