Ahhh....Hawaii....you are so beautiful with your lush tropical foliage and the magnificently huge trees that look like Japanese bonsai masters had trimmed the tops to perfectly even levels. Your weather (at least this week) is perfect- no need for a jacket. Your beaches consist of golden brown sand which looks just like brown sugar. We had a great week in Hawaii!!
Besides all the activities that we did, described below, we hung out at the house...a lot.
playing on phones
studying Continuing Education
watching the waves
morning walks with the sunrise
playing board games
and pool and ping pong
playing catch
Monday - Dad and I love geocaching, and so, on Monday, we all decided to give geocaching a try. On the eastern side of the island of Oahu there is a point of land called Ka'ena Point. The map showed a trail all the way around this point.....with geocaches all along the way. Sounded like a great trail to take - I imagined a manicured trail, with grass and flowers on each side, which followed the edge of the cliff overlooking the crashing waves. Beautiful views would greet us at each bend of the trail. Instead.....this mystical trail turned out to be a service road, and a poorly maintained service road at that, with no real views of the ocean - I was disappointed.
But we did find geocaches. This one was along the beach before we got to the trail (aka service road)
This hunk of rock was great for climbing and in a niche near the top, the cache lay hidden.
The weather began to look forbidding, and we were rained on as we headed back to the cars and moved on to more worthwhile tourist adventures - like Hawaiian Shave Ice at Matsumoto's which is the downtown part of Haleiwa. This place must be on every tourist brochure because the line was snaking out the door and out onto the plaza area. It must be good!
And it was!! I like it best with the scoop of ice cream in the middle and the swizzle of sweetened condensed milk on the top - in other words, I like it with the "works"
On the way back to the house we stopped at this bakery which had been recommended to us by one of Ryan's friends. Pretty good pastries - especially the Snow Puffies. The lady said to come back after 6:00 PM and get pastries at a great discount. The next day Dad and Ryan did go but arrived at 6:20 and the display racks were bare.
Tuesday we went to the Temple to do baptisms. I had printed out the names of twelve ancestors for whom this ordinance could be done.
While Dad, Jessica, Ryan, Evan, Camille, and Tyler wentinside the Temple, I stayed out with Logan and Abigail and we 'did' the grounds and the Visitors Center.
We were at the door when tie Visitors Center opened and were greeted by the senior missionary couple who invited Abby and Logan to help therm raise the American and Hawaiian flags for the day.
Inside the Visitors Center we watched every (every) video and enjoyed the art work.
By the time the temple attenders were finished it was lunch time, and what better place to go to than Seven Brothers which had the BEST hamburgers.
There were Boogie Boards at the house, and the kids were all anxious to use them. They'd tried them out at the beach right at the house but unfortunately, learned that, not too far out into the water, there were bands of coral - which are not conducive to boogie boarding.
But, very close to the shopping center in Laie is Pounders Beach which had no coral but plentiful waves of the perfect size for boogie boarding Ryan and all the kids spent several hours riding waves and sliding up onto the gently sloping shore. They were exhausted!!
Dad didn't boogie board, but apparently, he too was exhausted.
To rejuvenate we went to Angel's Ice Cream which also had Hawaiian Shave Ice. Would it be as good as Matumoto's?? YES. Actually, even better because there was no line. My only regret was that I got the regular style of shave ice while Jessica got a chocolate version called Chocolate Rain or something like that.
On the way back to our house we stopped at the Malaek'ahane State Recreation Area so we could look out and view Goat Island. That island is where, in 2014, we crossed over during low tide to find a geocache. Yes, the island was still there. In the park there was this one humongous tree which Evan and Camille just had to climb.
Wednesday- One of Dad's wishes came true today because we went to the Waimea Botanical Garden. It in an interesting place situated in a small river valley that extends from the ocean up to the top of the mountain....or to the end of the trail/road. At this end there was a waterfall flowing into a pool where visitors could swim.
There was a shuttle bus which you could take up to the waterfall. Besides the fact that the Shuttle cost was $12.00, I don't know why anyone would ride it because, how could you look at the plants?
This photo is pretty typical of what Dad did the whole afternoon.
Here's Camille being as pretty as he Eucalyptus behind her which has interesting colors on the bark.
At the waterfall/pool, there were life jackets for everyone who wanted to swim. In fact, a life jacket was required of all swimmers....right, the bot garden didn't want any liability issues.
After the hike up and back to the waterfall, we were all exhausted and ready for another visit to Angel's Ice cream.
Thursday - During WWII, as I understand how things went in Hawaii, SPAM was introduced to the natives because it became part of what the military personnel ate. Even now, food stores carry all the many kinds of SPAM. And that isn't all, you can get SPAM products at McDonalds
There was a good morning crowd inside, just hanging out and talking.
After our hearty breakfast, we loaded into the cars and headed to the local beach next to the dock/bay for the long anticipated Paddle board instruction and water experience! There was one instructor for Ryan, E, C, and T.
And then they headed out into the surf with the goal to go out far enough to get around the jetty and then paddle up the small and placid river. The wind was blowing quite briskly, and poor Tyler had a hard time moving forward as the wind was continually turning his board and blowing him back to the beach. Finally the instructor threw him a line and towed him away. Once they got around the jetty and into the river, they did just fine; they said they saw many turtles.
Dad, Jessica and I stayed on the beach and watched Abby and Logan play in the sand. Logan was digging in the sand (as usual...he loves digging and sand) when we noticed that Abby was running in the water with a Hawaiian boy, and they were squirting each other with water cannons. What fun! Logan didn't know what to think about this. Finally all three of them got together, and the boy turned out to be Niko, an eight-year-old, who was at the beach with his grandfather. He'd had had a doctor's appointment and afterwards, they'd both come to the beach rather than go back to class - the grandpa said,"you're only a kid once". Niko said, "let's play Survivor". Well, our children really only know how to dig in the sand......but learned quickly how to scavenge for pretend food, build a pretend fire, and prepare a pretend meal. They had coconuts which became food and bowls, palm fronds which became food trays, bits of tangerine rind (left there by some litterer) which became shrimp, bits of grass which, when ground up by a pestle in the coconut shell, became veggies, and finally nuts which may have been rocks or bits of wood found in the sand. Even though he was a novice, Logan quickly became a great player. Abby, somehow or other, went back to play at the edge of the water.
After the paddle board experience we found food cart and enjoyed linner.
Jessica's Instagram posts had alerted Jill that we were near the apartment where she lived as a baby.
Friday - it really does seem that we spent a lot of time eating. Yeah, we did. We headed to the the site of an old sugar factory which is now a big parking lot where there are lots of food carts. We headed to Penny's Mosadas where we could enjoy the combined culture of Portugal and Hawaii.
My favorites were the chocolate filled ones
Then it was time for lunch...so soon, and we went to Papa Ole's which may have had the best food of all the places where we'd eaten
Friday evening...our last chance to enjoy the sand and water. We headed back to the same beach where the paddle board instructions had occurred. There were still remains to the Survivor Feast of shrimp and veggies on the sand.
Dad, Tyler and I headed out to find a geocache and crossed this iconic bridge. The bridge went over the little river where the paddle boarders had previously seen turtles.
And we saw turtles too!!!!! It was exciting, as I'd only seen turtles in pet stores or on TV. But here they were, brown shadows of different sizes in the water which periodically surfaced to gulp a breath of air.
Saturday - sadly it was time to go. We really had a great time.
home again.
...until our next adventure (like the Octonaughts)
No comments:
Post a Comment