Now our journey IN paradise begins!

Day 1 seemed like week one.  We slept until our bodies told us it was time to get ready for school, 3 a.m..  Luckily we were very tired so we tried to sleep until 5.  We can't sleep much later than that because have some very helpful neighborhood jungle fowl that want to make sure we don't miss anything important.  They are unbelievably loud and persistent.  Red Jungle Fowl is the official name of this guy specifically:

There are wild chickens everywhere, but we have seen and heard lots of birds in our neighborhood:

There are hundreds of mynah birds, the black one.  They are everywhere and I think we arrived here on the last day of their mating season, or else there was a mongoose in the plumeria tree outside our window because it was crazy loud the first day.  Since then, and since my discovery of earplugs, it is just fine.





Kyle had to go to work, and the kids spent most of the morning making friends with our new dogs.

 They love us already, especially Matty and Evan, who love them back, just as much.  Matty already said she is going to miss Watson and Pepper when we have to go home.

I have always loved plumeria and we have a little balcony right off our bedroom that is just the same level as the blooming plumeria tree.  We are going to make our own lei for Grandma when she comes. Emily took pictures of all the different flowers she could see just around our yard.
 Here are just the highlights:

Every time we turn around we see something else that is just amazing.  The eye candy is overwhelming. Just in our own yard, on the first morning.  We also saw some geckos and lizards.  We decided to head down the mountain in the suburban (we are so grateful for the big beach bus we have to drive.  It is really great to fill with beach gear, kids and sand) and see what we could see.  We stopped at the first friendly looking beach.  The waves were not friendly today, There was a swell that came in over night that kept us out of the water, and kept the surfers out of their classes.
It was a good day to watch and learn about the power of the ocean.  Every picture I took, I would think, oh the grandmas are going to have a heart attack when they see this. We are very careful.

 OUR FIRST BEACH!  A few months ago Matty asked me if there was sand in Hawaii....we really needed this.  She also has told me she doesn't like brown people....we REALLY need this trip.

 This is called petroglyph beach, in the winter you can see the petroglyphs under the sand.  These rocks were a good little breaker for us to be able to play in the water but not get taken out to sea.

 There weren't any surfers right here, obviously, but there were at the next beach down....Pipeline.
We went there and watched.

 It looks like we are right at the waters edge here, but the beach sloped down sharply for about 15 feet in front of us so the water didn't even touch us.  We got to see some pretty awesome surfing.

We had no choice but to get a shaved ice from the the North Shore Shaved Ice truck.  I think it is mandatory your first day. And I think it is mandatory to pick coconut, blue hawaii, melona, banana and pineapple as your flavors too.

We drove on to Laie to meet Kyle at BYU Hawaii.  We had about an hour 'til he got out, so we drove up to the temple grounds and went in the visitors center.

 This looks just like the St. George visitors center, except the houses are little grass surf shacks!

 Emily is not looking at a painting, she is looking out the window!  Just amazing, it looks like heaven.

 We asked the grounds-keeper how to say "families are forever" in Hawaiian, but he didn't know.

 Kyle got us all annual passes to the Polynesian Cultural Center, not because we are crazy but because they were on sale and were way cheaper than a regular one day pass.  We got there about 4pm, went to the IMAX 4D movie, took a canoe ride, had ukelele lessons, went fishing and ate at the amazing buffet all by 7:30.

 Emily was the only one that caught a fish, it was about 3 inches round (not long, it was so cute)! It is the blur at the end of the line.  Look at the cute Tahitian in the shadows, she reminds me of Mahana.

 This was a quilting/ukelele shop.  What kind of a dream mission would that be.  I told Kyle we need to request it now, so we can get on the waiting list.  "You have hereby been called to serve at the Polynesian Cultural Center teaching ukulele lessons in English."

Matty and Evan both fell asleep while they were eating! It was really late. 7:00 pm! plus 4...

Oh yeah and then there was this little bit of heaven too...