Hawai'i, Snorkel City

Dearest reader, there are a lot of pictures.  So I may be brief at times.  This is not due to a lack of cool stories or something, but instead, due to the fact I need to write both Hawaii posts, and another vacation post in Utah.  I did not diligently carve out time for blogging while on this trip, as I know you all expect me to.  But to make up for it, here is a picture with the shaka statue guy..

Monday morning we headed for the Dole plantation.  In the parking lot, there were these really cool trees that were a bunch of colors.  I never looked up what they're called, so we'll call them neat trees.

We decided to eschew the worlds largest maze (kids, am I right?), and instead enjoyed a train ride around the plantation.  Sometimes when a ride is this hopping you gotta throw your hands up and scream!

We saw these neat lizards while we were there.  I think we only saw them on garbage cans, so I guess they eat plastic or something.

I liked these pineapples for a picture because they're red and really stand out.  Turns out pineapples grow on a bush.

We of course had to get Dole whips.  Mine was pineapple flavored, just like they all are.

After we cooled down, we went to see the botanical gardens.  Grayson, always on the hunt for good nature, found a leaf as big as he is.  This might be the biggest leaf he's seen in his whole life!

And there were these cool trees where branches grew back down to the ground and it kinda looked they were wearing grass skirts.  They're called Hala trees.

We stumbled upon some sugar cane, and my sweet tooth just couldn't resist.

And Grayson found this open seed pod he really liked.  He said it reminded him of the Royal Seeds from Mario Wonder.

There was a cat skulking around the garbage can.  Maybe for a lizard?  Nope!  When the workers empty the trash they'll look in and throw out any meat they see for the cats!  I think they like to keep them around to try to keep pests away out of the gardens, because I did see several cats while we were walking around, especially in the garden area.

And here we are at the entrance.  The perfect place to end a tour, right?

From the Dole plantation, we drove over to Turtle bay to try out some snorkeling.  There was also a bunch of rocks jutting into the ocean, and Grayson asked me to climb out to the end of them with him.  We could have been wearing better shoes for such a trek.

And as mentioned, we also took our first attempt at snorkeling.  Some of the gear we had were "dry" snorkels, which  means they have vents in them to let water out if it gets in the tube.  However, the vents were either old, or one definitely had sand in it.  This means it did a really cool, special thing.  When you'd put your head in the water, it would immediately fill with water and it would go straight in your mouth!  Just as intended.

Tuesday morning we headed out for a fun family hike.  When we got to the trailhead, we saw that part of the trail was closed due to a fire ant infestation, the thing Monica has started carrying an EpiPen for...  Great news, the ones in Hawaii also climb into trees and will fall out on you if you walk under.  Needless to say, we did not go down that path.  After a bit of rough terrain Winry, Grayson and I continued on for a little before turning back ourselves.

We went to the food trucks at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) for lunch, and the kids got shave ice to wrap up their lunches.

Later that afternoon/evening Monica and I went to the Laie temple.  Thank goodness for missionary babysitters so you can get out and stretch your spiritual legs every now and then.

On Wednesday we went to Waimea falls.  There's about a three fourths mile walk to get to the falls with several things to see along the way.  There were some traditional buildings in a little village, and one of them had a boat in it!  It started raining around this time, and the village provided great shelter to those who sought it.

This was a really cool looking tree.  Now that I'm thinking about this, we saw trees like this in Australia and even took a family picture by one.  These roots weren't as tall out of the ground as the one in Australia though.

Along our rainy path, we saw several large snails, and Grayson absolutely loved them! He would stop and stand by some on the path to protect them in case anyone didn't notice them and was about to step on them.

The falls themselves were amazing.  I believe they said the water is 30 feet deep in places, and you had to wear a life jacket to get in.  It was a lot of fun to swim around.  Right next to the waterfall, there was a little shelf you could sit on.  We took turns jumping into the waterfall and getting pushed out in the middle of the pool.  Everyone had a great time.

Around halfway back, Winry realized she left her shorts behind, so I dashed back to pick them up.  It was good to get a run in!  On the way back, we noticed this tree.  It kind of looks like a person draped in green vines with their arms raised. At least from this angle.

My burger was on a taro bun.  They really like to use taro around here because it makes the bread purple.  It's pretty unique, and tastes great.

After lunch we stopped at Shark's Cove for a little more snorkeling.  There was a good rocky/reefy spot protected form the ocean waves.  There were some shallow areas were Grayson stayed the whole time.  There was even a little school of fish swimming around in there, as well as a gloopy mudsucker!  Out in the deeper water there was a full on school of fish.  The water was murky enough you could just see them at the end of your vision and then they'd swim away.  It's probably when they could see me too.  It was fun swimming around, but at places the rocks came up pretty close to the surface and it was hard to swim over without touching.  You're not supposed to touch the reef cause you can kill all kinds of stuff by doing that.  Well, it was fun swimming around until I stumbled upon the urchins with 8 inch spikes, and then I was ready to head back.  You don't want to stumble upon one of those swimming over rocks and getting into a tight space!

We had Bonzai Bowls for dinner.  This was our second time going.  We also went one of our first nights, I don't remember if I had a picture.  We liked it so much that there was no choice but to stop since we were already driving by.

We heard that there was a beach nearby where turtles liked to come ashore to sleep for the night.  I guess the word was to bring a flashlight, which we didn't... and the turtles didn't start coming out until pretty far into the sunset.  We could see them, but it was hard to get a good picture.  Grayson got a sea turtle stuffed animal, and so he was happy to show him his family.

Fortunately, while we were there, someone came along who DID have a flashlight.  This picture is much better.  Though I did feel kinda bad for the turtles having to have that super bright light shining on them.  The first guy had the right idea sticking his head under that bush.  Also, once he got there, he stopped scooting up on the shore, so I think that's where he slept.

Thursday morning was a bit of relaxing.  I don't remember what Monica was looking at, but you know that a phone screen is a total kid magnet.  Looks like fun!

Around noon we headed for the Polynesian Cultural Center.  First stop was the smashed penny machine of course.

We started off with the boat show.  They had different boats go by for the different islands.  On the boats were people doing dances.  Then at the end, they stuck 3 together and turned in a circle while people from all of the islands danced together.

We were on a guided tour.  We weaved reeds, played stick games, watched performances, and got tattoos.  Oh, we also got ponchos because it started raining while we were watching the boat show, which you can see on Brooke.  Also, I liked Pop and Winry walking around holding hands.

We took a boat ride from one side of the PCC to the other which was fun.  Here's the whole gang together.

We even got to see some fire dancing at one of our stops.

The other big part of our tour was a luau in the evening.  The pina coladas were SOOO good, and all the food was great as well.  They had a show going on while we ate.  Everyone was able to find something they wanted, which isn't a given with our kids, but we all had a good time.

At one point, they invited all the kids up to teach them a little hula dance to perform for everyone.

We also had tickets to the "Ha Breath of Life" show after dinner.  The show was really good, but no photos were allowed.  It ended pretty late, and Grayson fell asleep towards the end.  After the show you could go take pictures with the performers.  Monica took the girls to get pictures while Grayson slept on me.

On Friday morning, we went to Kahuku farms, a farm we'd driven by several times. We saw acai trees.  I've definitely never seen one of these before.  The berries grow down those white-ish strips.

There were all kinds of plants growing around the farm.  We taught Grayson the "pretend you're taking a bite thing" and that did help him be more interested in walking around.  The downside is that we then had to take a picture like this with everything we ever saw.

After the farm, we actually headed right back to the PCC.  We didn't realize we would, but after the first day we realized there was just so much we hadn't seen.  In fact, when we went back, we realized we never even went to the portion about Hawai'i on the first day!  We had to go find Hawai'i because they had a hula dancing class.

The kids wanted to go paddle a canoe too.  There were so many activities we didn't have a chance to do the day before because we were in a group of like 14.  We went on a little loop, and as soon as we got back, Grayson wanted to go again. My arms told me one loop was enough.

We were able to take some ukulele lessons as well.  It was pretty fun.  I would maybe consider even trying to play the ukulele or guitar when we got home (I think we have both).

There were even practice fire dancing sticks.

And try as I might I just couldn't get a fire started rubbing sticks together.  I got smoke several times, but I just didn't have the right technique or endurance or something.

Saturday morning we headed to Hanauma bay for some advanced snorkeling.  This is THE place to go snorkeling on Oahu.  We even had to get a reservation, etc.  There happened to be some monk seals sleeping on the beach that day too.

Here's the gang in the water getting ready to do some fish finding.  The snorkeling was really good here.  The reef is really big, and the water was also very clear.  Like, even when you stepped on the sand it didn't kick up huge clouds of junk like at sharks cove.  I took many videos, including one of a stranger, cause that was intentional...  It was a ton of fun, and I think I was pretty much in the ocean for 3 hours straight.  Oh, there were also a whole bunch of Humuhumunukunukuapua'as there as well. They're Hawai'i's state fish.

Winry and Grayson headed back with Gram and Pop, and Monica, Brooke and I headed for a hike up to a the Makapu'u lighthouse.  Just a little bit further.

So... turns out the hike doesn't actually go to the lighthouse, it goes above the lighthouse.  So we climbed to the top of the hill.  The view was amazing, and it was cool to see the lighthouse down below us too.  Also on the hike, there was a sign pointing out other islands you could see in the distance.  I don't think there are any in the pictures I've included, so anything you see out there is either Oahu still, or a big rock poking up in the middle of the ocean.  We were able to see 2 islands way off in the distance at one point though.

We stopped to pick up malasadas on our way back, which are fancy filled donuts.  Since everyone wasn't there, we had to wait before eating them.

We had dinner at the PCC.  Was it because it was our home away from home?  No, it was because they were having a big 4th of July party with fireworks.  So we had dinner, donuts, and then fireworks.

Here's the crew enjoying the show.

And when we got back to the house, there was a snail who had also been out enjoying the fireworks. And the sudden 10 minute down poor that hit right after we got in the car.

Sunday we of course went to church again. Monica's parents serve in a Samoan ward, so church is a mix of Samoan and English.  It turns out that the church shoes Grayson brought were too small for him, so he got to wear sandals to church.  He did his best to fit in.

That evening the senior missionaries had a munch and mingle that we all got to attend.  Grayson wanted to jump the line and got back to the table nice and quick.  I thought it was funny to see him eating on his own.

Eventually the rest of us joined him and had a fabulous dinner.  It was a little funny as I sampled the provided buffet.  It was all the Utah classics, but in Hawai'i.

That's all for our first week.  We've still got most of another week ahead, so I'm sure there will be a lot more adventures to discuss!