Hawaii Vacation 2008

Hawaii Slideshow Coming Soon!

I've been working on this slideshow all morning. I'm exhausted. Pics, pics, pics. So much beautiful blue water, beautiful blue skies... and outside my window is cold, white snow, with icicles, and sub-tropic temperatures, and I'm stuck indoors with an overactive 7 year old, years worth of laundry to do, dishes exploding out of the sink AND the dishwasher, floors that need swept, teeth needing brushed, dog needs walked, Mike's stuff needs put away (who can come help me haul it to his bed, so he'll actually have to live with it instead of my having to see it all the time?), clutter everywhere!!

Back to the pics of the best vacation ever. When CAN I go BACK!!?? I promise, I'll take my dog so no one else has to care for her. She'd love it too!!

A Time For Giving, and Gratitude

Not too many weeks ago, our Wight family found out about a dear friend of ours that has had tragedy strike in his family. He's not just a friend, he's a relative and one of our very favorite country artists. We have prayed and prayed for his son, Briggs to recover from medullablastoma, a type of brain cancer. He's only two, but he has the heart of a lion and has been fighting courageous battles daily through this trial. We are very excited that he was able to come home for Christmas, and that his parents are able to care for him. Prayers are needed greatly. Their daily updates on their carepages page speak of their gratitude, Briggs' fighting spirit, and the many blessings that have come their way during this stressful time. A friend of theirs has set up a website to help us all follow along, make donations and get the word out. Please visit www.teambriggs.org to see updates on Briggs' condition.

And I'll get to the Hawaii stuff again later. With all the Christmas hull-a-baloo I'm really needing some honest down time. I'll put together a slide show and post it this week. We had a MARVELOUS time.

Why I Have Time to Post in Hawaii

I think I want to come with a tour guide next time. But today we started off slowly. And it is getting dark here so quick each night. This whole post/comment is so random. I honestly think things through most of the time when I post, but I'm just sitting here in our room, next to the open door to the ocean porch that is pitch black.

Did you know that palm trees when blown in the breeze just so will make the exact same sound as rain on pavement? Yup, it does. Very confusing when you are kind of expecting rain anyway. You just never know.

Today we: went to Turtle Bay, some shore just west of that to watch some incredible waves/surfing (Kelli B. I saw YOUR twin out there! She did dang good! And I have pics to post later!) Elise, Mike and Alan hung out IN the water, while I just watched on pins and needles as waves from 2-7 feet came crashing around my family. Okay only about five of them were actually over Mike's head as they crashed around him, but it sure looked like it hurt. Alan got a nose full of sand from one and a pretty good sized wave got Elise at least twice. We went on a walk on our beach here and Mike and Alan caught a small sand crab (I have pics!) and Elise continues to scream when they are mentioned... someone please tell me why she is terrified of crabs, but will pick up a grasshoper no questions asked!??

We've been taking it slow because my poor legs are retaining water at an interesting rate. I'll take pics of my ankles tomorrow. If I'm up walking too long or too fast, my stomach starts to tighten up, and not let go. The doc didn't seem concerned about this when I discussed it on my "pre-flight inspection". It only happens when I walk too much. So I walk less!! The sun is GONE by 6 and I'm not sure what to do after dark here, and we haven't really had the chance to do much during the day since our late starts have been causing lazy mornings (which is perfectly fine by me!) On late starts we've had to wait for Lance and Ryan to return from the other side of the island to either do something with them (they had our car) or take them to the airport to island hop. We got to the best breakfast place on the island Hukilau and it was jam packed yesterday morning... so we ate at McDonald's which was amazingly beautiful inside for the run down shack it looked like outside. The food was the same though, although the menu did include SPAM which we don't eat in Utah, at least I don't think we do, do we??

We plan on going snorkeling, back to the PCC, and doing more beach watching/playing in the next few days. We pick Lance & Ryan up from the airport again on Saturday. They went to Kauai, I think. We've decided to cook more and eat out less since it isn't terribly expensive to stay in, but we do want to hit some hot spots keeping in mind that I can't eat sushi!! We got corn, coconut and some crazy delicious red fruit that was fuzzy on the outside today from a roadside stand. (wow that sentence is a nightmare!)

I'll post this since it is so long. It started out as a comment back to Kelly!

Rock on Rip Curl Mom! Any other fun ideas? It has been too cold for a shave ice, honestly!

Oh, yesterday we went to: The Polynesian Cultural Center (did the Luau AND the night show), Mike and the boys went to the Laie Temple while Elise and I went to the grocery store. I got all that in reverse order, we went to the PCC last!! Didn't get back till late, so we crashed after that.

Hawaii 5-0

I'll start off at the airport. We arrived safely and timely too! We got there just in time to hear that we needed to be there EARLY because of a headwind. Thank heaven. Mike got us some lunch at Burger King, and we marched onto the plane.

Here is Elise watching the airplane get loaded up.

A view from the window. Pic courtesy of Elise.

Photo: Vicki courtesy of Elise

Photo: Elise courtesy of Elise

View out the back of our room. We are on the 5th floor. The weather has been pretty good. Windy mostly on this side of the island. Mike's brother and cousin were staying on the west side of the island. His brothers have left this morning for another island, and his cousin is here hanging out with us. We had a couple terrific rainstorms, and some great ocean breezes.

We saw sea turtles swimming out there yesterday morning. At first we didn't know exactly what they were, but we figured it out. It was neat to watch them surface and disappear gradually beneath the surf.

I'll update again later. We went to the PCC yesterday and I got some video.