Dad’s been traveling into hawaii about once a month for the last year and a half or so for work he does in Laie and I was super excited that he’d have a trip out while I was here. I got to pick him up from the airport at about midnight and drove up to Turtle Bay Resort in Laie where he stays for meetings at BYU-Hawaii.
For two days I stayed with him at Turtle Bay and went with him to some meeting. First of all, Turtle Bay resort is the COOLEST! The main floor where you check in and eat is open air. No walls. It's so awesome.
It's set up on the North shore in a place where it can see both the sunrise and the sunset and was designed in a unique triangle type shape so each room has a view of the ocean. Pretty Cool. Our room looked out onto the pools, and the ocean side where the surf school is. (west side) This picture shows our room window there in the wing on the left.
Here's a couple shots I took the night we got there. It was about 1 or 2 AM.
Another cool feature is the parrots that sit out on their perch, no cages, but don't fly away. They sit there all day and acknowledge passerby's with a friendly, "Aloha."
A small bay on the east side is known for visits from a wild seal. He'll come lay on the beach for hours. The staff marks off a good amount of space around him so people don't try and get too close since monk seals aren't the friendliest of creatures. Unfortunately he didn't pay me a visit.
I was really excited to go with Dad to some meetings and meet more locals. Just like everyone else I've met here so far, they all were really nice. I met some great people; the presidents of both BYU-H and the PCC, and several other wonderful people, one that lives in Kanoehe, around the corner from Kailua, even offered her place and kayaks anytime. Have I mentioned how stinking nice these people are?
One crazy thing she told me is that Kaneohe(right next to Kailua) is where hammerheads go to have their babies!! Can you imagine my panic at this information. Naturally I raced home, did some research and found that 5-8 thousand hammerhead pups are born each year in kaneohe!!!
The adult Hammerheads spend most of their lives in deep water and swim at depths of 600 feet but come into the shallow waters of the bay to have their babies. This usually happens in the summer and early fall months, have their babies and swim back out into the deep leaving their pups in the shallows where they stay for the first few months of their lives feeding in the reefs. They eventually swin out into the deeper waters and grow up to 13 feet in length like their Ma's and Pa's. OH GOL!!! I'm sweating.
Ok...on to more positive things...I learned something else that I immediately added to my "Reasons why Hawaii is the greatest place to live" list, is that Thanksgiving and Christmas are so huge here that several places pretty much close their offices for December!!
The last meeting of his trip was pretty interesting too. It was about both the History of Hawaii and Etiquette for doing business here. How to NOT offend the natives.
It was great to meet the people Dad works with out here and great to have him meet the people I hang out with up here. He finally got to meet Brooklyn even though he felt like he'd already met her thanks to all the crazy videos I'd sent home while she and I served together. I was excited our schedules worked out so that Tanner was able to come out too.
And now, the moment Sister Greer's been waiting for...drum roll please...
A PICTURE OF TANNER!!!! YAY!
The Greer's were one of the many amazing families in Minnesota that had us over for dinner, drove us all over town, came joint teaching, gave investigators rides, meals, basically helped us with EVERYTHING! Her son Tanner is out here at BYU Hawaii and I promised we'd get together and her request was a picture. I'm so happy to have delivered and I'm sure there will be plenty more.
The President of the PCC gave Dad tickets for us all to see the PCC night show, "HA," which means Breath of Life. It has an huge killer set with waterfalls, vines, bands, sand, trees, all the bells and whistles including a cast of over 60!!
They tell a story of the generations carrying culture, traditions & values to their posterity and do so through song and dance from various countries including Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, and of Course Hawaii. The one that's my favorite and has been since the first time I came to the PCC as a little girl is the Tahitian dancers with their Poi Poi balls. It's pretty incredible. I remember getting a set a long time ago determined to master it but quickly realized it's either in your blood or it's not and for me it was NOT. Although this has got me wondering if I need to give it another go. Maybe I'll give it another go or maybe I'll leave that to Connie & Sandy. : )
Here are some highlights including the Poi Poi & Fire dancers. The fire dancers always steal the show.
One of the many things I love about the Church is how no matter where you go you have instant friends, and good ones.
We've met some really awesome people in the Singles Ward here. There's only about 30 people so technically it's a branch not a ward but it's great. It's been so long since I was in Hawaii last that forgot a cool thing they do. When they start sacrament meeting or when someone is beginning their talk they say "Aloha" to the congregation and the congregation all together responds, "Aloha!" It's really fun.
Another cool thing...Brooklyn's been talking to a co-worker of hers that's interested in the church. This week she's beginning to meet with missionaries and so we were talking to the Elder's at church and I noticed one of them was "Elder Madsen." I asked if he was related to Laurie Madsen Snarr or Mark Madsen, and he responded, "I wish." He said he wasn't but that there was a relation to Truman G. Madsen so I think there is a connection somewhere. I was surprised he wasn't because he really had those same kind brown eyes that run in the Madsen family.
The members in the branch are SO nice!!! They invited us out to FHE where they were going to set up slip n slides at a park in Waikiki. I was SO in!! It was such a blast! I go thinking they said Slip N Slides, they must mean, Slip N Slides...but nope they meant HUGE 25 foot long sheets of plastic doubled up to be 50 feet!!
Helping carry the goods up to the top!
We went to Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. This huge beautiful park right on top of the ocean. This is a picture I found on the internet but happens to be of the EXACT spot we set the slides up. The slides were there on top of the hill and headed straight for the water and as the night went on they shifted somehow and were steering us all towards the palm tree on the left. It got dangerous.
It was so cool to have the ocean in front of us and the city lights of Honolulu behind us.
As if that was scary enough add that the sun was setting wan eventually was done. This made it impossible to get good video....Sorry...but messing with my point and shoot we found some settings that helped us capture a few semi decent shots.
Lori soaping it up
The first ones to go...
This is Hala, sounds like "holla"
Check out the daredevils with their innertubes, rafts, boogie boards, and piggyback stunts!
It's our turn!
We ended up wet, sudsy,
covered in grass...
but with some new friends!
This is Keanue Kekaula...say that 3 times fast! He's gonna give us some Ukulele Lessons!! We can't wait!
After clean up we had a supposed "Hawaiian favorite treat" buttered crackers in hot chocolate...I was sure they were just trying to trick us "Haole's" into eating buttered crackers in hot chocolate but Lori confirmed and had some herself which reassured me. It was actually pretty good.
I thought it was pretty funny that they had hot chocolate in Hawaii. I guess Hawaiians get cold here????
We spent the rest of the night listening to Keanue and the gang jam on the guitar and Ukulele's. It was awesome!!
My favorite was their rendition of Beyonce's Irreplaceable, "to the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left." My camera battery died before I could get that but here's a quick snippet I got with it's last run.
We love Waikiki! It's definitely the most fun on halloween but regardless of when it is there's always something to do. We spent the day at Ala Moana beach then walked the strip where we found a gold man!!
He's painted with some sort of gold something or other and looks like a statue. When you walk by and are looking at him trying to figure out what he is, he moves and scares you to death! It was pretty cool.
There was also a guy there with his 4 pet Parrots and let us hold them! Scary!! Especially since the one on my shoulder wanted to eat my sunglasses!
Our blog has been up for just over a week now and we already have almost 600 views!! CRAZY! This can only mean one thing, there are some people out there as in love with our blog as we are! Although we're pretty sure the majority of our blogs hits are repeat visits from our mom's we know that can't account for all of them....so...
Who are you? We love you! As you can see to the right, we've added a guestbook, and hope all our faithful stalkers will sign. We love you and thank you for motivating us to document all our crazy adventures and not let this be one more thing we start and don't maintain.
P.S. We're open to any suggestions you may have of things you'd like us to do or go see for you since you can't be here. We're also open to things you want us to go do purely for your entertainment. If you want us to try and catch a hammerhead pup and use it and a hammers head, we'll do it. If you want us to go cliff jumping, we'll do it. If you want us to set up a lemonade at a surfing competition at the pipeline, let us know. If you want us to do a documentary on the homeless here in hawaii, speak up. If you want us to pitch a tent and live as if WE were the homeless people in hawaii, tell us. If you want us to grow dreadlocks and perform with our Ukulele's and thumb piano on a Honolulu street corner, communicate that to us. If you want us to not shower or shave for the rest of our time here, don't be shy. If you want us to dress as a shark and educate people on their behavior, sign in and holla!!
We're at your service...so long as you sign our guestbook!
Got it? So...sign in, tell us what you think, what you want, and know we love you!!!
So, I've found that sand and I have a very love/hate relationship.
I wake up in the morning with sand in my bed and LOVE IT for reminding me that I just woke up in paradise...again. Then I'm laying on the beach and a dog runs by and kicks it up and into my eyes and I HATE IT cause It might have just caused me to be visually impaired...permanently. Then I'm rinsing the sand off my feet and LOVE IT because my feet are unusually soft and smooth. Then when taking pictures I realize my lens cover wont entirely close due to what other than sand damage. I HATE IT!
I'm amazed that something as miniscule as sand, a grain of which being just 2mm in diameter can go from being a nonexistent factor in my life to now be evoking so much emotion from me on a day to day basis.
How does it get my skin so soft? How does it get into a closed bag? How can it be so little but do much? How come no matter how thorough you are rinsing off an hour later you'll find some sand in a place you know you washed??? How can sand be so dry, light, flimsy and out of control but also be thick, mucky, strong, and craft-able? I can't keep it out of a closed bag but someone else can manipulate it into a stunning sculpture?
Here are two Doctors you need to get to know. Before going any further take a minute to get to know your two new best friends, Connie & Sandy. You'll be seeing a lot of them.
Halloween on Waikiki Beach...does anyone else see a ghost in these clouds??? How appropriate.I was not anticipating liking Waikiki Beach so much. Although there was a lot more going on there than at local beaches in Kailua; kayaking, saling, fishing, swimming, etc, it still wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be.
Hanale recommended we go there to try paddle boarding because a huge portion of the bay had a cement wall built round it, offering the perfect conditions for both first time paddle boarders as well as sharkphobics like myself. It helped me be in the water with some peace of mind. Although a tiny part of the wall was open for boats...which just made me wonder well if a boat can get through then can't a shark? And if a shark did get through and there was a wall around a lot of it would it be hard for him to find his way back out? So could there be sharks trapped in this area???
Even with my fears we still rented a board and gave it a shot. Here's a sneak peak complete with some good wipe out footage.
We paddle boarded about until sunset then it was time to put our costumes on and let Connie and Sandy paint the town. We'd heard Waikiki would be fun and boy was it true. The streets were jammed with thousands of people. All of them dressed up. All of them entertaining. And all of them so friendly! It was unbelievable! We had a total blast and are gonna start a new tradition and come to Hawaii every year for Halloween! Anyone else want in???
Connie & Sandy's night on the Waikiki strip was complete with, VIP seating & free appetizers at PF changs for being in the medical field, some lessons on our ukulele's, and free street corner check-ups for the locals. Check out the video at the bottom.
