oahu

Dave's brother and his wife went to Hawaii with us. Or rather, we went with them. They came up with the great idea, and we just tagged along. It was fun traveling with Brent and Vee. We don't get to see them very often, but we all enjoy each others company very much.Here's a re-cap of a few other things we did while vacationing. Brent is a certified scuba diver. I don't exactly know how that hobby started for him in land-locked Utah. Brent and Vee got to Hawaii almost a week before us and he got a chance to do several dives that week. He took Roxanne and Brady out on a beginner's dive off the coast of Honolulu one day. I thought Brady would take right to it and Roxanne would have some genuine fears. As it ended up, Brady did just fine, but it was just an OK activity for him. It was Roxanne that jumped right into it and would be glad to get a chance to go again. Thanks for taking them, Brent.
While they spent the day underwater, Vee and Roxanne and Rachel and I spent the day at the famous Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. You could not even imagine how much junk we accumulated in a very short period of time. . . . t-shirts, jewelry, sunglasses, macadamia nuts, ukuleles, and a dashboard grass-skirted bobble head figurine for a girl who won't even own a car for several more years, but wanted to be prepared when she does.

We made a stop at Pearl Harbor and visited the USS Arizona Memorial. The only problem with it is that there are no photo opportunities. This is Brady in the memorial, but you can't tell that is where he is. You can only get a good photo it as you are approaching it on the shuttle boat. Nevertheless, it is an incredible place. I'm kind of amazed and impressed that it remains such a reverent site for being a crowded public attraction. I found a bit of information that was quite startling to me though. How can a 14 year old child who has attended a reputable public school system for 10 years not be familiar with Pearl Harbor? And when I say "not familiar", I'm not talking about research paper type details. I'm talking about "How come I've never heard of Pearl Harbor before? It sounds like it was a big deal in our history." (Well, dear uneducated daughter of mine, it was. Now let me review some other historical facts with you . . . have you ever heard of World War II ??)We also toured the USS Missouri Battleship and the USS Bowfin Submarine which are also parked in Pearl Harbor. I think given the recently realized lack of education, we would have used this as a educational learning opportunity. But, no. It was just a photo shoot to reenact the sinking of the Titanic.Actually, after the sailor hat fashion show, and the reenactments and many other nonsensical photos, we actually did get some headsets and made them go through the audio tours. It was all kind of fascinating.We had to make a stop at the famous Dole Plantation and experience everything pineapple, especially the pineapple ice cream. They claim to have the world's largest maze. You take a card with you and you have to find several stations in the maze to get your card stamped. I thought it might just be fun for little kids, but I didn't see our offspring for about 45 minutes. I think in the end, Brady and Melanie climbed through the bushes on the border and hiked back around.

Most of the week we spent at the rental house. It sat right on the beach. Just open the gate and out onto the sand. LOVED IT!The nice part of the house is that it rented out in sections. So we rented the upstairs for the 4 adults and rented the downstairs for the 4 kids. They had their own space, their own little kitchen, and their own car and came and went as they pleased. The beach wasn't a private beach, but this was the view from the balcony every morning and evening. We had it to ourselves.Possibly it wasn't crowded because it may not have been the best beach for family swimming. We all had bloody scrapes on our knees and elbows from the rocks. The rough and jagged rocks on the shore were equally abundant under the water line. But do you think a few rocks would keep a boy out of the water? Of course not. The first evening we were there, a photographer brought a cute little family out to the rocks nearby to do a sunset photo shoot. They were all adorably dressed in gauzy white sun dresses and khaki shorts. It was so pretty, Dave and I made everyone gather for our own photo shoot later in the week. Although it didn't have that same dream quality as a beautiful family posing in front of professional equipment, I think we got some good shots. It was mostly luck that we got some smiles though, because there were many young people (approximately four, to be exact) who were grumbling at us for making them pose for us and with us. Thanks, Vee for being our photographer.We were sad for the sun to go down on our last day on the island. We cleaned up, packed up, and enjoyed one last sunset.