Hawaiin Getaway Part 2

We flew into Honolulu from Maui. I was shocked to see how big Honolulu was compared to Maui. It was a huge city! The entire population of Maui could probably fit in Honolulu! We took this picture from the plane.

We picked up our rental car ( a nice new one this time) and drove straight to Laie. The drive was really pretty.

We found our vacation rental studio. It was called the Gecko Studio at Honu Hale (which means turtle house). It was across the street from the south entrance to the Polynesian Cultural Center.

This is a picture of our room. It was pretty small but had everything that we needed.

That first night we got settled in, went grocery shopping, and went to the Laie Temple to take some pictures. The temple is beautiful! It is a landmark in the town as well. One of the beaches is called Temple Beach because it is at the bottom of the road the temple is on. Manda's friend Lauren goes to BYU Hawaii and she invited us to meet her on the lawn in front of the library to play night games. We were pretty tired but decided to go anyways. We had so much fun! We played a tag game that involves jumping and tagging with your feet, Red Rover, and a game called Lap Tag. This last one was a blast! Everyone except one person has a partner. You sit on the ground spread out in a big circle. Partners sit one in front of the other. The person who does not have a partner is "IT" They call out 2 names of people sitting in front of their partner. Those two people then have to try to get away from their partner and be the first to touch the person that is it. So basically it turns into a wrestling, clinging, dragging, frenzy. We were laughing so hard! Here are just a few of the many many pictures we took of this game! I had a few bruises and both Manda and I were pretty sore afterwards!

Thursday morning we went to the beach and then picked Lauren up from school to go to the Temple. It is beautiful on the outside and the inside! That was the smallest group I have ever been a part of too! There were 5 women (so 2 besides the 3 of us) and 1 man.

After changing our clothes we headed to Sunset Beach to watch the sunset. I have to admit I was quite disappointed after the amazing sunset that last night on Maui but it was still pretty.

After the sun had set we headed to Ted's Bakery. This place is famous for it's cream pies! The pumpkin haupia was Divine! (haupia means coconut- Becky I'm telling you, you would have LOVED it!) They had new extended hours which meant they were still open after the sunset- thank goodness!

Friday morning we again went to the beach. The crabs had freaked us out a bit on Temple Beach the day before so we headed to Hukilau Beach instead. It was a nice beach. The beaches on Oahu are not nearly as clean and pretty as on Maui though! We met up with Lauren and her roommate at the Polynesian Cultural Center at noon. Lauren's roommate was able to get us in for $5 each! We were able to see the presentations we wanted to before the canoe parade. My favorite was this guy. He was funny- cracking jokes. He started fire by rubbing two sticks together and then put it out by stepping on it with his bare foot!

He shredded a coconut and then crushed it into coconut milk right in front of us! It was amazing! ( I have lots more pictures but I am a bit of an idiot because I deleted them off my camera before uploading them to my computer- Manda is going to send me some though!) After we left the PCC we drove to a town I can't remember the name of to browse the local surf shops. It was really fun and we found some cool stuff. We bought these shoes that are so comfortable! I have worn them almost every day since I bought them!
The owner of the surf shop we bought them from gave us 10% off! They were designed by sufers and are called sidewalk surfers. They have a sandal bottom and canvas tops. They are super lightweight and are designed to help you walk as if you had no shoes on so the way your feet were designed to move. That's what the tags said anyways! All I know is they are my new favorite pair of shoes! We headed back to Laie to see Lauren and some of her friends perform in students with guitars on campus. They did a great job! Lauren sang and played her tamborine while her friend Shem sang, played guitar, and played the Harmonica. They also had a drummer and this guy shooting noisy laser guns. Some of the other performances were pretty amazing too! We left the performance early to go to Lauren's ward activity. It was a Hukilau at Hukilau Beach! It was a really cool experience. They put a fishing net out into the ocean at night very slowly and quietly. Then on one man's signal a bunch of people who are lined up on the beach rush into the water screaming and splashing the water and run towards the net. The fish are then scared into the net and caught. The net is then gathered into an innertube and brought back to shore. The group caught about 19 fish of all different kinds and sizes. They then served chili and rice ( a cheap meal that is a student favorite) and grilled the fish. I did not eat the fish but was surprised at how much I liked the chili and rice! Lauren and Manda helped carry the fish in ( I didnt' even want to touch them!)

After the Hukilau we went to a friend of Lauren's birthday party which was a carnival. It was pretty much over by the time we got there but they had some fun toys to play with! Here is Lauren and I with silly glasses on.

Manda won a game of paddle ball!

Saturday morning we got up early to get packed and check out of Gecko Studio. We then picked Lauren up and went to a local favorite the Hukilau Cafe. They had some delicous coconut pancakes! I just wished they had added some chocolate chips too! After a delicous breakfast we headed to Honolulu to go to Pearl Harbor and then on to the swap meet at Aloha Stadium! Pearl Harbor was a very neat place. They have a beautiful museum and memorial built. I was surprised at how busy it was. We were given ticket for the ferry to take us out to the memorial about an hour and 45 minutes from the time we got there. We decided we didnt' have time to wait so we toured the museum and gift shop, took some pictures of the Harbor and were on our way to the swap meet. ( The pictures I took of this were also not uploaded to my computer before I deleted them so I will have to add them later!)

The swap meet was pretty cool. I was surprised at how repetetive it was with so many booths selling the same things but we did find some good deals! We left the swap meet and headed straight for the airport. We got the car turned in on time to not be charged another full day. After getting all checked out we were waiting for the shuttle when I remembered that I had not been to the gas station to top off the tank! I went inside to tell them I would prepay for them to fill it up for us and the man was very friendly and nice and told me that it was our lucky day! When I assured him that I could pay, he asked if I was leaving a happy customer and I said yes of course. Then he said, then don't worry about it, it's your lucky day! We made it to the airport 4 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. We went to check in and asked if there was an earlier flight we could take. They said Yes and got us on the 4 o'clock flight instead of waiting for the 6 o'clock. This was a blessing as we were going to be cutting it close making our other flight in Maui. We had called Delta to see if we could change our flight and fly out of Oahu direct to Salt Lake instead. It would have cost us $800 to make that change! (we only paid $600 for the round trip). We decided it wasn't worth it! So we had plenty of time in Maui to get our baggage, go through the agricultural check station, recheck our baggage, and go through security. We spent the time at the airport exchaning pictures. I got the ones from Manda's camera and she got the ones from mine ( this is why she is going to be able to give me mine that I deleted without putting on my computer first-- thank you Manda!!)

We made it to Salt Lake where Colleen was waiting for us and had a delicious dinner at Grandma's house before taking Manda back to the airport to check in for her flight to Denver! That was a really long time to be in airports or in airplanes and with the time difference it made for 2 very long days!

Although, it was hard to go back to work- it's good to be home again. And just in time for snow to fall at our house!

Next adventure- snowboarding!!