Waikiki and Out.

We said goodbye to the dogs....

 Took one last swing.....

and packed up the Beach Bus.....

 Goodbye to our home away from home.  It served us well, and we are grateful for it.  We got to our hotel in Waikiki about 5 p.m.  The kids wanted to swim as soon as they saw the pool, so they jumped in their suits and I went to find them some food.  There was a little convenience store across the street where I found some fairly reasonably priced sandwiches and chocolate covered macadamia nuts- because they are now part of our food pyramid- a daily necessity!  This shop was the winner of the expensive milk contest we have been having for 2 months: $10.36!  This is twice as much as we normally pay, which is twice as much as we would pay in Utah.
We won't miss rationing dairy products or the ants and centipedes (total of 9 in the house by the end). But everything else, will be missed.

 We had the pool all to ourselves in the evening and the next morning; when they woke up and went straight to swimming again.  These pics were from our hotel balcony.

 I think Matty thinks she won!

 I loved the turtles on the bottom of the pool.  Kinda like the turtles swimming across the bottom of Waimea.
We got the kids fed and bathed and settled down and went wandering. We found Duke's International Marketplace, which is a tiny version of the swap meet but with more aggressive, more Asian, salesmen. We bought an extra suitcase.  She started the bidding at $40, and we bought it for $32. Which means we spent $2 more than we needed to!  It was only a few blocks away and so we took the kids back the next morning to do one last round of shopping, we prepped them before hand on the technique of bartering and we had a good time.  Right at the end we met an LDS kid that served his mission in Northern Utah and we headed back there for boot camp in a few weeks.  His name was Pali and he was trained by his father to do woodcarving.  We bought two tikis from him and he carved our names in the back for us.

 We didn't have enough money and he didn't take credit cards, so Kyle bought him a Jamba Juice around the corner and took it back to him.  He asked for Kyle's phone number and said maybe he would come and visit us when he comes to Utah.  Looks like we may have adopted Pali, the Poly.

Our plane didn't leave til 10 pm, so we still had a lot of day left to kill.  We checked out of the hotel and went to the Aquarium for a few hours. We saw lots of the same fish and coral and creatures that we saw in the ocean every week but we saw some awesome things we didn't swim with too.

 It was really funny to see someone in the tank, cleaning it, I guess every fish tank has to be cleaned....I wonder who does the one with the shark in it?  That is a giant clam- we didn't see any of those in the ocean.

 These were awesome jellyfish.  Luckily we didn't see any of those in the ocean either.  We heard of a jellyfish warning, and learned all we could about them, and waited for them to come (10 days after the full moon) but they never did.

 These are giant groupers and in the background is the black tipped reef shark that was supposed to live on the outside of shark's cove.  He is only about 5 feet long.  Those fish were bigger than him.  I am glad we didn't see any of them in the ocean.

 Matty's last visit with a humuhumunukanuka'apua'a.  This one was small and really fast.
 I wish we could take one home with us.

 I wish we could take this cute little puffer fish home with us too. 

 We did see one of these Monk Seals in the ocean and it seemed much happier than this guy in the aquarium.

It was a great afternoon.  We were happy to just hang out and stroll around and enjoy the surroundings. It wasn't big enough, and we ran out of aquarium before we ran out of time.
We went to the mall and ate some dinner and then headed to the airport a few hours early.

Once we finally got settled into the airplane and on our way I think we were all happy to be headed home again.  Hawaii was truly amazing and I wouldn't trade this adventure for anything, but it is true....
There's no place like home.

Aloha Oe' from the Wells Ohana

Boat trip

On our last day on the North Shore, Sam Meyers (Eldons' dad and Amanda's husband) took the kids and Kyle out on the ocean to fish. Matty and I slept, it was worth it.  The boat wasn't big enough for us anyway. They left at 4:30 in the morning, because we had to leave that day.  The Fredericks were coming home.  Their daughter had already spent one night with us, and so we decided to get a hotel in Waikiki our last night on the island.
It was a great boat.  It was like Mason's speed boat but had a cabin underneath.

 The kids loved hanging out in the cabin, but every time Kyle went down there he got seasick.  Evan got seasick too and ended up loosing his breakfast,  mostly over the side of the boat. Most people would stop eating at that point, but not Evan, he's no quitter!

 Beautiful sunrise.  They went 3 miles out...where the sharks are, and then from Hale'iwa to Turtle Bay.

Unfortunately, they did not catch any fish on this trip, but it was a very fun boat ride and it was the last thing on the list of things they really wanted to do while they were there. So....CHECK! I guess we can go home.

Last Day at Waimea Beach Park

I may cry writing this.  We loved this beach.  The locals love this beach, and the tourists love this beach and in the winter the surfers love this beach. The turtles and dolphins love this beach too.  It is truly fantastic.
We recognized the Bishop's family as soon as we got there and George finally got to hang out with kids his own age for a minute.

 The one standing on the beach is one of the Bishop's sons and the one with his arms up is George and the one to his left is another son and to his right is a neighbor.
We took the kayak but didn't play with it too much.  We just wanted to do everything we loved doing.
The kids love jumping off this rock.

 I like taking the pictures.  I would have dared jump, but it just didn't interest me.  By the end I wasn't really afraid of anything, but mostly I just loved taking pictures of the kids enjoying it.

 We let the Rowley kids take the kayak out while we were jumping.

 George perfected the Hawaiian suicide.

Matty and Daddy jumping together.

 This is Matty's happy place.

We all love jumping in this cave too, it's no big deal, the tide was out and it was as easy as the very first time we did it, but it is fun for all, so we jumped a few times and took some more pictures.  We swam all the way over and I saw new fish by a new rock.  I thought it was so deep over here by the jumping rock and cave, but it isn't.  It is a great place for snorkeling.

I contemplated following those people's example and just buying a big brown tarp and moving to the beach.

We also spent some time rebuilding the ebenezer.  Animals have already started making this their home.

 Even a big crab lives here.  At least we think that is what it was...

This tree branch was about 3 feet off the ground and Matty was determined to climb it. 
She was so proud of her accomplishment.

Good bye ocean.  We will never be the same. We have loved and learned so much from you.