Our friends at DSU that are native islanders told us about this little secret beach near Turtle Bay. You just park off the side of the road at this certain spot and start hiking through the trees. You find a little Bay that is completely protected from the waves. Kawela Bay (Which is actually pronounces like Cabellas, but with a V sound instead of a B sound).
This little pathway we had to take to the Bay was the place where they filmed the bayou scene in the Pirates of the Carribean movie (2 I think) Where they go to see Tia Doma the witch doctor.
They flooded this whole area....does it look familiar now? That little shiny plaque at the base of the right of the tree talks about it.
She is a mean crab..I think. Especially around 7 pm....11pm St. George time!
Now she was trying to be a New Zealand hakka dancer in this one. Not a big beach but the trees were great shade.
Evan had never worn a snorkel before, so even though the bottom of the bay was only about 3 feet deep at 20 feet out....he wanted to try it anyway.
We brought Fredrick's paddle board to try out and George and Emily jumped right up and paddled all around and made it look so super easy and fun.
There is a horseback rider just above G's hand. That is Turtle Bay beyond those trees, and they have horses and trails.
George was so good at it he started giving rides.
Evan of course had to rock the board, and test the limits.... of everything.
Kyle and I tried it too, but it was pretty hard to keep balanced. Kyle had a heck of a time and fell in the water several times before he got the hang of it.
Kyle of course was much more daring than me and went really far out in the Bay.
On the beach they discovered the crabs and teased them the whole time. They were cute and harmless. Emily made a home for this guy, but he didn't think it was great and moved!
The shadows make this look like a creature, but the hole was the crab's home before Emily fancied it up.
The sun was going down so I gathered up the kids hoping to have a moment. Unfortunately my little waterproof camera was not up to the challenge of the wonder that we beheld. I did get this choice one of Kyle riding in on the paddle board though.
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...
We finally made it. We found out about 3 months ago that we would be moving to Hawaii for 10 weeks at the end of April. I started prepping and wanted to start packing right away. Initially Kyle was in negotiations for this exchange with BYU Hawaii to happen in January and then it fell through and I was so crushed. I wrote a talk about hope, for church and talked all about that experience. Anyway, in the Lord's time it happened and of course, the timing couldn't have been better for us.
I told Matty we were going to Hawaii after we went to Lehi for Easter to help give her a little perspective, and then every day after we returned home, she asked me if we were going to Hawaii that day.
On Sunday morning I went into her room and said- ask me Matty ask me! YES! Today we are going to Hawaii!!
It takes a lot of luggage to pack 6 people for 2 months, but we did really well and jammed 3 giant suitcases to their weight limit and 6 carry-ons and Penny dropped us at the curb in Vegas.
Finally made it through the line for our turn at security. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but it was stressing Kyle out terribly! Matty was very serious about her job of carrying the baggy of liquids in less that 4 ounce containers!
Even the escalators were exciting to them. Emily counted how many we got to ride and I think it was 6. They didn't even know about the tram they got to ride out to the D gates, so George video taped the ride...it was all so exciting.
We got settled in our assigned seats. 4 of us in the middle, the little ones in a parent sandwich, and then the two older ones by the window.
Matty struggled a little with the changing cabin pressure. She kept yelling, "Hello? hello! can anyone hear me? Mom, something is wrong with my ears. Hello?" We quickly bought the kids entertainment package for her little tv screen and she was good to go.
Everyone plugged in (Thank you for the new headphones Easter Bunny!) and we settled in. Only 5 hours and 40 minutes left! Yes, it was a 6 hour flight.
The highlight for Emily was the inflight meal! Another pleasant surprise since there was no meal on her previous flight from St. George to Sacramento a few months ago!
The cookies, I have to agree, were divine. Emily said hers was just too good and she couldn't finish it, so of course I helped her out! My kids will eat just about anything, so they all ate well, George even ate the cooked spinach which he hates. Good kids!
We got to take a bus at the Honolulu airport to the luggage carousels and that completed our travel in every possible way to get to Hawaii. The kids were not impressed by that time though because it was 1:30 am Utah time, they were exhausted.
We finally found the suburban, finally got our stuff loaded and finally got to our new home away from home in Pupukea, Hawaii and slept, a little....until we heard the jungle fowl........
This little pathway we had to take to the Bay was the place where they filmed the bayou scene in the Pirates of the Carribean movie (2 I think) Where they go to see Tia Doma the witch doctor.
