Hawaii - Day Three: Relaxing and the temple 07/22/11

After our long day at the PCC, we planned to sleep in and just relax.  We went across the street and found out the joys of waves.  The kids just had so much fun being chased and knocked down by them.  For myself it was just so dang relaxing to be in the warm water has it ebbed and swelled.  I could stay in it forever.

The minute we got to the beach, before we'd even gotten into the water, the kids were pestering us to be able to build a sand castle.  They were so excited about it!  They didn't always completely understand that if they built it too close to the water, it was going to be washed away, so there was a lot of re-building, but there were absolutely no complaining.  As for Randy, we couldn't pry those goggles off of him to save our lives.  Too funny.

There was sand everywhere!  And this is Tony after we washed him off.

The boys had fun doing sand wars.  I was a little concerned that it would hurt when it hit them hard, but nope.  They had tons of fun tackling and sneak attacking each other.

Here is Tony after one of the many sand fights.

And look at our boy!  He's spelling his name all on his own!

 This was one of my very favorite times of the trip watching Tony use his imagination to play with the little army men while we were waiting for Scott to get our rental car.  I love it when the kids use their imaginations!

After we relaxed on the beach, Scott and I headed up to the temple.  One of Scott's buddies from the mission who lives next door to the temple offered to watch the kids while we went through a session.  Of course we got there and hadn't checked the schedule and there wasn't starting for another two hours.  Curses!  Isn't that always how it goes???  We ended up doing some sealings and initiatories, though, so it was totally worth it.  After, we walked around the temple and tried to take some pictures.  By this time, the kids were good 'n' fed up with the incessant clicking, so it was tough to get any good ones.

But they were very enthusiastic about the crazy face pictures!

I don't know about your kids, but my kids can't pass up a pool of water that they can reach in and touch. It was tough getting them not to just jump right in and splash around!

After the temple, we went to get some traditional Hawaiian shaved ice with Elder Ormsby (maybe I should know his first name.  Their mission was nearly a decade ago, but I have no idea).  We got one for the kids, and one for me and Scott.  Next thing we know there are screams from the booth behind us and above is what we saw.  I was very proud that instead of yelling, I just took a picture.

Another one of those times I was so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost came later that night.  We got home and decided to go swimming in the pool at our condo.  The kids changed into their bathing suits and ran downstairs to jump in the pool.  Pretty quickly they realized they forgot Tony's life vest and their goggles.  Scott went back up to get them, but got sidetracked and it was taking him ages to get back down to the pool.  After lots of begging from Tony for his life vest and Randy and Cady for their goggles, I got my keys to go upstairs.  I had gotten all the way to the door to go upstairs when I suddenly felt strongly like I should stay and just wait for Scott.  I went back to my bench and started clicking away with my camera the kids playing.  Within 30 seconds, above is what I saw.  Initially I thought it was just Randy being a nice older brother and playing with his brother.  What you don't see is that he's in the middle off the pool bobbing further down the slope as it gets deeper and he is freaking out because he has lost control of the situation and can't keep himself, and therefore his brother, afloat.  Thank goodness I was there.  Even just a quick run up to the condo would have been absolutely disasterous.  And thank goodness I listened to the promptings of the Spirit when I was told not to go upstairs - even if it was just for a quick minute.

Had I not, my two boys' lives could have been very, very different.  I love you, Randy and Tony!

We would like to give a special shout-out to Uncle Chuck.  Two years ago he gave us High School Musical 1 and 2.  High School Musical 2 has a beach theme, and all week long we were hearing the kids sing the songs.  Here Cady is being Sharpay and singing "Fabulous!"  Even as I'm typing it, I'm singing that dang song.

Our plan for tomorrow is to go to Hanauma bay and go snorkling.  We got the kids a snorkle suit so they could practice in the pool.  Stay tuned for the highlights of our fun day at Hanauma Bay!

Hawaii - Day two: The PCC 07/21/11

A lot of people asked us if we were excited about all the yummy food we were going to eat now that we were out of isolated Juneau, and boy oh boy were we!  But not so much the food that is native to Hawaii, but more about the Chili's, and Outbacks and Dairy Queens!  So here we all are, so happy for our first meal at IHOP!  Oh so good!

After breakfast, we had a little time to wander around before we had to meet the tour bus to the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC).  We rented a condo in Malibu right across from the Hawaiian Hilton Village.  The kids were just amazed at the beauty of it!  There were fish ponds and fountains all around, and we were hard pressed to convince the kids they shouldn't catch the fish.

I mean look at that!  Isn't it a beauty?  The Hilton had a little wading pool that wasn't connected to the ocean that was a nice warm up for the ocean the first day.  I think it was just for the Hilton guests, but whatever.  What I liked is that they raked the sand first thing in the morning!  Can you imagine being a sand raker as a profession?  

 The flowers were awesome!  These were just flowers that were just laying on the floor.  These were junk flowers!

The kids love their papa!  Either that or they love their papa's phone.  Whatever.

We're so happy we went to the PCC first, and as part of the package, they bussed us around the entire island and showed us the hot tourist spots.  It was great because some of the spots we were planning on visiting we visited and said meh, and other places we were iffy on we got excited about.  Here we are overlooking the beach from Diamondhead.

Some things never change.  Tony Parkours in Juneau, and Tony Parkours in Hawaii.

Here we are at the Dole Plantation.  You know, we had heard that pineapple in Hawaii was like nothing you've ever had before.  Whatever... but they were right!  The pineapple itself was enough to make us want to come back a second day!  But isn't this tree cool?  It's a Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree.

We finally got to the PCC, and while it was cool, we had a TERRIBLE tour guide!  We saw all these cool things that all the other people were doing, and he would just walk right by them.  We did a LOT of sitting around waiting for this show or that.  The shows were good, but it would've been nice to do some activities.  But this guy was freakin' hilarious!

There was a fun show that had all of the Polynesian dancers from all of islands.  

The one activity we did get to participate in is the Tongan spear toss.  Apparently when there are disagreements in Tonga, one way they're settled is by tossing a spear to a certain spot, and whomever is closest wins the argument!  None of our kids won the argument.  :-(

We were excited to get out of Juneau so we would get out of the rain.  Of course, Hawaii has just as much rain as Juneau!  It was nice that it felt like a warm shower, though.  And very cool that it absolutely downpoured for 10 minutes, and then it was sunny for the next few hours.  But people were looking at us like we were crazy as we were just walking around like nothing in the pouring down rain.

The food was AMAZING at the PCC!!  They did a traditional Hawaiian boar roasting where they bury the boar underground and cook it.  So tasty!  And the men carrying the boar weren't too bad, either!

 Isn't our family lovely?  There was a program in the evening in the outdoor, and here we are waiting for the show to begin in the evening.

The show was fantastic (six months later Tony's still talking about the guy who got hit by the spear and did he die for real?).  And there was another one of those fun torrential rains to run through to the bus!  These are the faces of some very happy people at the end of the night!

Hawaii - getting ready and day one. 07/20/2011

The day has come!  We are on our way to Hawaii!  We woke up at 4am so that we could get to the airport at 5am.  Have you ever seen more cheerful folks at 5 in the morning?  They know what's coming!  

Scott's father was an airline pilot, and he spent a lot of time in airports growing up.  It made it very useful when we breezed through security in Juneau (it's a very mini airport) and we had a full hour and a half of waiting.  It bode for a long, painful flight:  "Are we boarding the plane yet?  Is that our plane?  When do we leave?" and from Tony in utter disgust, "Is this Hawaii?"  Scott often called the kids over and pointed things out, teaching them all about the goings-on at airports.

Cady is really turning into a fashionista.  Papa definitely isn't helping her at all.  Scott bought her the cute sunglasses (broken before we even got to the condo) and flipped her hair the night before.  At least he started flipping it.  He's got the best intentions - the execution has to be carried out by Mama, though.  I can just see them in 10 years, Cady dragging Scott around by the credit card getting prom dresses or... well, whatever daddies and daughters do together in teenagerhood.

After an agonizing wait, finally it was time to board!

This is Tony's (and all of the kids') second time on an airplane, and Tony couldn't even contain himself.  He was bouncing back and forth excitedly.  I thought he was going to wet himself!

It's very hard seating five people together, so we did two together, two together, then one by themselves all in three clumped rows.  We thought it would be a great reward to be able to sit all by yourself.  Apparently not, though.  Randy tried sitting by himself for the first leg of the journey (from Juneau to Anchorage), but he felt very separated and loney.  The rest of the trips, we did LOTS of switching around with the other passengers so that we were in clumps of 3 and 2 next to each other.

The flight to Anchorage was breathtaking.  The view of the rugged mountains was very powerful, and I had no idea there were so many glaciers!  It was definitely awe inspiring, and made me feel lucky to get to live in such a beautiful place.

We had a five hour layover in Anchorage, so we decided to get out of the airport and taxi it to a nearby park.  I pretty much fell in love with Scott all over again at the park.  He had so much fun with the kids!  Well, I'm not sure if he was having fun, but the kids were having fun with him!  He pushed the boys on the swings...

... monkeyed around with Cady on the monkey bars...

... and got stuck in small spaces with Tony.  The kids had so much fun playing with laid-back and fun Papa.  I love that man so much!  We ate lunch in the park with our friends, Mark and Kelly (I curse myself that I didn't get pictures!  I was too busy eating and catching up!), then headed back to airport to make our final journey to Hawaii!

Randy and I sat together this time. It was a five hour flight, and we had lots of toys and coloring tools and books.  The airplane also let us rent movie players that had lots of tv shows, movies, and games already loaded onto it.  Randy and I got to sit together and watch Goonies!  My era, yes, but his choice.  Love that boy!

Finally, after a very long flight, we were there!  This is us just off the plane, and even the airport is tropical and beautiful!  This is the last picture of us from this day because I started the trip off right by leaving my camera in the taxi.  My new camera that we spent far too much on.  Yeah... I wasn't to happy, and neither was Scott (this was the third camera I'd lost in six years).  A few tears, multiple phone calls, and lots of prayers later, and the taxi driver dropped the phone off at our condo.  This was just the first in many times we our prayers were answered on this trip.

The Salmon are running! 07/14/11

We finally found some salmon!  We went up to entrance to the Salmon Creek hatchery (imagine there being salmon there?).  It was low tide, and there were salmon all over (dead and alive.  the smell was not alltogether pleasing).  At the very entrance of the river, the salmon were blocked by something or another, and they couldn't go anywhere.  Above, Cady has just touched a salmon, and she is delighted!

The creek was pretty shallow, and the salmon were VERY big.  You can see their fins sticking out of the water, and you can see just how many there were!

The downside?  It was pouring down rain!  We were absolutely drenched, but the downpour almost made it more fun!

New Bikes! 07/06/2011

Yes, we finally broke down and got the kids bikes.  The weather had been so good, and we kept saying we'd get them after Hawaii, but Fred Meyer had a good sale on bikes, and there's a trail just across the street.

What's even better is that they get to take their bikes to RALLY (their school-based daycare).  They're so excited!

Tony got his very first big-boy bike!  He could not be more happy!

Thank goodness for his training wheels, though!  He was permanently tilted to the side.  We had to adjust his wheels constantly because the wheel kept getting higher and higher and he was tilting more and more.