The House

Okay, now I'm ALL caught up.
Attention burglars: We don't have anything to steal, but we do have a gun.  And I know how to use it.

The Kauai part of Hawaii

We left O'ahu on Sunday after church in the historic Honolulu tabernacle.  Seriously an awesome building with an impressive giant tree in the front yard.

The kids were pretty worn out.  This is them when we unloaded them out of the rental car.

And then put them on the shuttle, and got dropped off at the airport.  We had to get them up so we could check their seats.  I think they would have slept through the whole flight.

We stayed in Kauai with cousins and aunts and uncles and Grandma and Grandpa!  It was so fun to have the trip refreshed half way through with other people to talk with.

Monday we went to Waimea Canyon, which is a pretty impressive canyon for a small island.  There, we stopped at some lookouts, and did the #1 muddiest hike of our trip.

Make of this what you will.

Grandpa and Eliza (or, as Eva calls her, Maliza)

Grandma and Maliza.

Aunt Emmy with the grabby-fingered Myra

Ben grew out his beard!  Eva wouldn't kiss him.Myra couldn't let go of it (see above)

Ben took that picture with the girls, and so I saw Clark over playing with his finger animal in the dirt (hold your index finger straight out and point all the other ones downward, its an elephant with his trunk--thanks, Rowans) and I said, "Clark, I need a picture with me and my boy" and he thought for a minute and said, 'Well, just go get Eva." and I said, "But you're my boy!"  "Well Eva's your girl".  So I scooped him up and took a picture.  It's an even cuter story if you can pronounce it like him.  "Wheaw, dust go get Eva" "Wheaw, Eva's your giwl"

There are chickens everywhere in Hawaii.

This is the lookout from the muddy hike, this is the Napali coast (more to come later)

Anna's hair with hydrangea in it. (Anna is Toni's daughter)

Thad and Eva enjoying a moment in the grass.

This was part of our big hike.  It felt like 4 miles, but it was only two.  But I think when you forget water and snacks and it is ankle deep mud, distances should be flexible.  The kids were pooped by half way.  But they perservered. Word to the wise, the first lookout on that hike is the best one.  No need to go to the top.

The next day, I dropped Ben, Emily, Thad and my Dad off at the end of the road on the North Shore, where they embarked on an overnight backpacking trip along the Napali coast.  Unfortunately, they got caught in the rain for most of it and ended up going only 6 miles up and camping, instead of 11.  They had a great time though, and no one slid off the cliff into the ocean.  Success.

On Thursday, my parents were good enough to take the kids so that we could go on a little river kayaking adventure.  All the big kids went, it was fantastic.  Actually, this was my favorite day of Hawaii.

First we paddled up to a swimming hole/rope swing.  Emily and I were the brave ones to try the rope swing first, and we didn't have the strength to hold ourselves up past the low point of the pendulum.  We inhaled a lot of water.  Without any sort of grace . There are no pictures of that.  But then, we started jumping off of this cliff, and that was F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C!

Ben was good at the rope swing though. 

Then we got back in the kayaks and paddled up a different fork in the river to a waterfall hike.  That was super fun too.  This is Emily and I on the trail up to the main waterfall.

Whenever the footing was unsure, Thad would grab someone's hand and say "Lets be a Centaur!" instead of "let's hold each other up".

In the main waterfall. This is by far my favorite series of pictures from the trip. 

Most days found us down at the resort's pools for some period of time.  Eva hated the beach, but she loved the pool.  Here is Grandpa and Myra Jane.

The final day of our trip, we went to the Magical Kipu Falls.  Magical is my adjective, not the proper name.  But I put it in there because it fits.  There was perfect cliff jumping and rope swinging into a super deep pool of water.  You had to climb a rickety 15 foot aluminum ladder that was sort of bolted into the side of the cliff to get back up to the swing or the cliff.  But I figure, if you fall backwards holding on to the ladder, at least you're falling into a pool of water, so no worries.

Grandpa Bus taking on the rope swing.

The next day, Sunday, we got on another series of planes, got to Bridgette's house at midnight, and lazed around all the next day.

Tuesday morning, we left Jordan and Natalie Nelson's house at 6:00 am (thanks, Nelsons!) and drove ALL the way until 1:00 in the morning when we finally got back to our new house.  Dora was the patron saint of that drive.  Dora and Goldfish. Bless them both.

Okay, phew.  Now I have to start going to bed during normal Texas hours and stop staying up all night blogging.

ALOOOOOOOOHA!

That's right!  I said Hello.  And Goodbye.  And I love you.  And Clark has told me several times "You can't say Aloha anymore.  Just say Hi."

Because we aren't in Hawaii anymore.  *shudder into clenched fist*

But we had a great 10 days there.  I think it was 10 days.  It was a 17 day ordeal, driving to and from Phoenix (thanks Bridgette and family for the awesome accommodations!).  Maybe we were in Hawaii for 12 days.  Maybe 13.  Yeah, I think 13.

Anway, here are some highlights:

 Breaking in our condo in Waikiki.  I'm not sure what kind of animal sleeps on bridges, but that is the kind that Clark is.  Probably a beaver.  (For those of you who don't know Clark well, he is always some kind of animal).

 Myra says "hi" now.  Well, right here, she is saying "aloha".

 The first morning we were up and going at 4:45 (Hawaii is 4 hours earlier than Tejas).  We got to this hike at 6:00 in the morning.  The kids were excited to go up the volcano.  We had studied about volcanos in preschool before we came, which was not necessarily a good idea.  Just made them nervous about the possibilities of lava spewing out of the crater (right where we are standing!). 

 At the end of the hike, there is a giant stairwell of 99 steps going to the top.  Eva walked all of the hike except this part.  I was so proud of her.

 MUSCLES!

 Clark found a tail on the way (for those of you who don't know Clark well, he likes to wear a tail all the time as well--in keeping with his animal imitations).  This was a foxtail reed.

 Under the influence of their minimalist-shoe-loving father, they decided to hike down barefoot. 

 These flowers grow everywhere!  They are literally distributed all over the ground when a gust of wind hits the trees.  I think that was one of my favorite things about Hawaii.  The abundance of beautiful, free, flowers.

 Our first day snorkeling spot.  I was terrified.  I was sure that a shark or barracuda was going to come up from the murky depths and bite me on  my totally vulnerable belly.  Later I learned that we didn't have good visibility and that snorkeling is fun.

 I'm not against taking kids to Hawaii, but you might want to screen the potential applicants more closely than we did.  Had we known that Eva hated the beach and ocean, we might have made other arrangements for her.  However, she discovered that she loved napping on the beach.  So did Myra.  So when we would go, she would just say "I'm tired, I need a nap".  Even if we had just woken up a few hours before.  But I'd wrap her in a towel, put her in the shade, and she was good for an hour.

 "Aloha!"

 We got Clark to go out and snorkel in Haunama Bay.  He loved it.  Obviously, there were sea animals involved.

 Eva got an owie.  Strike three for the beach.  She wanted a picture of it.

 Giant Eucalyptus trees on our Manoa Falls hike the second day.  They were gorgeous.

The second muddiest hike of our trip.  In a beautiful rainforest/mosquito farm.  Seems like paradise shouldn't have mosquitoes.

 The third day we went to the North shore and saw some sea turtles and went snorkeling here, Sharks Cove.  You can imagine my dreams the night before after we had planned our day.  Eviscerated.  But this turned out to be my very favorite spot--it was like snorkeling in my dentist's aquarium.  Totally bright and shallow and tons of fish everywhere. 

 Then we made our way to the Polynesian Cultural Center where we frantically tried to see things in 2.5 hours.  We didn't plan that part of our trip very well.  It was nice though, nicely landscaped.

And I threw a spear which completed my dream for Hawaii.  Let me tell you:  When I was a Junior in High School, I was on the track team, nominally, and tried throwing javelin once or twice.  One night in the middle of track season, I had a dream that we all went to Hawaii with the Kellys, our cousins.  And I could throw the javelin sooooooooooooooooooooooo far.  Effortlessly, I could just chuck it and it would sail through the air for miles.  So that rocked.  And I also remember waking up and having a sensory memory of how wonderfully fragrant Hawaii was.  All the flowers filled the air up with scent.  Which is why I adore the plumeria trees everywhere just throwing flowers away like they are going out of style.  But they never will, or Hilo Hatties will go out of business with all of their plumeria-inspired shirts.

 Then Eva caught this fish. 

 And we all got tattoos.  Even Myra.

 

And when we came out (because they closed at 5:00!!!), the kids saw this bench and ran over to it and said, "Take our picture" and smiled like they were little models.  It was so cute.

 

Here we are with more sea turtles hanging out on the beach.

The rest of our time in Oahu was spent snorkeling, hiking and eating Mangoes n' Cream ice cream. We also got to visit my dearly beloved piano teacher, Dan Bradshaw and his awesome family; both he and Emily teach at BYU Hawaii.

Its late though, and everyone else is asleep, so I am going to name this part 1 and get the other half posted later. . . hopefully this month.  Also, the home tour.  I haven't forgotten.