Hawaii, Day 5

The first time I went to Hawaii, I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Cooper. Lee and I had planned the trip about a year in advance, so of course we took the trip with the hopes that I wouldn't get too sick. Hope is such a great thing, but not too reliable. I puked the whole trip long! Needless to say, my memories of Hawaii weren't all that great.

This time around I am determined to do things right. So far, so good! We got here Saturday Aug. 9th. On Sunday the 10th we went to church, which was really cool. We met at the Honolulu Stake Tabernacle. It was the single most interesting church building I have been to (that and where we meet now in Shanghai). I can't really adequately describe it. Basically imagine several buildings connected by lovely open breezeways which are bordered by all kinds of lush tropical plants. The chapel was the largest chapel I have ever been in. It was quite an experience. We left church and headed to the North Shore to look at a beach house that we ended up renting for half of our trip. It was fun to help the kids see the lush green natural side of Oahu.

Monday started out kind of rough. Lee went to FedEx to send off the documents for our visas. He called me just as the kids and I were about to walk into Denny's for breakfast to tell us that we had to come back immediately and get pictures taken for the visas. We thought we had all the paperwork ready, but apparently we missed that detail. So everyone was pretty grumpy about postponing breakfast. And to top it off, FedEx had technical difficulties so a 5 minute photo shoot ended up taking over an hour! Then after lunch the kids and I headed to the beach for a few hours. We watched crabs climb on rocks and basked in the sunshine. We headed out to the navy base a little later to buy tickets for the submarine and the Polynesian Center. Then, we got very lost and stayed lost for over an hour. To be clear, we knew where we were, we just didn't know how to get to where we wanted to go. Much to our dismay the map was in the hotel room and NOT in the car! So the day started off rough and ended kind of crappy too. Everyone was pretty worn out when we finally got back to the room.

Luckily,Tuesday turned out to be much better! We took the kids on a submarine ride. Of course, I got sick but luckily didn't puke (yeah!). To board the submarine you take a boat out to where the sub is waiting. I actually felt sick on the topside boat, not the submarine itself. Anyway, we got to watch the sub surface, which was really cool. We dove down to 111 ft. at the deepest part of the dive. It was really cool. The company that puts on the submarine tours has created several artificial reefs so we got to see sharks and sea turtles, and of course tons and tons of tropical fish. We spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach. Lee helped the kids build sandcastles and let me go back to the hotel for a little quiet time to try and get my motion sickness under control.

Today, Wednesday, was by far everyone's favorite day. We have been letting the kids stay up until almost midnight and we are all sleeping in until about 9:30 each morning. We aren't really attempting to switch to Hawaii time since the kids have to start school the day after we get home. So by the time we get going a good portion of the morning is gone already. So this morning we packed up our hotel so that we could move from the touristy Waikiki to the calm North Shore. We then drove to Diamond Head Crater to hike with the kids. Eve has been so assertive about going hiking. I have been surprised that she had such a strong desire to hike. So away we went. Both Lee and I were amazed at how much fun it was hiking up Diamond Head. The views were just spectacular! We had little mini science lessons the whole way up about things like erosion on the mountain, and the method of using switchbacks to climb mountains. It was really fun for everyone. The terrain was pretty steep at times. Cooper had the best ride of all. I carried him on my back up the mountain and Lee carried him on his back down the mountain. It was a phenomenal experience. When I asked the girls what has been their favorite part of the trip, the vote was unanimously hiking.

We are now here at our beachhouse. We rented the bottom floor of a two story house for the remainder of our trip, which is about 6 more days. We are in a neighborhood full of permanent residents, which is really nice and quiet. We are just 3 houses from the beach. The girls made friends with neighborhood kids within 10 minutes of arriving. I think we will like staying here the best.

I am including pictures of our hike as well as of our evening trip to the beach tonight.