Hawaii Trip

Earlier this year Liv’s choir had arranged to perform on tour at Pearl Harbor for Pearl Harbor Day. As the year progressed, the decided to cancel the tour because some of the older kids didn’t feel they could miss a week of school in December. We had already reserved hotels and flights mostly with all points and Derek kind of got his mind set on a Hawaii trip in December so we decided to go anyways. We arranged to have Tanner and Karlee stay home with Dakota who was recovering from her spay surgery. The kids did great on the two flights and long lay over to Hawaii. 

 Here they are eating lunch in the LAX airport. 

 We played card games to pass the time. I taught all the kids how to play Phase 10. They love it. The hotels were all decorated for Christmas, Liv asked me to take a picture in front of this tree in our first hotel lobby as Dad was checking in. 

 Our first hotel had this concierge’s lounge that we had access to that had breakfast, snacks, and basically dinner at night. That was the first stop after checking in. 

We found out 2/3 of our kids are allergic to papaya.  They all had some at breakfast one morning, Liv broke out in hives and Camden threw up.  We were all in bed by 7 pm that night and everyone woke up super early. By 6:45 am we had all gotten up, eaten breakfast and the kids were in the ocean swimming as the sun rose.

 It rained a little that day and we played games in the hotel room. This was the view from our hotel room.  You can see Diamond Head in the distance.

We hiked Diamond Head which was a little intense, but had a great view at the top. 

 We got fresh coconuts to drink after the hike. 

 Then, all the kids fell asleep watching the First Presidency Devotional. I bought cheap boogie boards from the ABC store at our hotel and the kids used them every day to boogie board. They loved it. 

Our third day there was a super rainy day. It rained 14 inches in one day (the amount of rain Utah gets in an entire year). It was the kind of rain that if you stood in you would be soaked in seconds. We made it to the beach to boogie board in the AM, then we switched do a different hotel in Honolulu.  We ventured out for lunch once, but otherwise we just sat in the new hotel lobby and played games all day. The next morning, I went on a lovely morning run on the beach. I came back and walked to the Aquarium which was small, but pretty fun. 

 That was actual Pearl Harbor Day and Derek had reserved tickets for us to go to the memorial. We got an Uber over and visited the memorial. 

 It was neat to see all the flower wreaths. The kids took cards with soldier’s names on them and threw flowers into the water in remembrance of them. 

 Then, we decided to tour the USS Missouri Battleship which was really cool. 

 The boys loved the guns. 

 It was cool to see the place where their peace treaty that ended WWII was signed on the boat.

 Derek got a look at the law offices on the ship. 

 D and I recreated the famous V-Day kiss. 

 Then, we hit up the beach for more boogie boarding. Sometimes I just sat on the beach and watched.  I liked that.

The next day, we rented a car, checked out of our second Honolulu hotel and headed to the North Shore. Along the way we stopped at the Dole plantation. 

 We rode the train, fed the fish, and ate some delicious dole whip with fresh pineapple chunks in it. 

 For dinner we stopped at Giovani’s shrimp shack. All the kids devoured the garlic shrimp. 

 Then, we checked into the North Shore Marriot. The next morning, we had a ukulele and hula lesson in the hotel lobby. 

 Then, we toured the Laie temple visitors center and walked the temple grounds. 

 Then, we met Liv’s friend Erica Glenn who played Ms. Honey in her summer Matilda production at BYU Hawaii. She is currently teaching choir there. 

 She gave us a quick tour of campus and then we spent the rest of the day at the PCC. Steve’s old BYU Hawaii co-worker got us a steal on discount tickets to the PCC and the show at the end of the night. 

 The kids loved the PCC. In Samoa, we learned the men do the cooking. We watched Samoan’s climb trees. Carter got selected to help peel green bananas for a traditional Samoan dish. 

 We bought the kids chocolate covered bananas for a snack outside New Zealand. 

 They played some fun games on the island of Hawaii. 

 We saw a traditional wedding ceremony in Tahiti, ate coconut bread, and the boys tried to fish Camden actually caught one. They all loved the drums ceremony in Tonga. They all got tattoos in Fiji.

 We rode the boats up and down the river. We had another family ukulele lesson to end the night. 

We had the best fish and chips from a food truck there for dinner that night. Then we caught the night show which was neat, but everyone was exhausted. The next morning we went snorkeling in Hanauma Bay. Honestly, my favorite part of the whole week was that all week we drove around in a little car together as a family without any ipads or screens and listened to the Hawaii playlist Dad had made. Not sure if the kids liked the snorkeling or playing in the sand more at Hanauma Bay. 

 I thought the snorkeling was awesome. We had been practicing using the snorkeling gear Babi and Papou had bought the kids for Christmas in the hotel pools and by the time we got to Hanauma Bay they all did quite well. They used the boogie boards to lay across as they swam. Then we stopped for some local seaweed covered food on the way home. And we ended the night Boogie boarding at the famous Hukilau Beach on the North Shore. Supposedly an LDS church burned down and the saints in the area threw a big huge feast and fish pull for tourists on this beach to raise money for a new church building. That night we got dinner at our only sit down restaurant of the trip at Haleiwa Joes in Haleiwa. They had this cute little city bridge with lights and Christmas music. The food was fantastic. This dinner was my other favorite part of the trip. Everyone was exhausted after that day.

Our last day in Hawaii we went to Haleiwa again, had fish tacos for lunch, and then shaved ice at Masamoto’s shaved ice. 

 Our last activity before the airport was a costal hike at Kaena Point on the North west tip of the island.

 We did not plan to go swimming or boogie boarding at the beach that day because we did not have access to showers, but the hike was so close to the shore that no one could resist getting in the water one more time. It started with just their feet, but before long all 3 kids were completely in the water and body surfing. So they all had to ride the red eye home with sand in their bum cracks.

 The kids fared pretty well on the red eye. I don’t think I slept much at all and was exhausted by the end of it all, that I ended up leaving my laptop on the airplane. Luckily, they were able to locate it and we got it back just had to make an extra trip to Salt Lake.