HAWAII DIARY--May 26

Marenda’s B-day!

Barry, Jared, and Suzy decided to get up early to beat the crowds and go try surfing. I didn’t feel like I would be missing too much if I slept in, instead. They were back before too long—I guess it wears you out pretty fast if you are a first timer—and Barry had successfully gotten up on the surf board. Suzy documented the feat with pictures.

(The evolution of the surfing lesson)


The boys tried to finalize plans for their trip to the Big Island, and kept running into snags. They finally had to schedule the trip for Tuesday when Suzy will be working, so I will be on my own.

We headed across to the other side of the island to hike Diamond Head Crater. I was pretty nervous about this hike. No hikes are a big deal to Jared, but I heard this one was tough. It was actually slightly shorter than the hike to Waimea Falls, (less than 1 1/2 miles r/t) but this one included something like 250+ stairs to get up to the lookout. The climate and foliage here was the complete opposite of our walk the day before. This felt like hiking in AZ—dry and hot with little shade, except in the tunnels. This Lookout point was used by the military because of the great view, so the stairs, etc. were created for them, not for the tourists. The view was pretty great! You could see all of Waikiki, far out into the ocean, and back toward the green mountains. I actually felt OK and just made everyone stop to rest a little more often than they normally would have. There were people trying to sell certificates and t-shirts that proclaimed the accomplishment of hiking Diamond Head, I asked if there was one that said, “I hiked Diamond Head Crater, and I’m PREGNANT!” No such luck. :-)

(almost there!)
We decided to check out Waikiki. We went to lunch at the well-know “Cheeseburgers in Paradise” Restaurant right near the beach. The food was good and it was entertaining to watch birds fly in and out and clean up the leftover food on the floor.

















Aren't Suzy and I lucky girls?
We shopped for a few souvenirs. We ended up getting Barry a Red Dirt Shirt (a shirt dyed with genuine red dirt from Hawaii)—it just seemed like him, some t-shirts for the kids and a few other things. We watched the tons of surfers from the beach at Waikiki. It looked like they would all crash into each other.

We drove back inland to catch a showing of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Sure that is something we could have done on the mainland, but we didn’t have to get babysitting and it was fun to see with Jared and Suzy.

HAWAII DIARY--May 25--Part II (PCC)

We changed clothes and rested a little a the house before heading to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. I knew the church had built the PCC, but I didn’t realize what a big deal it had become. I think it is the foremost paid attraction in Oahu. We went to the IMAX theatre first, since I was still a bit tired and thought I could rest in there. We enjoyed the movie about the coral reefs. It finished just in time to watch the canoe parade. This was amazing to me. I don’t know how they can dance while on moving boats. It was a little hot and crowded, though.

It was hard to decide where to go next, but somehow we settled on the cultural presentation in Aotearoa
(New Zealand). This was our best adventure of the day. While we were waiting for the presentation to start, a girl in costume approached us to be part of the presentation. When I realized that I would mainly be Barry that had the tough job, I readily agreed that we should participate. Barry got to be the chief of all of the tourists and I, of course, was his wife. The soldiers first greeted us from far away with what would have been a terrifying charge with a spear, if we hadn’t known better. Then the warrior dropped the peace stick. Barry had to go and pick it up to symbolize that we were there for peace and not to murder the Maoris in their sleep. The chief’s wife then sang to us (I would have had to sing back if I knew the song, but our escort took care of that for us). We were invited into the chief’s house along with all of the tourists. Here Barry was introduced as chief Barry from the beautiful island of Arizona. He then had to come and “breathe the essence” (I think that is how they said it) of the chief of the Maoris. Then he got to come and do the same thing with me, and then everyone had to do it with someone. You can see Barry doing this in the pictures. You touch noses and foreheads, close your eyes, and take deep breaths. Some of our fellow tourists had fun calling Barry “chief” as we ran into them through out the day.
After the presentation we had to get tattoos. I found it fun to get tattoos at a church sponsored facility.

We didn’t get to see all of the other villages, but enjoyed what we saw. The Tongan drum show was a lot of fun. (If only Barry had gotten to participate in that one as well.) We learned Tahitian weaving out of long blades of grass. We made fishes. Mine was pretty cute, but I think I left it at Jared and Suzy’s place. We stopped by the “Hawaiian mission house to see about Ukeleles and ended up buying a basic book of songs and some strings to replace the ones on the Ukelele I inherited from my Grandparents.

Before long, it was time for the luau. We were greeted with more Leis. They had the Royal Hawaiian court come and did the traditional removing of the pig from the pit. The food was pretty good with the opportunity to try some of the traditional dishes that mainlanders don’t always like, for example poi, and poke.
(Barry and I take different approaches to drinking from a pineapple).

The night show was pretty spectacular. We were pretty exhausted by this point, and Barry thought maybe we should head home at intermission, but that would have been a big mistake, because all of the Samoan fire dancing was in the second half and it was pretty incredible. How they don’t all end up seriously burned each night is a mystery to me. I am really impressed with all of the talented young people at the PCC. They say that most are students at BYU Hawaii. But their knowledge of the polynesian culture, dances, etc., is quite impressive.

HAWAII DIARY--May 25--Part 1 (Waimea Falls)

Our first excursion was to the Waimea Falls, by way of the Waimea Valley Audubon Center. I wanted to see a waterfall, but knew they weren’t plentiful right now because of lack of rain. The Center is a beautiful, lush, peaceful, reserve area, filled with rainforest type vegetation from different parts of the world. The walk to the waterfall is only 1 1/2 miles r/t, but I have been so sedentary with pregnancy that it made me nervous. About halfway there I started to get shaky and weak (I don’t think I had enough breakfast). I made it to the falls, with Barry being patient and supportive. The falls were pretty small, but still pretty. I took off my shoes and waded in the water for a minute. That was pretty rejuvenating. The way back was pretty easy since it was all down hill. We stopped at the gift shop and bought a watercolor and some magnetic rocks for Barry. We got me a pork sandwich on a taro roll before leaving, which helped me feel better.

HAWAII DIARY--May 24

Jared & Suzy’s place is nearly an ideal location for a Hawaii vacation. It is a very short walk to the beach on the North Shore, and near lots of good surfing spots for Jared. It is surrounded by lush green vegetation and when you open the window (which you always do—no a/c) there is always a pleasant breeze. It is right across the street from the grocery store, which is very convenient, but also contributes to the one problem. For some reason there is a lot of noisy traffic along their street, at times, particularly early in the morning when delivery trucks try and back into the back side of the grocery store to make their deliveries. I had a rough time sleeping that first night, and a couple of times had to sit up and look out the window to make sure they were just trucks driving by and not planes flying so low that they were going to crash!

Still because of the time change, we were up and ready to go fairly early. We walked down to Waimea Beach to hang out and play. We got to watch the coast guard helicopters running drills not far away. The helicopter would get very close to the water and a diver would jump in. Later another would follow, then they would send down the metal basket and pull them back in. They did this again with the sling.
Barry and Jared jumped off of a big rock into the ocean. We tried snorkeling there. We saw some pretty fish but not a lot else. We walked over to the beach at Three Tables. The water here was a bit choppy so I wasn’t sure I wanted to snorkel, but I guess I missed out. This is where Barry got to swim with the sea turtles (see video in previous post).

On the beach, these tiny cardinal birds came to try and eat our snacks. They were fun to watch.

But our animal encounters weren’t over. For lunch we got an Acai bowl from a café right by their house. I guess the acai is some kind of rainforest berry. They make this yummy smoothie with the fruit of the acai and serve it in a bowl with granola, bananas and honey. It was really quite yummy, but we weren’t the only ones who thought so. The whole time we were eating, these brightly colored lizards that I have never seen before, kept coming for samples. At one point, I had about four with in striking distance of my bowl.

Next, we headed to the Dole Plantation where Barry had a second lunch of Pineapple chili (not bad) and we all sampled the delicious pineapple ice cream. We wandered around, but passed on the train tours, etc. there.

(have you ever seen a red pineapple?)

Then we went shopping (browsing mostly) at Haliewa a big (historic) surfing town. We were pretty beat by this point. Besides jet-lag and no sleep the previous night, Barry had a pretty good sunburn from the mornings activities (he is naturally rather neon) and a stiff neck. We took short naps, then walked to the Shark’s Cove Grill for dinner near the beach at sunset. We stopped by the grocery store on our way back to get some food for our stay and look at souveniers—yes, they are everywhere!

HAWAII DIARY--May 23

The easiest way to post about my trip is going to be to just copy and paste my diary and notes about the experience. Feel free to skim if it is a bit long, but it is good motivation for me to get this all recorded before it slips from memory.

Hawaii--May 2007
May 23, 2007
MOM'S BIRTHDAY/FLIGHT TO HAWAII

Besides packing and getting ready to go, the morning was spent trying to celebrate my Mom’s birthday (you would never believe it was her 70th). I felt a little bad that they had come all the way from Utah to watch our kids for us while we lived it up in Hawaii and that I was abandoning them on such an important day. Mom is so used to sacrificing that she didn’t seem to think is was a very big deal. We did the best we could under the circumstances. We fixed her a birthday breakfast and even came up with a quick treasure hunt for her to find her presents (my brothers and sisters had sent me money so she could have her presents here). We then took them to lunch at Applebee’s, before heading to the airport.
I had allowed Kira to stay home from school for the day with the birthday excitement and the trip to the airport. Of course, Trenton had fallen asleep by the time we got to the airport, so we didn’t really get to say goodbye to him. Kira started to get weepy as we left, but Mom said she recovered pretty quickly.

I must have done our check-in online at just the right time, because I was able to get us into an Emergency exit aisle. Barry was very concerned about his leg room—understandably.

Best things about Exit aisle:

• Leg room
• I could get up and go to the restroom without making anyone move, and still have a window seat!
• Barry likes to be prepared—can handle emergencies.

Con:

• For some reason, the air by the door is freezer temperature. It nearly froze my water and did freeze my feet.

Flight Cons:

• Drunk people—There was a wedding party of about 80 getting an early start on the celebration, but the people next to us were told they won the prize for the highest tab. About half way through the flight, the flight attendants announced that we were completely out of beer and pretty much out of all the other alcohol, too.
  Time passes so slowly. (I didn’t want to watch Rocky or pay for the headset).
• Baggage claim—how long must it take?
• True Confessions: I am really afraid to fly! I have to pray through take off and several other times through out the flight.

Flight Pros:

• How’s this for a contradiction: I LOVE to look out the window at the world below!!! I got to watch Phoenix (flew near our house—Trenton was outside at the same time yelling at the airplanes to come back), LA area, and get a nice view of Oahu at sunset.
• We had a great tailwind and managed to get in about an hour early!

Jared and Suzy came to the airport to greet us with leis! I was so excited! We drove to the other side of the island in the dark and crashed at Jared & Suzy’s place. They were so kind to give us their room and they slept on the air mattress in the living room.

(We waited until the next morning to get a picture in our leis.)

Just a few more

Here are a few more pictures to keep the kids happy until we get home early Thurs. morning:

Kira, can you figure out what I am holding in this picture?

Barry tries spear fishing and winds up spearing the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, Hawaii's state fish.

Barry doesn't have all the adventures. Here I am snorkeling with two big schools of fish.

A few pics from Paradise

I promised the kids that I would post a couple of pictures while we are still here in Hawaii. I can only post the ones that Jared and Suzy take with their cameras since their computer isn't set up to download ours. Here is proof that Barry caught some waves on his first surfing lesson, and a picture of us on top of Diamond Head Crater--proof that in my pregnant state I still made the hike including the 200+ stairs leading to the top. Behind us is Waikiki.

ALOHA!

Greetings from Hawaii. We have only been here one full day and have already had some exciting adventures. I wanted to post this mainly for my kids back home to see. I will do more of a blow by blow when we get home, but for now enjoy watching Barry snorkeling with the sea turtles. (Thanks to Jared for bringing his cool underwater camera and getting this video!)

Kira's Dance Recital

I finally have some pictures/video to post of the big recital last weekend! We had a busy Saturday with a baby shower in Queen Creek (do you know how far out that is???), celebrating birthday and Mother's Day with Barry's mom, and Kira's recital. We didn't have time to get her to the recital for the formal pictures, but figured we could get some cute ones on our own. That doesn't work so well if the batteries on the camera are ALL GONE! Some of my friends came to the rescue and emailed me some pictures. Fortunately, Barry was able to Shoot some video and I finally figured out how to post it. Consequently we don't have any pictures of our celebration with Mom, but we love her anyway! HAPPY BIRTHDAY/MOTHER'S DAY, MOM! Thanks for spending time with us!

Kira looked lovely in her purple outfit as they danced to "The Last Unicorn." We were all a little concerned about her though, because this was the expression on her face through out the dance. It may have started out as nerves, but turned to anger, when she became convinced that one of her friends had purposefully flicked her hair during the dance. If looks could kill...

Fortunately, during the second song she managed to forget about the injustice done to her and remember how much she enjoyed dancing to "Popcorn." Here is the video. She is on the far right. Of course, Barry got the close-up right when she loses her giant smile, but this one was fun to watch! Here she is after the recital with her best friend, Halle.

Trenton gives his own recital

Video Test--Before the recital

I have been trying to upload post video of Kira's recital. This is the only one that has come through so far, so we'll give it a try.

Mission "Kim Possible"

Here is the Birthday Party report (I must warn that this is long--it was easier to cut and paste the work that I had already done, than to type up new report):
INVITATION: You see here one of the "kimmunicators" we made for invitations. This is actually the sloppiest one, since we gave the best ones away. The screen was a window and opening the front reveal the rest of the party details.

PRESENTS: We tried an experiment this year. We don't have room in our house for a lot of new toys, so I suggested to Kira that we consider having her guests bring presents for someone that needs them more. She was suprisingly agreeable, so we inserted the following request into the invitation.












CRAFTS/MISSION: As the kids arrived I had them decorate their own small fanny pack to carry their KP gear. While they were working on this, the doorbell rang and there was a package for Kira from Kim Possible. It included some crime-fighting clothes, a Kim Possible Passport that had a secret message decoder (key) inside, a walkie talkie, pen, and a letter from Kim Possible:

K.P. here! I heard you were a big fan with the same kind of hair as me, so I wanted to do something special for your birthday. For today I am making you an honorary crime fighter. How does Kira Possible sound?
Here are a few things that should help you on your missions today. And don’t lose this walkie talkie. It is your “Kimmunicator” for the day, so I can let you know “what’s the sitch!”

From your friend,

Kim Possible

We went outside to make pom-poms (KP is a cheerleader and uses her cheerleading moves to fight the bad guys). When we were just about finished Kira got a call from KP on her walkie-talkie:
Hi Kira! Kim Possible here. Are you there?

Here’s the sitch…Wade just told me that Drakken has stolen all of the presents that you guys gathered for those kids at the hospital. So the Drama!
(we ran to see that the presents were, in fact, gone).

Don’t worry. I’m on it, but I’ll need your help! First off, I’m supposed to be cheering for the “Mad Dogs” right now at the big game! Can you and your friends learn a cheer and fill in for me? Great! Kristin is my cheer coach and she’s on her way. She’ll show you just what to do! Thanks guys! I’m out!

Kristin (Barry's sister) taught the girls a basic cheer and I video taped it.

Then KP came back on the walkie-talkie:

So, how’d it go? Thanks girls! You really have saved the day! Now, back to business. We have learned that Monkey Fist is the one that actually snatched the gifts. If you can find and defeat him, maybe you can learn where the presents are now. He was last spotted in front of your house, near the garage. Good Luck! Let me know how it goes!

We ran to the garage to find Monkey Fist and do battle with him.













Among the treasures inside the Monkey Fist pinata, was a code with a key (to the mailbox) that when deciphered, read:

PRESENTS DELIVERED TO SHEGO AT MAILBOX

We reported back to Kim Possible, then took an excursion to our mailbox, where the girls found a glowing green bracelet that must have belonge to Shego and a code that read:

DRAKKEN WILL BLOW-UP PRESENTS AT BUENO NACHO RESTAURANT.

(Side note: I have to say how much fun it was watching the girls get so into the story at this point. Those who were not feverishly trying to decipher the code decided to be on the look out for Drakken. They were totally into it!)

We reported to KP and her sidekick, Ron Stoppable:

Ron: Oh No! NOT BUENO NACHO. Any place but there!!! Kira, you must SAVE BUENO NACHO!
Kim: So the drama today! According to Wade on the Kimmunicator, you guys are only a block and a half from the Bueno Nacho location. You must get there and put out the bomb, Kira, before the whole place blows up! Hurry Fast! Head back toward your house. Go down the alley by the side of your house and look for the “Bueno Nacho” sign. We are counting on you.

We came back to the house where now there was a large banner that read "BUENO NACHO" The girls ran around back to find the bomb:


It was surrounded by presents and the candle was lit. (Barry couldn't find the sparkler candles I had bought. Oh well! As it was, the girls were asking if it was a real bomb). Kira blew out the flame and saved the day. She reported to KP. Then we partied at BUENO NACHO (that is why Barry had the hat) and ate the edible bomb with ice cream.

When it was over some of the girls asked if we could do the whole mission again. I told them that they had defeated the villians pretty seriously and they would have to rest and recover for a while before there were any more missions!

FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO!

Isn't this a great picture! It is actually from the end of our birthday party festivities for Kira today.

I will write all about those in a little bit, but I need to recover a little first. And I thought it appropriate to share this very festive looking picture of Barry, in the meantime.