HAWAII DIARY--May 27

SUNDAY

We slept in the latest we have so far this trip and didn’t get up until about 8:00am. We got ready and went to church with Jared and Suzy to the Waialua Ward. It is always interesting to observe how much the church is the same across the world, but also the ways it is different. The speakers for the day were moving and this was to be their last Sunday, so after the closing prayer, we all stood up and sang “Aloha Oy” (You know the song you have always heard associated with Hawaii). As we sang, those who were close to the couple went up on the stand and gave them hugs and wished them well. This is why Jared says they never let their wards know when they are moving.

I wasn’t up for staying for all of the meetings (particularly since the other rooms didn’t have air conditioning). So Barry and I finished up church on a peaceful beach. We actually went to Giovanni’s Famous Shrimp truck for their garlic shrimp and to Jared’s favorite place to get shaved ice in Haliewa, and took our food back to the beach where Barry had been surfing. (Jared doesn’t do seafood, so we had to try it when he wasn’t around). We relaxed and talked at the beach as we ate and were delighted to find several sea turtles “surfing” in the waves near the shore.

We watched until we figured it was time to go and meet Jared and Suzy. The drive back to the house took a long time with all of the Memorial Day traffic. While driving, I called everyone in Prescott. It sounded like the kids were doing well and having a lot of fun.

We had Jared and Suzy take us on a Scenic Sunday drive that afternoon. We drove along the eastern side of Oahu. This is the side with the gorgeous, jagged, green cliffs. We stopped at several points for photo ops, including the Chinaman’s Hat Island, the mountains where they shot one of the Jurassic Park movies, and a gorgeous and historic lookout point by the Pali Trail. We did get to see a beautiful rainbow, but didn’t get a picture.

(tsunami alarm)

(I'm not sure that any of our pictures capture the beauty of this lookout point. It was one that takes your breath away!)

Back on the North Shore, we went to the beach to watch the sunset. We were supposed to be relaxing, but it doesn’t matter how old they get...boys will be boys. Jared and Barry ended up with sand all over each other and had to get into the water to clean off.

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!