HAWAII DIARY--May 29--My Day!

I took Suzy to work by 7:00 am, so I could have access to her car. It worked great, except when I got back to her place, and tried to park, I realized I didn’t know how to get this version of a stick shift into reverse. I tried calling Suzy and the boys, but no one answered. Finally when I was trying to get to the temple I had the inspiration (or just common sense I should have had earlier) to consult the car’s manual. After that, driving was not a problem.

Between taking Suzy to work and going to the temple, I had a pretty relaxing morning (one thing I hadn’t done enough of yet). I posted a few things on the blog, did up the few dishes in the sink, and rested, until the Shark’s Cove Grill opened up for breakfast. I got my breakfast to go and took it to the beach. I relaxed there and caught up my journal until I knew I needed to get back and get ready to make it to the temple on time.

I was going for the 11:00 session. There wouldn’t be another until 12:00. The issue with reverse and the fact that I parked far away from the door of the temple had me worried that I wouldn’t make it in time. But even the temple seemed to function with a less stressful Hawaiian attitude about time, and I made the session with no problem. The temple is beautiful, but smaller than I expected. Our session was quite small, but probably not out of the ordinary. After the session, I enjoyed walking around the grounds and taking pictures. I also stopped in the visitor’s center for a minute to see if they had much that was different than what we have in Mesa.

I picked up Suzy, who was glad to have a good excuse to leave work a little early. We grabbed some lunch, then headed into Haliewa for a little more shopping. We went back to the surf store where I bought a short sleeved hoodie for me. I finally got the postcards mailed to the kids that I had purchased several days before. And Suzy was very patient with me while I agonized over other small purchases like jewelry I wanted to get for Kira or my mom or myself.

Before long, we had to head to the South side of the Island where Suzy had her last class. She dropped me off in Waikiki, to shop to my heart’s content. I also realized time was getting short to get some of the souvenirs I wanted before heading home. I went in and out of several shops (do you know how many ABC stores there are along that drive?) toward the International Market Place (from the Zoo parking where Suzy dropped me off).

(look at the size of this shirt on display at the market place!)

I was a little overwhelmed when I got to the Market place. I found some food there (important) and then started to tackle stores one at a time. I found one store where prices were pretty good, so I went ahead and picked up the Ukuleles I had been wanting to get for the kids. I also got Trenton a shirt/shorts outfit with surfboards, and a Hawaiian dress for Kira. They had some inexpensive shell jewelry with carved sea turtles that I got for her as well. A little later, I found a store where I got swimwear for both of them. I had also picked up a book of paper dolls for Kira and a coloring book for Trenton in a store in Haliewa earlier that day, so I decided I needed to stop buying stuff for them, and consider what I really wanted to take home. Kristin had come back with a gorgeous black pearl necklace from Hawaii just a month or so before and I wanted one too. We found out that they had gotten to pick the oyster and open it to get their pearl. All week we had seen people offering this experience, but they all seemed a bit pushy so we had avoided it. I finally called Kristin to find out exactly where she had gone. I went there and researched prices on settings and chains, and decided that this was something I was going to have to discuss with Barry. If he agreed, we would come back on our way to the airport.
Suzy was done soon after. She was willing to party more, or do whatever I wanted, but my body needed rest, so we headed back to the house.

I thought I would be totally asleep before the boys got home, but they made good time on their flight back, and I was trying to research the price of white gold chains on the internet, so they made it back and then we all went to sleep.