Well, this is going to be a long one! I have three weeks to cover and there's been a lot going on. You will probably want to read this post in shifts! I know I am probably going to write it in shifts. The main reason I haven't written in a while, as most of you know, is that we went to Hawaii for 10 days. We got home last Saturday (the 23rd) but things have been super crazy since then so I haven't had time to write until now.
We left for Hawaii on Thursday, April 14th. Between April 8th (the last time I wrote) and the 14th we had a few things going on. On Friday evening (the 8th) Frank and I went on a date--we went to a book store because Frank wanted to get new reading material for our trip and I am always happy to spend time browsing a book store. On the way to the store we saw a rainbow:
Frank ended up buying two books but miraculously I didn't buy anything. I saw several books that looked interesting, but I don't like buying books unless I know I'm going to like them, so I prefer to see if the library has a book I'm interested in reading instead of buying it.
On Saturday (the 9th) we ended up getting new iPads for both Frank and I. We'd been talking about getting new ones for several months and probably would have waited a while longer except that Frank discovered that there was a really good sale on iPads that day. We planned to go buy them together, and then an emergency came up with one of Frank's clients. The store with the sale on iPads was on the way to the client's location, but the client's location was much farther away, so I debated a bit about whether or not I would go with Frank. I finally decided to go with him, even though it would take up a good chunk of the day, and Frank appreciated having someone to talk to on that long drive! We stopped and bought the iPads on the way down. It was nice having the new iPad for our trip...I left my laptop at home and the iPad is much lighter!
Sunday the 10th was mostly a normal Sunday except that Frank had to work that night--there was an overnight install of a digital menu board. There was a fireside that evening for the women of the stake--the new temple matron spoke--but I decided not to go to it, even though I wanted to. The main reason I didn't go is because I was trying to avoid crowds of people. I definitely felt anxious the last week or so before our trip that one of us was going to get sick! So we decided to only do the things we needed to do, and we all wore masks everywhere we went for the last 2 weeks before our trip.
The next three days--Monday the 11th through Wednesday the 13th--we were very busy getting ready for our trip. There were lots of last minute arrangements to make besides packing to do. Seth had an orthodontist appointment on Tuesday after school and on Wednesday evening we all went to the youth activities. The YM made cakes from scratch and the YW did a service activity. We decorated paper eggs and wrote encouraging and uplifting messages on them; then we put the paper eggs on the doors of some of our ward members whom we felt could use some encouragement or cheering up.
Meanwhile, I was rather concerned on Tuesday when I started having symptoms of--well, I wasn't quite sure what it was. It felt sort of like a yeast infection and sort of like a UTI, but didn't exactly match the symptoms of either--at least, not that I had felt before. It was later in the day on Tuesday that I noticed that I wasn't feeling quite right, and then I didn't sleep very well that night, worrying about it! On Wednesday morning I called the doctor--no "wait and see" like I normally do! I was able to get in that morning and the doctor did a culture and determined that I did indeed have a yeast infection. Because I had a little bit of blood in my urine, she also sent in a test for a UTI, but that would take a few days to get the results. When I explained that I was going on vacation the next day, she offered to call in a prescription for an antibiotic that I could take with me in case I started having more UTI symptoms. That was exactly what I was hoping for, so I said yes to that. I had an OTC yeast infection treatment at home, so I did that when I got home and although my symptoms persisted the rest of that day, I felt a lot better by Thursday morning. (I got the result of the UTI test the following Tuesday morning and I tested negative, but by then I was sure I didn't have a UTI since I hadn't had any more problems. It was still totally worth the $36 I paid for the prescription, because of the peace of mind it gave me having that with me, just in case!)
So anyway, after a frenzy of laundry and packing and such, Thursday morning (the 14th) finally arrived and we were off to the airport. Our flight left at 10:00 am so we had to leave home by around 7:00 am. The 5 hour flight to Los Angeles was pretty uneventful. When we landed in LA, there was a problem with the jet bridge to our plane which is controlled by a computer and the computer had to be rebooted so it took forever to get off of the plane. We only had a 1 hour layover to begin with so by the time we got off, we ran to a nearby restaurant to grab some food and by the time we got our food (which didn't take long at all, actually) they were boarding our flight. Scott was waiting for us when we got to LA, by the way, and met us at our gate when we got off. He had already located the gate for our flight to Honolulu, which was pretty helpful since we had so little time. The only nearby restaurants were Panda Express and Chickfila, neither of which I like much but I opted for Chickfila so I could get a milkshake. Then when I got to the front of the line I found out they were out of milkshake base. They also didn't have chicken tenders, so I was stuck with chicken nuggets. I wasn't too thrilled about that but there was no time to get anything else. Our boarding positions were actually A1 and A2, but by the time I got to the plane they were calling A16 to A30. Frank went to Panda Express and got done sooner so he had already got on and saved seats for all of us. Scott and Seth had later boarding positions so Scott made sure Seth got on the plane okay. We got to sit together, with Scott across the aisle from us. The 6 hour flight to Honolulu was also mostly uneventful. For some reason, they gave us lots more snacks on this 6 hour flight than we got on the 5 hour flight to LA...maybe they think you need more snacks if you fly over the ocean??
All the female flight attendants wore flowers in their hair too. I tried to read a bit and I also watched the movie Encanto, which I had not had the chance to watch yet. There's not much to look at on that flight except a whole lot of ocean, until the end. When we got close to Hawaii, we all had to fill out this form declaring that we didn't have any live plants, fruits, etc. It reminded me of trips to Arizona when I was a child and we had to stop at the border for them to check for those things.
Day 1 in Hawaii (Thursday April 14th):
As we flew into Hawaii, I took no less than 24 photos as I constantly exclaimed "This is AMAZING!!!" It was just so beautiful!! The photos come nowhere near doing it justice.
The airport was pretty nice too...the first thing I noticed is that everything in Hawaii is open to the outside. Very few doors! I loved it! The temperature the whole time we were there was between 72 and 82 degrees (that includes the nights). Yep, paradise!!
We picked up our blue rental van and drove to the condo we had booked at the Pacific Monarch Hotel.
A few signs on the way:
The condo was a bit on the small side, but we knew that going into it so it was okay. The location was great...we were walking distance to restaurants, shops, and the beach. We could even see a little slice of the beach from our "balcony" (Seth dubbed it "the ledge" because it was so narrow). Views from the ledge:
By the time we got checked into the condo, it was after 6:00 pm Hawaii time, which was after midnight back at home. However, we wanted to see the beach and we were all hungry in spite of already eating three meals (dinner was pathetic...remember I only had a handful of chicken nuggets from Chickfila) so we headed out in search of beach views and something to eat.
First we caught the end of the sunset at the beach (and put our feet in the water too):
Then we strolled along the street looking for a good restaurant, and discovered that there is a store called ABC on every block. Literally! I'm not joking. It's a combined convenience store / Hawaiian souvenir stand. We settled on a restaurant called "Cheeseburger in Paradise". There was a bit of a wait, but the food was good. The other three actually did get cheeseburgers; I chose to get something called Loco Moco instead, which is a very Hawaiian dish--I saw it on menus quite often during our stay. Each one is a little different depending on where you get it, but it's a combination of some kind of meat, rice, eggs, onions, and gravy. The version I had had a hamburger patty for the meat. (I think pork is probably more common). It was quite tasty!:
Scott got this pineapple smoothie and it was divine!!:
Notice the open window next to Scott? All the restaurant windows were wide open. I sat there thinking that here it was, 8:00 at night in April, I was wearing shorts, a short sleeve shirt, and sandals, with a wide open window next to me, and I was not even slightly cold. That is the definition of paradise, as far as I am concerned!!
After we ate, we went back to the condo and went to sleep. By then it was 10:00 pm Hawaii time and we had been up nearly 24 hours. Here are some photos of the condo. There was a lot of cute Hawaiian decor and Hawaiian books and games:
Day 2 in Hawaii (Friday April 15th)
Originally, we had planned to go to Hanauma Bay on Friday (the 15th) but we were not able to get tickets. We logged on as soon as the tickets went on sale for the day we were planning to go, but even with as quick as we were, the tickets were already sold out. We were kind of disappointed about that because it is supposed to be a great place to snorkel and see wildlife, but in the end it turned out to be okay because in order to find parking at Hanauma Bay we would have had to get there by 7:30 am. Instead, we were able to sleep a little later and we didn't have to feel rushed to get somewhere at a certain time. We still woke up fairly early because our bodies hadn't adjusted to Hawaii time. We went up to the roof of the building we were staying in to take in the views. It wasn't easy to get photos up there, though, because they had large plexiglass barriers all around the edges of the building (for safety, no doubt.) There was a better view from the pool area, but it was closed. Frank and Seth still snuck over there for a few minutes:
We also had time to have a nice breakfast at a nearby hotel:
After breakfast we headed to the beach...we went to Lanikai Beach instead of Hanauma Bay and it was lovely. My only complaint is that it was quite windy. We had to put some of our gear on the corners of the mats we brought or they would have blown away! The condo we booked had beach chairs, boogie boards, mats, and snorkel equipment that we could use. Frank also brought his own snorkel and mask. Frank did some snorkeling and he and Scott did the most swimming. Seth was more interested in burying himself in the sand, but he eventually got in the ocean too. I tried to read but kept getting interrupted by other people asking me to get things for them or by my own desire to take pictures. I did get in the ocean up to my shoulders eventually, but I never put my head in.
Tanner and Darlee gave me this bag for Christmas (Darlee made it). It came in very handy on this trip!!
These birds were all over the place and they were quite used to people, of course, so they came very near to us. At one point when Seth was buried in sand, one of these birds was walking towards his head, from behind. Scott and I both saw it and had a huge chuckle thinking what would happen if that bird suddenly appeared in Seth's line of sight, right next to him! The bird wandered the other way instead though so Seth didn't get the fright of his life.
All my boys in the ocean. They saw a sea turtle at one point...they called to me but I didn't get in the water fast enough, oh well!
After spending the morning at the beach, we were all tired and hungry so we went in search of food at a place called Boots and Kimo's which Tim & Rachelle had recommended to us. The food there was so yummy!! I got the strawberry waffle with macadamia nut sauce...scrumptious!!
Everyone else got things like fish and chips or chicken and those things were all really good too (we shared our food a bit). After lunch we headed back to Honolulu. The drive was so pretty and I tried to get photos from the car although none of them are very good.
We were all wiped out when we got back to our condo, so we showered and took naps. (Except for Seth...I think he played a game on his phone while the rest of us napped.) Afterwards we did some shopping and got some food. Most of us got dinner at a place called Surf & Turf Tacos (the shrimp tacos were great!) but we got Seth a slice of pizza from another restaurant because he didn't want a taco. All the hotels in the area had shops and restaurants on their main floors and most of them had beautiful garden areas too.
A Honolulu street; the wall on the left of the photo had a waterfall feature (hard to see in the photo):
Night time views from "the ledge" were pretty too:
That part of the sky always looked like it was about to rain! And it did rain at least a little bit nearly every day we were in Hawaii.
Day 3 in Hawaii (Saturday April 16th)
We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Saturday. First we enjoyed sleeping in a bit and Frank and Scott went to a nearby McDonald's to pick up some breakfast for us. (Did you know that in Hawaii McDonald's offers a breakfast platter with scrambled eggs & spam?) The drive to La'ie was beautiful! We were driving right along the shore for a lot of the trip and we saw many tropical trees such as coconut palms, date palms, banana trees, and avocado trees (all with fruit growing on them). Frank spotted a small shark in the ocean at one point and the boys saw it too although I didn't (must have been looking in the wrong place). When we got to the PCC, we had some time to get lunch and do a little bit of shopping before we met our tour guide. We had lunch at a restaurant called Pounders; the food was yummy and there was too much of it! I ordered a spam hamburger and it was so big that I literally couldn't get my mouth around it!! Our tour guide was a lovely girl named Sumiya. (I'm really sad we didn't get a photo with her!) She grew up in a yurt in Mongolia. I am not going to try to remember the order we did things...it's all a jumble in my head now...but we visited all 6 of the "islands" and saw shows and did activities in each one. The six islands are Samoa, Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). We loved every minute of it! (Okay, except for the rainstorm that lasted a couple of hours!!) All the activities were so interesting and fun and the shows were simply amazing. I think the thing I loved the most was the obvious enthusiasm of all the performers. They put their whole heart and soul into their performances and you could feel the love they have for their cultures. We took a load of pictures!
How to start a fire using two sticks, in Samoa:
And how to husk & break open a coconut:
This guy was super funny! He also showed us how to get milk out of a coconut. Then we went outside and another guy climbed a coconut tree which was pretty amazing:
We also learned how to weave fish out of leaves in Samoa. Here is my fish (after we got home, the leaf was turning brown):
Canoe ride:
Traditional hula dancing in Hawaii:
And modern hula dancing in Hawaii:
Scott was really good at this Hawaiian game (I was not!)
We also tasted poi in Hawaii and I actually liked it. Tasted kind of like a yam to me.
We visited the chief's home, saw a boat like Moana's (very impressive!) and got tatoos (the temporary kind) in Fiji:
My tatoo meant "Queen" and Frank's meant "Navigator". In Tahiti, we learned how to throw spears, watched a Tahitian wedding, and sampled coconut bread (it was delicious!) Scott was really good at spear throwing; he speared the coconut with his first shot!
(Scott's tattoo means "chief")
Here we are waiting for the Tahitian wedding ceremony to begin:
(The buttons we're wearing say "Aloha! It's my Anniversary!" We told our guide that we had come to Hawaii to celebrate our 30th anniversary and later she gave us these buttons to wear.)
Wedding ceremony:
During the ceremony, they invited anyone who wanted to renew their vows. Scott and Seth really wanted us to participate with that, so we did (and so did a lot of other people). When we finished, I looked behind me and discovered that both Scott and Seth were filming the whole thing!
We watched a really cool and funny drum show and visited the Queen's house in Tonga, but I didn't get any photos of that because it was pouring rain by then. We had ponchos to wear but we still got wet. We visited the Hawaiian mission settlement and got a short ukulele lesson. A few minutes into the lesson, the guy giving the lesson looked at Scott and me and said "you've played the ukulele before". That made me feel good...maybe I have learned a little bit of ukulele over the years! At least I don't look like a beginner anymore. 😀
Our last stop was Aotearoa, where we watched traditional Maori singing and dancing, including the Haka. I really loved the singing and dancing...they sang so beautifully and put their souls into their dancing. The day we were there happened to be BYU-Hawaii's graduation day so a lot of the performers had just graduated. At the end of the dance, they announced that one of their performers had just graduated and that this was her last performance with them. It was their tradition to perform the Haka for anyone who is leaving, so they had her stand on the stage and they all faced her and danced the Haka again. She got really emotional and most of us in the audience got tearful too!
Stick throwing dance:
I took a ton of photos of the Haka because I knew Tanner would like to see it (he learned how to dance the Haka once):
After we visited Aotearoa, it was time to say goodbye to our guide and go to the luau. The food was delicious and they had a wonderful show to watch while we ate. We were surprised when the MC mentioned people who were visiting for special occasions and included us in her list ("The Clevelands, who are here celebrating their 30th anniversary"). I didn't get very many photos of the show because I was too busy eating!
Our table:
Pulling the pig out of the pit:
My food (I tried lots of new things, including Poke--raw fish!):
This pinapple coconut smoothie (pina colada) was sooooo delicious!! (And it looked beautiful too). The straws were made out of bamboo and we got to keep them:
The purple rolls were made out of taro root. They were really good! I think Seth ate three of them!
Scott was too busy enjoying his food to care that I was taking his picture:
A couple of phots from the show (not very good since there were people in between me and the show, although I could see much better in real life):
Frank's food:
Proof that I was there:
At the end of the luau, they invited us to come up and get photos with the MC. She was really lovely!
After the luau we had a small amount of time to do something else before the evening show began. We decided to go to the ukulele experience.
The evening show is called "Ha: Breath of Life". It depicted the life of a boy, showing different life events with one in each of the six "islands". It included a lot of really amazing stuff, including fire knife dancing. We weren't allowed to take any photos or video of the show, but afterwards we could go onstage to get photos with the performers. We got this one with the two main characters:
We were tired for the drive back to Honolulu, but the ocean was beautiful in the moonlight! Frank pulled over once and he and Scott tried to get some pictures.
Unfortunately, Frank stubbed his toe on a rock and it was bleeding and pretty painful. When we got back to the condo, Scott and I walked to the corner ABC store and bought some bandaids and some neosporin for him. We got to bed pretty late, but it was a very wonderful day. If you go to Hawaii and you don't go to the Polynesian Cultural Center you have really missed out!!
Day 4 in Hawaii (Sunday April 17th)
Easter!! The Easter bunny managed to find us in Hawaii and brought us some candy in paper bags instead of baskets:
(I didn't get a photo of the bags until after we got home.) Church was at 8:30 am and it took a little longer to get there than we thought it would so we were a little bit late but got there just in time for the sacrament. We weren't anticipating that the church building would be absolutely beautiful!! It was actually the Honolulu Tabernacle. It had a huge soaring ceiling and carved wooden doors and outside was a beautiful courtyard. The sacrament bread tasted sweet to me and I almost got the giggles for a second when I thought "maybe in Hawaii they use King's Hawaiian rolls for the sacrament". I know...I was being irreverant, but only for a few seconds. The first speaker started out by saying "Aloha!" and everyone answered, so that was fun. A men's quartet sang a beautiful rendition of "He Is Risen" which was awesome with the acoustics in that big chapel. After the meeting, we had to get some photos outside. It felt like a temple!:
We went back to our condo to rest for a while before heading to Pearl Harbor for the afternoon. You can visit Pearl Harbor, including visiting the museum and riding a boat to the Arizona Memorial, for free but we paid a little bit to get a bonus audio tour and a virtual reality experience. The audio tour was nice and had some good extra information. We were all disappointed with the virtual reality part. It was okay, but not what we expected. It was wonderful to visit the Arizona Memorial; I have dreamed of visiting there my entire life. It was such a beautiful (but very windy) day when we were there; I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that such a terrible thing happened there. It was a very peaceful place though and I think those who died and those who lived through it would want it that way.
A few photos from the museum:
(This is an actual Japanese torpedo recovered from the day of the attack.)
An interesting sign:
Part of the harbor:
Getting on the boat for the Arizona Memorial:
Photos from the boat ride:
This is the USS Missouri; the peace treaty with Japan at the end of WWII was signed on this ship. It is moored near the Arizona Memorial:
Photos taken from / at the Arizona Memorial:
There were several white markers nearby showing where other ships were moored at the time of the attack.
It was so windy that it was hard to see anything under all the ripples on the surface of the water, but I can see more showing up in the photos than I actually remember being able to see with my eyes.
As I said, it was windy!! Behind me is the remains of one of the gun turrets.
There were a lot of people at the memorial, as you can see from the photo above, but somehow at one point I walked into the shrine part of the monument and found Frank there alone. I snapped his picture (that photo is further down in this post) and then Frank took this photo of me. (Names of all those who died on the Arizona plus names of Arizona survivors are on the wall here.)
The small white speck that you can see in the distance in the photo below is a buoy that marks the end of the battleship on that side of the monument. There was a white buoy marking the end of the battleship on the other side of the monument as well but it was much farther away and doesn't show up in any of the photos I took:
While looking out at this scene, I was listening to the audio tour and it mentioned that there is still oil on the sunken Arizona and that occasionally oil will rise to the surface and you can see it because there is a rainbow sheen on the water. Right as I was listening to that, I saw a rainbow patch appear in the water! The audio tour said that survivors of the Arizona say that the rainbows represent the tears of those who lost their lives:
One of my favorite photos:
Many survivors from the Arizona requested to be buried with the ship after they died later in life:
Looking towards the shrine. I'm not sure how I got this photo without any people in it either!:
Navy sailors drive the boat to the memorial and back:
This is back on the shore. This area is called the Circle of Remembrance. The names of every person who died the day of the attack is listed on the plaques (with the exception of the Arizona dead, who are listed on the Arizona Memorial wall in the shrine), according to what branch of the service they were in. Civilians are also listed:
More harbor views:
Statue of a sailor:
This is one of the anchors from the Arizona. As you can see, it is huge!!:
The grounds were really beautiful with lots of palm trees and there were many flags in front:
We visited the gift shop on our way out and picked up a few souvenirs and I got stamps for my National Park passport book (of course I forgot to bring my book on vacation with me, but they gave me some paper to put the stamps on and I put them in my book when I got home).
We spent more time at Pearl Harbor than we anticipated and once again, we were exhausted by the time we got back to our condo, but it was worth it! We rested for a while and then went in search of some food for dinner. (All we had for lunch were some sandwiches we bought at a small snack shop at Pearl Harbor.) We ended up going to a PF Chang's. Seth tried something new! Actually, he did that fairly often on this trip. He's geting better at that. We had to wait a while for a seat at the restaurant. I took this photo of the boys while we were waiting. Scott saw that I was going to take the photo so he made a glaring face. He wasn't really mad! Seth got the dolphin baseball hat at the Polynesian Cultural Center.
After dinner we walked back to our condo and went to bed. We had to be up really early on Monday because we all had early flights to catch.
5th Day in Hawaii (Monday April 18th)
We went our separate ways on Monday morning. The boys had a 7:30 am flight back to Utah and Frank and I had a slightly earlier flight to Maui. We stopped at a gas station near the airport to fill up our rental car before returning it and had to record how expensive the gas is in Hawaii:
Fun side note...the bathrooms at the Honolulu airport had these cute signs:
And they had these cute signs all over the airport too:
It was kind of sad to send the boys on their way...we had so much fun together! Half the fun of those first four days in Hawaii was sharing experiences with them and seeing how much they enjoyed it all!! They both said when leaving that they had a great time and were so glad they had been able to go. Seth is still saying that it's the best vacation he's ever had. (And he has decided that he is going to go to BYU-Hawaii now!)
Our flight to Maui was only about 30 minutes. It was so short that they didn't even try to do beverage service. I also did something I've never done before...I wore shorts and sandals on an airplane! I usually get really cold on airplanes so I always wear long pants, socks and shoes and I always have a sweatshirt in my carryon bag. But this flight was so short I thought I would be okay...and I was.
After we landed on Maui we got our luggage, picked up our new rental car, and got something to eat.
Then we went to our first excursion which was a helicopter ride over East Maui. This was a really incredible experience! A family of four (mom, dad, and two boys) were on our helicopter ride with us. I do not think that not all seats are created equal in a helicopter! The mom and teenage boy got the front seats next to the pilot and they definitely got much better views of everything up there. The other son (younger, around 10 years old) and the Dad were sitting behind them. Frank and I were behind the pilot, next to the dad and 10 year old boy. I was on the outside by the door so I could see a lot out that side but since I am so short I couldn't see very much out the front or out the opposite side of the helicopter. Unfortunately, the pilot didn't turn around much and it seems like a lot of incredible views were on the opposite side of the helicopter from me. He did turn around a few times for waterfalls and also for the volcano (Haleakala) which is good because I would not have been able to see the volcano at all if he hadn't turned around. But even so...I did see a lot of beautiful scenery and thoroughly enjoyed the ride except for the part where my ears wouldn't unplug and they started hurting a lot! Unfortunately the 10 year old boy got motion sick and was throwing up for a good portion of the trip. I felt so bad for him, and for his dad, who spent most of the trip trying to clean him up. (He didn't grab the air sick bag in time.) The pilot opened some windows so the smell wasn't bad but apparently it was a pretty big mess on that side of the helicopter! Both of the parents apologized to us several times after we landed but really--it didn't interfere with our enjoyment of the trip, I just felt bad for them! I'm so thankful that I don't get motion sick!! Here's a photo dump of all the photos we took from the helicopter. There are probably lots of similar photos but I'm not even going to try to sort them all out! (It was hard to get good photos because of the helicopter blades and because of reflections. Sometimes the helicoper blades or other parts of the helicopter show up in the photos. Sometimes you see my hands reflected and other times you will see something red in the bottom left corner of the photos. That is a reflection of a fire extinguisher that was by my feet. All in all, I was glad to be next to the door and next to a fire extinguisher, even if it did show up in several of my photos!):
This is Haleakala, a dormant volcano:
Part of the road to Hana:
Photos Frank took:
The Jurassic Park rock:
And yes, we spent $20 buying this photo that they took, even though the wind blew my hair all over the place right when she snapped the picture:
After the helicopter ride, we drove to the west side of the island--to Lahaina, which is where Frank lived when he was working and living on Maui 31 years ago. We drove around a bit and he pointed out places that he remembered. We stopped at a small mall...he used to take the boys there to go shopping. He also bought a ring for me at one of the shops in this mall. This is the blue topaz ring he gave to me when we got engaged, so I would have a ring to wear until we could pick out a diamond ring together. The shop where he bought the ring isn't there anymore but we still took a picture:
(A lot of the shops were empty because this mall was in the process of being renovated).
We also stopped at a small strip mall which used to have an outside pay phone. Frank often walked there to use that phone to call me when he wanted more privacy:
He says the phone was attached to this column!
Some pretty flowers we saw here too:
After that stop, we drove to the location where Frank used to live and work. There are no pineapple fields there anymore but the buildings where he lived are still there. They have been fixed up and they now house a very nice private school. We weren't sure if we would be able to walk around or take pictures there, but we decided to check in at the front office to see if we could. It turns out that the staff of the school have had several YDE visitors over the years and they were incredibly gracious and happy to show us around. They even have a special YDE guest book that they let YDE visitors sign. (YDE--Youth Developmental Enterprises--is the name of the company Frank worked for.) We got visitor's badges and one of the staff members walked all over campus with us and let us take pictures and introduced us to other staff members. I know it was a real treat for Frank to be able to go into the buildings and see this place where he used to live and I loved seeing the place he was living during the time that we "courted". (If you can call phone calls and letters courting, which I guess you can since it worked! 😉)
This is the building he lived in:
Frank is standing where his bed used to be. (He says the door was in a differnt place then.)
When he walked out his door, Frank had this view of the ocean. He says on his first morning in Hawaii, he walked outside and went and sat on the edge of this hill and immediately a whale came up out of the water and then dived back under!:
This is the basketball court where he broke his leg:
This is the classroom where he supervised the boys while they did their school work each day:
And this was my favorite spot...the place where the pay phone used to be. Frank spent many hours talking to me on the phone from this spot! He humored me and allowed me to recreate a 1991 photo taken here:
It's really a beautiful location!:
We are so glad we were able to visit this place that was so important to our history as a couple, and we are really thankful to the staff of the school who were so accomodating!
After our visit to (former) YDE, we still had an hour or so before we could check into our hotel but we decided to go there anyway to see if we could check in early. We were tired and we were hungry! It turns out we could check in, thankfully. While on Maui we stayed at a resort called Napili Kai Beach Resort. It was really nice, with its own private beach, swimming pool, and restaurant. Our room was large...we had a lot more space for just the two of us than we did for four of us in Honolulu! My only complaint about this place was I thought the room was too cold. When we first arrived, the air conditioning was cranked up to the max and it was freezing!! (Frank thought it felt nice, of course!) We turned down the air conditioning, but I felt like it never warmed up completely the entire time we were there. I had to put on socks and a sweatshirt whenever we were in our room.
Hallway:
The bathroom was large and very nice:
The toiletries they provided were really nice: pineapple shampoo and body wash, macadamia conditioner, and papaya passion body lotion. I always bring my own shampoo and stuff when I travel, but I ditched my own stuff and used these while I was there. Everyhing smelled so nice!! They replaced them everyday too, so I got to bring some home. 😄
We had a small kitchen:
The room was huge, with a sitting area, desk, and table for eating as well as the bed:
At the far end we had this lanai with views of the pool and the ocean:
When we walked out our front door, we were on a balcony overlooking this:
After we checked out our room we needed to get something to eat. It was already well past lunch time, so we were too late for lunch. When we checked in, we found out that the restaurant was really crowded in the evenings and that if we wanted to eat there we should have made reservations days in advance. However, when we were looking over the restaurant's menu, we discovered they had a "happy hour" from 2:00 to 5:00 and the happy hour menu included a lot of appetizers that sounded really good so we decided to try that out. That turned out to be perfect. The restaurant was right next to the beach and we had beautiful views while we ate.
(Those windows were wide open, by the way...nice warm sea breezes coming in!)
Frank enjoying a non-alcoholic strawberry daquiri, french onion soup, and sushi
I had coconut shrimp (delicious!!) and garlic fries.
More resort photos:
After eating we took a nap (too many early mornings and late nights on this trip for sure!!) and then we went down to the beach to put our feet in the water and watch the sunset:
Frank took this series of photos to capture the sun as it went down:
We went to a local grocery store to get some food for dinner. We got a large sandwich, some potato salad, and some pineapple (because you have to eat pineapple any chance you can get in Hawaii...it's so much better there!) I thought the signs for the aisles were cute:
Hawaii Day 6 (Tuesday April 19th)
We were up really early again the next morning because we had an excursion booked that started at 7:00 am--a snorkel cruise. We had to meet at the boat slip by 6:45 and it was a good 30+ minutes away. At least there was no point in showering that morning, so all we had to do was get up and put on our swimsuits and head out the door. (As a matter of fact, there were a lot of days on this trip that we showered in the afternoon instead of the morning. Our eating schedule was all off too...lunch almost always ended up being in the late afternoon and dinner was usually at bedtime.) Anyway, we had a little bit of trouble finding the correct boat slip but we still got there in plenty of time. We got on the boat and while we were heading out to the first snorkel spot, they fed us a hot breakfast. We enjoyed talking with other passengers and geting to know a few families. I saw a whale out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought I'd imagined it, but a minute or two later several other people saw a water spout. The first snorkeling spot was Molokini, which is a crescent shaped partially submerged volcanic crater. There's a nice reef there so it is a good spot for snorkeling. There were two ways to get in the ocean from the boat...you could walk down some steps or you could jump in. Frank opted to jump in; I took the steps! I also chose to stay on board a little longer to get the instructions for new snorkelers, since I had only been snorkeling once before (and that was 5 years ago). I thought a refresher course would be a good idea! The water here was very clear and I saw a lot of different colorful fish and a lot of sea urchins as well as a lot of coral. Frank said he saw an eel also. After snorkeling for about an hour, we all got back on the boat and they had some snacks for us to eat while we went to the second snorkel spot. The second spot was an area where there are usually a lot of sea turtles, but it was really windy and the current was strong so there weren't many turtles. I heard one person say he had seen a small turtle, but most of us didn't see any. As a matter of fact, I didn't see much at all at the second spot. The water was murkier and I only saw a few fish. I didn't stay in the water too long here because I just wasn't seeing much. Frank and I snorkeled together for a while at the first spot but at the second spot I never found him. He was one of the first people in the water and he was one of the last ones to come back in. I was actually getting kind of anxious about him because I couldn't see him out in the water anywhere. It turns out he had swum much closer to shore than I had. I was glad to see him when he got back. As we traveled back to Maui, they served us lunch. We didn't take a lot of photos this day, but here are a few:
After we got back from the snorkel cruise, we showered and then went to happy hour again for our dinner. We were sitting near the door this time and a bird kept landing on the back of one of the chairs at our table. Then it would hop onto the table. Frank kept shooing it away but I could see it was eyeing the plate with my leftover shrimp tails so I told him to leave it alone and see what it would do. It hopped onto the table and cautiously approached the plate, then it darted in and grabbed one of the shrimp tails and flew a few feet away with it. We watched the bird use its beak to pick the little bits of shrimp meat out of the tail. It had to pick it up and fly away a few times because other birds kept trying to steal it away from him. That was fun to watch! We were tired that evening and went to bed early. I think I was asleep by shortly after 8:00 pm, and I didn't wake up until nearly 6:00 the next morning. Close to 10 hours of solid sleep--it was heavenly!!
Hawaii Day 7 (Wednesday April 20th)
We had an excursion on Wednesday morning too but it wasn't until 9:00, so we didn't have to rush for a change. We enjoyed the view from the lanai before going to the restaurant for breakfast.
We ate outside and it was really lovely sitting by the ocean while we ate. The food was delicious!! We had a lot more bird visitors too. At one point my napkin blew away (it is windy in Hawaii a lot!) and Frank went to get me a new one. I was looking at my plate for a minute and when I looked up there were several birds all around Frank's plate about to sample his breakfast! I shooed them away just in time.
Our first bird visitor...
...was soon joined by many friends!
Frank had blueberry French toast and sausage.
I had eggs benedict and we shared the macadamia nut cinnamon roll. So yummy!!
Our excursion for the day was a bike ride / snorkel expedition. We rented electric bikes and they gave us directions to several beaches where we could stop to swim and snorkel. It was self guided, so we were on our own and could do what we wanted...we just had to return the bikes by 3:00 pm. They provided snorkel gear, helmets and bike locks along with the bikes
The electric bikes were nice because we didn't have to do a lot of pedalling (unless we wanted to). That was helpful since neither of us had biked in a long time...getting up some of those hills would have been very difficult!! I thought the bike seat was incredibly uncomfortable, but we didn't have sore muscles from pedalling the next day. Most of our ride we were in a bike lane but we were on a very busy road which made me a little nervous but we did fine. It was really lovely to ride along with the wind in my hair and all that beauty around me. We stopped at a couple of beaches and Frank did some snorkeling at one of them. I just stood in the waves for a while. It was peaceful, fun, and beautiful! Going into this excursion we were pretty tired from all our busy days and we thought we would only bike for a few hours. We ended up being out for about 4 hours, though, and really enjoyed it!
One of our stops...Pohaku Park:
Our other stop was Kahekili Beach Park, where Frank went snorkeling and I stood in the waves and gathered a few rocks. Frank picked up some rocks and coral too:
After returning the bikes to the bike shop, we went to Lahaina's Front Street, which has a lot of restaurants and shops along the shore. We were really hungry by then (it was close to 2:00 pm) so we found a place to eat called Lahaina Fish Co. We were taken to a table upstairs, with lovely sea breezes and a view of the ocean. It was about this time that I realized that my legs were sunburned, right above my knees. I forgot to put on sunscreen that morning until we got to our second stop. My feet were also a little sunburned, but not my calves...so funny! Fortunately, it didn't hurt too much even though I was definitely bright red. It was bright red and a little bit tender for a couple of days. At the restaurant, I had fish and chips and Frank got a burger:
We weren't sitting right next to the water, but after we finished eating we walked over to a table right by the ocean and took a few photos:
Then we did some shopping in some of the little shops along the road. When we finished shopping, we drove up to another beach called Slaughterhouse Beach. Terrible name, I know, but it was a beautiful beach. This is the beach where Frank took the YDE boys a lot, so of course he wanted to see it again. It was quite a walk down a lot of stairs to get to the beach. Frank said the stairs weren't there 31 years ago...they just had to pick their way down to the beach through the rocks.
On the way back to the resort, Frank stopped and took photos of this bridge because he rappelled off of it once:
Our final stop was at the grocery store to get some salads to eat for dinner later. Then we went back to the resort and crashed. The sunset was really nice from our room:
Hawaii Day 8 (Thursday April 21st)
Once again, we had to be up really early for a very early flight. We flew back to Honolulu for our last day in Hawaii. This was our only flight the whole trip that wasn't completely full, so Frank and I had 3 seats to ourselves and I sat by the window and took quite a few pictures on the short flight...mostly of the island of Moloka'i, which was on our right as we flew from Maui to Oahu.
Coming into Oahu; that's Diamond Head on the right:
You'll probably have to zoom in to see it, but when we were coming into Honolulu, there was a lot of mist or rain between the tall buildings; it looked really cool:
After landing, we picked up our last rental car.
This car was a Subaru and it had a lot of safety features, one of which drove Frank crazy. It would beep at him if he started to change lanes without putting on his signal first. Frank does signal when he changes lanes, but I've been telling him for decades that he doesn't put the signal on until he has started moving into the next lane...sometimes he is even halfway into the lane before he signals. The car beeped at him a lot, which aggravated him, but always made me chuckle. (I'm sure I have my own quirky driving habits...I'm not saying this to pick on Frank!)
We decided we wanted to visit the Dole Pineapple Plantation but on the way we stopped at Pearl Harbor again briefly. After we visited there on Sunday, I realized that we had forgotten to watch the introductory movie and I wanted to see it, so we did that. It turns out that the Dole Planatation was super busy that day. I mean, maybe it's always that way but there were crowds of people and lines everywhere. The line to take the train tour around the plantation had a sign that said there could be a more than 2 hour wait. We decided not to stay here long! We did a little bit of shopping at the gift shop and I got my photo taken by some pineapple plants (behind me is part of the line of people waiting for the train ride):
Apparently there are red pineapples too:
There were a lot of things to do at the plantation that sounded fun like a maze and various tours and I'm sure it would be a great place to visit on a day that wasn't so busy! We didn't even get any Dole whip here because the line for that was really long too. Instead, we drove along the north shore...which has really big waves...until we got to Laie:
We got some lunch (once again, mid-afternoon) and then went back to the Polynesian Cultural Center to do some shopping.
We got some fudge and guess what? They had Dole whip here too and there was no line so we got some of that too.
Frank also got some shave ice, but I was too full. After we finished our shopping, we drove over to the BYU Hawaii Campus. It is beautfiul!! I am wondering why I didn't try to go there instead of to Provo! 😆
After BYU-Hawaii, we drove to the temple. We had appointments for the 5:30 endowment session there but we still had a couple of hours until then so we took lots of photos and hung out in the visitor's center and talked to lots of missionaries.
It was really wonderful to not just visit the temple grounds, but to be able to go inside and participate in temple worship. It was the perfect way to end our trip, on the eve of our 30th wedding anniversary. We felt really fortunate to be able to get seats in a session. I had the idea that we could go there a few months before our trip and I immediately went online to see what the schedule was like and if we could reserve a spot. I discovered that there were only two sessions that day...both in the evening...but they were both already full. A few weeks before our trip it occurred to me that I should check again because sometimes people change their plans and cancel, and I was thrilled when there were two open seats in the 5:30 session, which is the one we wanted to go to. The Laie Temple is very small but very beautiful. The part about going to the temple here that was the most special to me, though, was the variety of cultures and races that were represented in the people in our session. There were people of several different Polynesian cultures as well as many people from different Asian cultures and a few pasty white people like us! 😅 It was really powerful to be in the temple and to look around at that variety of beautiful skin colors and realize that even though we all looked different, we are all children of the same heavenly parents and we are all united in a shared faith and work, even though we come from many different backgrounds. The gospel isn't for people of one culture or people that all think alike. It's for everyone, and we don't need to be the same for the gospel to be effective in our lives. As a matter of fact, it's a miracle how different we all can be and yet we can be so united as we follow the Savior.
After our session ended, we took more photos outside:
The drive back to Honolulu felt long...we were both tired and hungry. We found our hotel--the Prince Waikiki Hotel--and it took time to park and go through the check in process. By the time we got up to our room it was 9:20 and the hotel restaurant closed at 9:30 so we booked our way downstairs to the restaurant and fortunately got there in time to order some food. There weren't a lot of choices so I decided to try something I'd never had called pork belly. I was actually more interested in the asparagus and risotto that came with it! The asparagus and risotto were pretty good but I didn't care much for the pork belly. It turned out to be a very fatty piece of meat...much too fatty for my tastes. I did manage to find a little bit of meat to eat but I didn't eat much of it. The asparagus and risotto was enough to fill me up, though.
After we ate we still had one more errand to run, in spite of the lateness of the hour. We wanted to buy some chocolate covered macadamia nuts to take home with us but hadn't been able to do that any earlier because we knew they would be sitting in our cars for hours and we didn't want them to melt. Luckily, there was an ABC store just a block or two away that was open until 11:00, so we walked over there and got our chocolates. Then--finally!!--we went back to our room and went to bed. This hotel, by the way, was super tall and fancy (and quite expensive)...too bad we were only there for about 4 hours of sleep!! The bathroom was really nice and even had a heated toilet seat! I have never encountered that before.
Returning home (Friday April 22nd - Saturday April 23rd)
Our flight home left Honolulu at 7:15 am so we were up really early again. The view from our 18th story hotel room right next to the harbor was pretty awesome that morning:
When we got to the airport, we had to go through an extra step before checking our bags...we had to go through an agricultural inspection because we were returning to the mainland USA.
They are really strict about bringing in or taking out any plants, fruits, or vegetables. After going through the inspection, we got these stickers on our bags to show that we had passed the inspection:
The airport was surprisingly busy, considering how early it was, but we made it to our gate in plenty of time, and soon we were headed home. We had a wonderful time in Hawaii and we'll never forget it and will always be so grateful that we got to make this trip!! I wasn't really sad to be leaving, though. I'm grateful that I have a home that I love so that going home is always nice too!
I did sleep for a bit on the flight from Honolulu to Las Vegas. This trip was amazing but not restful! We were able to sit in the exit row on this flight and Frank did not have a seat in front of him, which was really nice for him with his long legs. We landed in Las Vegas around 1:00 pm Honolulu time, but of course we lost 3 hours so it was 4:00 pm in Las Vegas. We had a little less than 2 hours in Las Vegas before boarding our final flight home. We left Las Vegas around 6:00 pm but of course lost 3 more hours so by the time we landed it was 1:15 am on Saturday morning in Baltimore. That made it feel like the flight was even longer than it was! It took a long time to get our luggage and to take the shuttle bus back to where our car was parked, and then we had another hour drive until we got home. But we finally made it around 4:00 am! All we did when we got home was to put on pajamas and climb into bed.
Saturday April 23rd
We got about 4 hours of sleep before Scott called us--he was putting Seth on the plane home from Salt Lake City and he had a couple of questions. After we talked to him, I was awake for a bit...I kept thinking of things I wanted Scott to tell Seth so I was texting Scott for a while. This was Seth's first time flying all by himself and I was anxious because he had to change planes in Chicago and there was also a stop in Cinncinati where he should not get off the plane. (We put him on a nonstop flight originally to avoid these worries but the airline changed it so we had no choice.) So anyway, I was texting things like "Make sure he takes his medicine." "Tell him to call the home phone if he needs help because we might be asleep." "Make sure he knows what our home phone number is!" "Make sure he knows how to put his phone on airplane mode." "Make sure he has a few snacks." "Remind him to stay on the plane in Cinncinati!!" I was pretty sure he'd be fine, but moms worry, you know? I did go back to sleep after about a half hour and we didn't wake up until around noon. I felt like we were caught in a time warp the next couple of days...the days just went by so fast and I didn't feel like I got anything done. After we woke up on Saturday we took showers and started unpacking. We gathered up all the clothes that needed to be washed (which was basically everything in our suitcases, whether we had worn them or not because sand got into everything) and sorted them but decided to wait to start the laundry until Seth got home since he'd have dirty laundry too of course. As we were unpacking I told Frank to set aside any souvenirs he came across so that we could sort through them later. We brought home just a few souvenirs. 😏:
Not all of them were for us...we gave a lot of things away!
During the process of unpacking we took a few photos to celebrate our anniversary and to show off our new t-shirts too:
(Those are our buttons from the Polynesian Cultural Center that say "Aloha! It's My Anniversary".)
Unpacking and showering was about all we got done before it was time to go pick up Seth from the airport.
By the time we got Seth's luggage and were on our way back home, we were all really hungry so we stopped at Cracker Barrel to get some dinner. By the time we got home and Seth unpacked, it was after 7:00 pm and we still had to get a few groceries and do a lot of laundry. So I stayed up pretty late getting laundry done. Frank went to bed because he had a 7:00 am bishopric meeting.
Sunday April 24th
In spite of the fact that we were really tired, it was lovely to go to church in our own ward again. We wore our white shell leis and took chocolate covered macadamia nuts to share with our YW and YM classes. I had purchased a small flower necklace for each of the girls in my class (there are only 4 of them) and some mango soap for my class advisor and everyone seemed to like their gifts.
First Week Home (sort of...)
Hang in there, you are getting close to the end of this monster post! I am not going to go into each day in detail after we got home. I added "sort of" to the title of this section of the post because I actually didn't stay home. Jared had surgery Monday morning (April 25th) so that morning I went down to NC to help Jared & Jessie for a few days. I got Seth to Seminary and school first and Frank went to work. The drive to Cary, NC from our house is about 5 hours but it took 6 hours to get there because there was some bad traffic on I-95. Actually, there was a wreck--that's what caused the slow down. I noticed that I felt sleepy while I was driving so I sang most of the way there to make sure I stayed awake. I was about half way there when Jessie called me to say that Jared was out of surgery and that the surgery had been successful but he had had a complication. He started vomiting during surgery and aspirated fluid into his lungs so they had to intubate him and they had decided to admit him to the hospital overnight for observation. They were worried about pneumonia. They don't know why this happened because he had not had anything to eat or drink after about 8:00 the night before surgery. Anyway, because of that I went straight to the hospital when I got to Cary instead of going to their apartment. Jared was asleep when I got there but woke up when I came in his room and after he woke up all the way he was pretty alert and didn't seem to be in too much pain.He was coughing up a lot of stuff, though. I offered to go pick up dinner for Jessie and me, but they wanted me to try food from a Venezuelan restaurant that they had discovered and Jessie knew how to get there so I stayed with Jared while she got the food. We got these things called arepas, which were sort of like tacos except the tortilla was smaller, softer, and thicker. They had lots of different meat and topping choices and the two that I tried were really good (I had one for dinner and saved one for lunch the next day). I stayed at the hospital visiting with Jared and Jessie until bedtime; then I followed Jessie to their apartment. I spent the night there but Jessie got a few things she needed and went back to the hospital to spend the night in Jared's room. (They had one of those soft reclining chairs in his room for her to sleep on). I wasn't sure how I would sleep, alone in a new place, but I slept like a log! Their couch is pretty comfortable, too.
I enjoyed seeing their new apartment and the city they live in (didn't drive around the city much though). Their apartment is in a nice complex with lots of beautiful mature trees. They are on the ground floor and have a nice little patio off of their living room / eating area. The apartment is cute and well kept up. The city of Cary was pretty with lots of trees and green spaces. The hospital was really nice too. On Tuesday morning, the 26th, I went back to the hospital, bringing some food for breakfast for Jessie and I. They told Jared on Monday evening that he would likely be discharged the next day by noon and he was discharged that day but not until nearly 3:00 pm. Jessie had arranged to have the day off work so we just stayed with Jared in his room and visited. He was still doing pretty well...coughing quite a bit, but alert and not in much pain. Jared enjoyed looking at all my photos from Hawaii and hearing about our trip. They liked the gifts we had brought for them as well.
After we finally got home from the hospital, we sat out on their patio and watched a storm come in. Jessie made us some rice and sweet and sour chicken for dinner while I watched a regional church training broadcast for youth and leaders of youth (this broadcast replaced our normal Wednesday night youth activities). After dinner, I washed the dishes and we played a game of Monopoly Deal. Jessie had to work the next day so she went to bed but Jared hasn't been sleeping well at nights so I stayed up and talked to him for quite a while...longer than I intended! We both woke up when Jessie got up for work the next morning but after she left we both went back to sleep. I was surprised when I didn't wake up until about 11:30!! Jared woke up shortly after I did and I made some french toast and sausage for breakfast (okay, technically it was lunch time by then)...making extra because they wanted to eat that for dinner too. Jessie was able to come home for lunch so I got to see her and say good bye before I left. After cleaning up breakfast (lunch) I got ready to head back home. I realized that I would run into rush hour traffic in the DC area so hoping to avoid that, I waited a little longer to leave and we chose a different route that would take an hour longer but would avoid the DC area so actually probably wouldn't take much longer since traffic could easily add an hour or more to the trip time. I was a bit anxious about my GPS working because most of the time that I was in Cary, my phone wasn't working well. My text messages wouldn't send and I kept getting messages saying I wasn't registered on a network so I could only make emergency calls. Even wifi calling wouldn't work. It was really frustrating because I was not able to communicate with Frank very much. Fortunately, as soon as I left Jared's apartment complex I had service again and got a ton of text messages I had missed. I didn't have any trouble getting the GPS to work either. (But I have continued to have problems with my phone off and on since I got home which is aggravating. I am starting to wonder if there is something wrong with my phone since neither Frank nor Seth has had this kind of trouble with their service.)
The route I chose was supposed to put me on I-81 eventually but for some reason that never happened. The GPS kept me on back roads the entire way home and it took 7 hours to get home instead of 6. It was quite frustrating and I sometimes felt like I was NEVER going to get home, but I did finally get home around 10:00 pm. I will say this though...I never got stuck in rush hour traffic and the whole route was very scenic and beautiful.
Meanwhile, while I was in NC, Frank held down the fort at home. Seth went back to school and started to get caught up on school work and Frank went back to work and started wading through the 1500 emails that were waiting for him. On Wednesday afternoon Frank took Seth to a doctor appointment--just a routine check up for his medicine. Seth is 5 feet, 10 1/2 inches tall now but he is only in the 15th percentile for weight. The doctor says he needs to eat more fattening food, which is funny because almost everything he eats in fattening. He just doesn't eat enough of it, I guess.
I was happy to be back home and started trying to get caught up on all the things I was behind on...like laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, and updating the budget. That took a lot of time, particularly updating the budget since I had a huge pile of receipts to go through from our trip. I did finally finish and was grateful to discover that we still had some money left in our bank accounts. 😀 By Friday evening I had got caught up on nearly everything except for this blog post, so I started it then and I've been working on it in spare moments since then. It has taken five days, but I am finally almost done!
I probably would have had more time to work on it except Seth had his wisdom teeth out on Friday morning (the 29th) so I spent a lot of time on Friday and over the next few days taking care of him. He did great this time and didn't get anxious and allowed them to put in the IV. (I got him telling them all about his trip to Hawaii which helped distract him, I think!) Seth was awake on the way home and he wasn't loopy at all...Tanner was like that when he got his teeth out. (Scott slept the whole way home when he got his out and Jared was awake but really loopy when he got his out. So funny how different each person can be!) On Friday Seth was supposed to put ice packs on his cheeks--20 minutes on and 20 minutes off--all day. I found that having the echo dot to set a timer every 20 minutes was very helpful for this! I really expected Seth to be quite miserable since he got all four wisdom teeth out and they exposed 3 of his molars, but I was pleasantly surprised that he never did seem to have a lot of pain. It took the numbing several hours to wear off so I was expecting him to "crash" at some point but that never happened. Certainly, his mouth hurt (and it still does) but he felt well enough to watch televison and even play video games. He got lots of gatorade to drink the first few days and we fed him popsicles and soup. (No dairy for the first 24 hours.) I'm extremely grateful that this oral surgery is over with and that he didn't suffer a lot!! His face has been a little swollen, especially on the left side, but it doesn't show up much in photos. I took these ones Saturday morning. (He's really not as miserable as he looks in the photos!)
Frank told me when he got home from work on Thursday that there was something wrong with his car. It was working fine when I drove it home on Wednesday, so I was surprised. I had to drive it to the store on Saturday (the 30th) to get some warm compresses and some more gatorade for Seth (Frank had taken my car to get some computer equipment for a client) and it was making all kinds of banging and knocking noises and it was shaking a lot when I got up to speed. It was seriously scary to drive! We took his car in to the Toyota dealership on Monday morning (May 2nd) and it turns out one of the front wheels was just really loose! We are perplexed at how that happened, especially since I was driving it all day on Wednesday and had no problems, but what a tender mercy that I didn't have any probelms with it while on my trip! We're so thankful!! (And we're also thankful that it didn't need an expensive repair.)
Since we have returned home, Frank has received a number of communications from the University of Maryland--that's the place where he has had two job interviews over the last few months--asking him for more information like references and so forth so it is obvious that he is still in the running for that job. They are certainly taking their time with the interview process!
To finish up this really long post (is anyone still there??) here are a few random things we learned about Hawaii:
- No matter how careful you are, you will bring some Hawaiian sand home with you.
- It is perfectly acceptable to show up at a nice restaurant, a grocery store, or virtually anywhere in a swim suit. As a matter of fact, you may be in the minority if you are wearing normal clothes.
- There are lots of wild chickens in Hawaii and you will awaken to the sound of roosters every morning...even in the middle of Honolulu. Even at a nice resort on Maui. Even at the airport! On Maui, you will not just hear the roosters, you will frequently see chickens running along the side of the road.
- The restrooms at all the airports have lovely stalls with doors that actually lock closed and don't have large cracks down the sides that people can see through. (The restroom stalls at the Las Vegas airport are the complete opposite. Boo.)
- If you allow a car to get in front of you on the road, everyone in the car will flash the "hang loose" sign at you in appreciation.
- Predictably, Hawaii is not a good place to play "find the state license plate". It was always exciting when we saw a license plate from a state other than Hawaii. I think this happened maybe 3 times our entire trip.
- We didn't actually play road sign alphabet, but if we had I think it would have been particularly challenging in Hawaii because nearly every place name uses only these letters: A, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, U, and W. Good luck finding the other 14 letters of the alphabet!
- Some places on Hawaii are kind of dry. That's because the storms rolling in dump all their rain when they hit the mountains (volcanoes), so sometimes places on the other side of the mountains are kind of dry. I was surprised when I saw some of those big water sprinklers on rollers when we were on Maui. I've seen a lot of those in places like Idaho, but I didn't expect to see them in Hawaii.
- The speed limit is lower on a lot of roads in Hawaii. Whenever we went somewhere, the GPS would say something like "30 miles, 60 minutes to destination". It was almost always twice as many minutes as it was miles!
- You will hear the words "Aloha" and "Mahalo" much more than "Hello" and "Thank you".
- You will leave this place with an even deeper and profound appreciation for the beauty of God's creations!
My heart is full of thanks that we got to take this wonderful trip and that now we have the rest of our lives to relive all the happy memories. If you made it to the end, you deserve a medal! Mahalo!!
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