Aloha!

"And I say to myself ........What a Wonderful World!" That phrase just about wraps up our Hawaiian Vacation. We had a wonderful time exploring the island of Oahu. Here are a few highlights....you all know I have several hundred pictures...but I spared you and only posted a few!



Snorkeling quickly became our favorite past time. We all loved snorkeling.... especially the girls. (We practiced at home in our local pool before we went so the girls would know how.) It's a whole new world when you look below the surface of the ocean. Mia loved any "pink" fish and Mckenna was fascinated by it all. We even saw sea turtles. That was my favorite part. There is a beach where the turtles love to come. We saw several turtles beached on the shore and if you go out in the water they are just swimming around. Incredible!!

Mckenna, Matt and Mia snorkeling together at Hanauma Bay.

One of the Sea Turtles we saw on the beach

A sea turtle swimming in the ocean. Matt and Mckenna took this picture with an underwater camera. The sea turtles would swim right up to you. Matt actually had to push one away with his hand. I guess they don't respect personal space! JK.

And you wonder why I didn't come home with a gorgeous Hawaiian tan?? Besides sunscreen....it rained a lot while we were there...but that didn't seem to hamper our fun. This is our day at the PCC (Polynesian Culture Center). We bought rain ponchos....but left them on the stroller while we took a canoe ride. The canoe ride drops you off at the opposite side of the park.....and as luck would have it, it started to rain....I mean downpour during our canoe ride. Needless to say we were soaking wet by the time Matt retrieved our rain ponchos for us. At least our strollers were dry!

A visit to the PCC's Village of Samoa....where the men do all the cooking, hunting, etc. (I think I might enjoy living there). This was our favorite village at the PCC. This is a picture of a man climbing up the coconut tree to pick coconuts.Fire dancing was another favorite event at the PCC.

Hawaiian Princesses enjoying a pina colada! (My favorite picture)

The majority of our time in Hawaii was spent soaking up the sun (or maybe I should say rain) on the beach.

Kaden finally warmed up to the beach....it took a few days though. But once he decided it wasn't so bad he loved. He espcially loved the water. He would fill up this little airplane and then try to carry the water back to the sand castle. Needless to say he never made it back with much water in the airplane. He would look down in the airplane with a look of wonder....where did the water go? Then he would go back down and fill it up again.

"The SHAKA"

Mckenna loved body surfing. After I showed her how she said, "Mom this is so fun, how did you learn how to do this?" Mckenna and Matt had a great time "Catching Waves" together. This particular beach use to be owned by the church. It is just down the street from my aunts house.
The girls called it "soft sand beach." They loved this beach. They filled up a water bottle with the sand from this beach and brought it home.

Pearl Harbor was a very touching place. I am always in awe of what our soldiers are willing to put on the line and sacrifice so that we can live in a land of freedom. I hope my children will gain respect and admiration for what we have and what has been done to achieve it. On a much lighter note....after visiting Pearl Harbor Mia would ask if there were dead people in the water before she would swim at any beach. It is interesting what kids pick up on.



The beautiful La'ie Hawaii temple. The temple is under construction so we didn't get to go in but we enjoyed spending time on the grounds as a family. Sundays are usually one of my favorite days on vacation. Proabably because I get to enjoy having Matt around the whole day and I have 2 extra hands during church. We enjoyed attending church there. They are all about food. We ate a full coarse meal during church one Sunday. They do that every 4th Sunday for the RS. The kids were well fed...or "treated" I should say. They both got lots of sweets during primary. Mckenna said she likes their ward because they got lots of treats. Our ward has a no treat policy at home.

This captures one of my favorite memories in Hawaii (this wasn't a posed shot). My girls got along really well (OK...for the most part). I loved watching them play together on the beach. They just had each other. What better friend can you have?

Mckenna and Mia holding an Octopus

One of the highlights of our trip was going tide pooling with my cousins. My cousin Paul took us out to Goat Island where we were able to see a lot of different sea creatures at low tide. Our most memorable being an octopus. He caught it and let us hold it. What a weird feeling - mini suction cups suctioning to you as the octopus's arms twist around your arm. We brought home black ink spots on our swimsuits as mementos of this occasion. (the octopus squirted us with ink as my cousin was capturing it). By the time I took this picture the octopus was dead.... I didn't take my camera out to the tide pools since I ruined my last camera at the San Diego tide pools. My cousins were taking the octopus to some friends who liked to eat it. Mckenna loved exploring the tide pools.


Enjoying Dole Whips (pineapple ice cream) at Dole Plantation. It became one of our regular stops if we were in the area. The first time we enjoyed one Mia said "Hawaii ice cream is so much better than ours." Gotta love it! Our other favorite....Hawaiian Shave Ice. We definately got our sweet tooths satisfied on this trip!




The joy of this trip for me was watching my kids experience some of my childhood memories. Thanks mom and dad for showing us new territory! It was fun to go back to places I had been as a child. It brought back a lot of memories. We laughed at pounders beach remembering Rich's wipe out and his X bandaids.