Hawaii Day 2

February 21, 2022

On Monday (Feb 21) we started the day by hiking up to Moana Falls. I love the jungle and this was pure jungle. It had recently rained, so the trail was also fairly muddy but I loved it because I was wearing shorts and flip flops so I felt like I was one with nature.

We followed the stream up the side of the mountain and enjoyed the views of small waterfalls and thick green vegetation.

There was also a ton of people but what can you expect, this is Hawaii and the trail is an easy one.

It wasn’t long before we reached the falls and it was definitely worth the effort. The trail ended about a hundred yards from the falls but no one paid any attention to the barriers and we all went down to the water’s edge. It was hot and we would have loved to hop into the pools but everything we read and anyone we talked to warned us that this waterfall had a nasty parasite in it that could make us sick. Since it was our first day we decided not to take a chance. If it had been our last day I would have been right in there but alas. We stood by and watched.

We were going to hike the Likeke waterfall but it was getting late and we still had things to do and places to go. First on the list was lunch.

It was presidents day and the place Lisa wanted to go to was closed so we went to a place called the Liliha bakery. It was famous for their coco puffs which is like a cream puff with a delicious chocolate pudding inside and a coconut topping. That description doesn’t do it justice. They were delicious.

While there we saw that they had Loco Moco’s on the menu. Lyndsey had told us about them so we had to try them out too. They were rice topped with gravy topped with a hamburger topped with an egg. It is way better than it sounds. Very filling.

Next was snorkeling. We had heard from everyone that the place we went snorkeling eighteen years ago has become so commercialized that it is not long fun. Lyndsey suggested we go to Electric Beach instead. Since Kira and Justin seemed to have had so much fun the previous week on the west coast we decided to go for it.

Well, it was a bit of a bust. Lyndsey forgot to mention that to see any wildlife we should follow the discharge pipe from the power plant and where the warm water is discharged there is an entire ecosystem developed. Our GPS took us to a beach about a mile north of the power plant. We was a beautiful beach and nice warm water but not fish. We didn’t stay too long there but now it was too late to do anything else but too early to go home so we fired up an app Lisa had put on here phone and tool a walking tour of downtown Honolulu.

We saw a lot of interesting places but I’ll only mention a couple of the more interesting places.

This is the Iolani Palace. King Kamihamaha III, also known as the “Merry Monarch” decided he needed to get out more so he travelled around the world. He was actually the first leader of any nation to do that in the history of mankind. Upon his return he decided it was beneath him to go back to living in a grass hut so he built this palace. It was one of the first buildings in the world to have electricity and flushing toilets and in fact it had electricity before the Whitehouse did. It is the only Royal Palace in the United States. Needless to say, his subjects who were still living in grass huts next door weren’t too thrilled with the extravagance.

Speaking of King Kamihamaha, he was the first ruler in Hawaii to unite all of the islands. He slaughtered a lot of people to do that but his timing was good because if he hadn’t, the islands may have been divided up between several different nations today.

One of his descendants thought it was time to have a statue
made of King Kam so they commissioned this statue. It was made in England but unfortunately on the way back the ship sank in shallow water near Argentina. Fortunately, the king who commissioned it had insured it so they started right away on a second statue identical to the first.

Meanwhile, the natives of the Falkland Islands recovered the statue and it arrived in Hawaii even before the second was finished so now they had two statues. The first one is now on the big Island and this one is the second one.

The first missionaries arrived in Hawaii in 1820. King Kam was thrilled to have them and built them a church right away. Unfortunately it burned down after a few years so they built another one. This one rotted away after a few years so they built a third one. When it too rotted away they decided they needed a more permanent solution and built this church with 14,000 blocks cut from the local coral reef. I wonder what the environmentalists would have to say if we tried to do that today?

It was now getting late so we headed to a little restaurant called The Side Street Inn. The food was delicious but in my mind it wasn’t as fancy as the prices suggested it should be. We split an order of pork chops and had an appetizer of mushrooms. We took most of it home and had it for breakfast later in the week.

It was a long day and we were very tired. I slept well.

Hawaii Day 1

February 20, 2022

Well that was fun. Lisa and I just returned from a week in Hawaii. Just about everyone we know has vacationed in Hawaii over the last few months but we had Christmas at home this year and Lisa had no other time off. Finally she decided that she could spend her winter break on a trip to Hawaii so she checked all the airlines for good deals and found one. So with only two weeks’ notice we boarded Hawaiian Airlines on Feb 20^th and flew to Hawaii. Greg’s daughter Lyndsey and her husband Matt have been stationed there for three years and invited us to stay with them. They even offered to let us use one of their cars.

We landed in the middle of the afternoon and we could have gone off and done something but we decided to spend the rest of that day with Lyndsey and her family.

Matt Walker met us at the airport and gave us both lei’s that Lyndsey had made for us. We went home and spent the rest of the day getting to know her lovely family. And her two dogs. They have a fourteen year old boy (Aiden) and ten year old girl (Pyper) an eight year old boy (Derek) and a three year old girl (Iris). I love them all.

Disneyland

December 28, 2021

Brandon and Serene decided to give their kids tickets to Disneyland as their Christmas gift this year. When we learned that, Mom and I decided that we would go with them and then Kira and Justin decided to take their family along as well.

The day didn’t start out too well. Some time Sunday, Serene started feeling sick and by the morning of the 28^th she was bad. She wasn’t about to give up that easily though, so in the wee hours of the morning on the 28^th we all headed to Disneyland.

Brandon and his family parked the car and got in the line to board the busses to the park when Serene passed out. Brandon caught her and then she went behind a trash can and puked her guts out. Brandon then took her to a motel, booked her a room and let her sleep while he took the rest of the kids to the park.

With that rough start however we still had a great day. Kira and Justin were able to declare both Evan and Cameron as handicapped which together with a modified version of the fast pass allowed us to skip just about every line in the park.

It was a bit cold but we didn’t let that stop us. We all had a blast. At some point Serene called and asked Brandon if they could go home early. We didn't want their older kids to miss out so we arranged it so that Brandon took Serene, his two boys and Cameron and Justin and I stayed with Brandon’s four girls and Kira’s family. We stayed until the park closed. It was a great day.

Before we left, however Mom and I had to recreate a memory we enjoy from our very first trip to Disneyland with our kids in 1988 (or there about). Kira’s very first roller coaster ride was on space mountain. Just like in the picture, I rode with Kira and Mom rode with Brandon (Grandma stayed outside with Ben). The moment the roller coaster started moving Kira started screaming and she never stopped screaming until the end of the ride.

Brandon on the other hand, gripped the safety bar and didn’t make a sound. About half way through he said to Mom, in a very calm voice, I think we’re going to die. He was dead serious.

After the ride as we were getting out of the cart we noticed that Brandon had wet his pants. The seats were plastic and were formed into a dish shape that fit your butt cheeks nicely and the little bowl was full of yellow water. We quickly and quietly left the scene of the crime.

Every time we share this story, Brandon is quick to point out that during most of the hour that we waited in line for the ride he was complaining that he had to go to the bathroom.

Unfortunately it was nearly impossible to get out of the line and even harder to get back in.  I am happy to say that on this ride Kira didn't scream and Brandon didn't wet his pants.

 

Rockets

December 26, 2021

It has become a tradition in our family to shoot rockets on Christmas day. This year it happened on Boxing Day instead. Unfortunately Brandon and Serene took their family to visit Serene’s mother on that day so we had to have a second Rocket Day on the 30^th as well. I was perfectly fine with that since I find shooting rockets a lot of fun.

Even the smallest rocket engines send these rockets so high that you have to keep your eyes peeled or you will lose them for sure.

Fortunately we have a lot of spotters so we’ve never lost a rocket yet. We have had them go really wild at times but with a dozen kids trying to be the one to catch the descending rocket someone is always there to catch it.

 

Sawyer looks like he’s afraid the rocket is going to bite him.

 

 

Christmas Eve

 December 24, 2021

Christmas Eve has always been a fun but very hectic time in our house. Mom always used to make hors d’oeuvre for us all to eat but that became too much work so we’ve borrowed a tradition from the Platts. We call it POEP for Peace On Earth Pigout. Every one writes down what they want to order from fast food restaurants, we divide up the order and then send people to order the food. We typically have runners going to In N Out, Chick Fil A, McDonalds, Jack In the Box etc. Everyone enjoys their food, its cheap and no one has to work.

We then have a talent show and the highlight of the show is usually Ben and Alex doing a gymnastics routine but with Alex gone this year it was Ben and Justin doing a magic show. They were quite good.

Finally, we end with the kids doing a nativity skit. Landon was the donkey, Bens foster child was Mary, Jack was Joseph and June was baby Jesus.  The remaining grand kids were angels, stars, shepherds etc.

Unrelated to Christmas eve but throughout the entire holiday the kids all loved to play the piano. It has a mode where the piano will play famous songs so the kids love to turn up the volume and pretend they are expert piano players. It is cute at first but after a few hours it becomes quite annoying. After a few days I unplugged the piano and hid the cord.

40 Years

February 9, 2022

Last summer on July 11^th Lisa and I celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary. I wanted to have a big party last summer but most of the kids would have had a tough time getting there so I conceded to having a big party at Christmas time when they were all going to be home. Well, for a lot of reasons  that never quite happened either so we ended up going out for a nice dinner with the kids who were there. No grandkids invited.

The restaurant was great but the view was spectacular. The weather also cooperated so we could eat outside and enjoy the view. It was a wonderful evening. 

Lisa gave me (us) a beautiful dandelion that had been plasticized and displayed in a jar. In case you haven’t read all of my journals I will point out that Dandelions are our flower.

Kira gave us each a hat with the "I love you" sign on it (our family sign) and Alycia gave me some gold cufflinks with rubies in them. Ruby is the stone for 40^th anniversaries. 

The view was so spectacular that of course we all wanted pictures with the lights of downtown San Diego in the background.

Aunt Nola

December 12, 2021

While I was in  Texas I received news that my Aunt Nola passed away. She had taken a fall a few weeks ago and had a slow brain bleed that they couldn’t get to stop. We were able to stop in and see her when we went up to Salt Lake for the Andre Bocelli concert and she was very coherent and we had a wonderful visit but she did struggle at times to find the words that she wanted to say. I am glad we made the effort see her. 

We were planning on going to the Mesa Temple open house as soon as I arrived home from Texas but we decided to head to Utah instead. For a while we considered trying to do both but that just sounded too complicated.

Friday night (Nov 26) we drove to Alycia’s. It was really good to see the kids (and my kid as well) and we spent the day Saturday with them. We decided to hike up into a place in Snow Canyon called “White Rock” because the rock is white instead of the more common red. It was the perfect hike for three little kids and the area is beautiful.

We had lunch at some Indian restaurant and then we bought ice cream at a different ice cream shop.

We left right after breakfast on Sunday morning and the kids (especially Ella) were very distraught. The crying was so sad that we decided to not put the kids through that again so we didn’t stop on the way home even though it was very late and I was very tired.

We stayed with the Sanchez’s but we only had time to say hello, change into our nice clothes, throw a piece of pizza in our mouths and head to Salt Lake.

 All of Aunt Nola’s kids were there and some cousins from other Aunts and uncles as well and I was really glad to see Greg and Gaylia along with Ross and two of his daughters, Melissa and Christin. Lisa was especially happy to see Ross since she wasn’t able to make it to the funeral and this is the first time she has seen Ross since Jackie passed.

After the viewing we had dinner with Greg and Gaylia and Ross and his girls. It was great to catch up. They all had to go home that night but we stayed at Sanchez’s so we could go to the funeral Monday morning.

The funeral was wonderful. When someone is 94 years old and they are the last one in their family to go, it isn’t really sad. She was ready to go and had a very full life. We’ll miss her but there were few tears shed.

The funeral was interesting because of Ruth’s husband Dale Renland. This is what Lisa sent to the kids in Whats App chat.

Church leadership at the funeral besides her son-in-law Dale Renlund (who spoke):

Elder Ballard - he spoke.

Elder Holland - he read a beautiful letter from the First Presidency.

Elder Uchtdorf

Elder Carl B Cook

Elder Randy D Funk

Elder John C Pingree

Elder Lynn G. Robbins

Sister Jean B. Bingham 

Sister Joy D. Jones

They were all on the stand and there were others in the congregation who've had callings but have been released that you would recognize.

The Tongan choir that sang was AMAZING!!

It was absolutely beautiful. Her daughter Louise played a medley. Kira and Brandon, you would have loved the ragtime version of "Called To Serve." Aunt Nola always said, and they mentioned it at the funeral, that hymns should be played at dance tempo.

In case you didn’t know Aunt Nola this picture that Kira found of her and Aunt Nola shows perfectly the personality that she had.

When my parents both died so early we made a conscious effort to involve Uncle Merlin and Aunt Nola in our lives and they both accepted our family with open arms. They were my Aunt and Uncle but they were almost like my parents in many ways.

Andrea Bocelli

 November 2, 2021  

Our good friends from back in Rosemary, Rod and Joanne Dyck offered us four free tickets to an Andrea Bocelli concert in Salt Lake City. Rod’s sister has Lukemia and Rod is the only match to be a bone marrow donar so they have asked Rod to not travel until after the donation. Rod decided that his sisters life is more important that an Andrea Bocelli concert so they cancelled their trip to Utah and tried to sell the tickets. When the tickets didn’t sell they offered them to us because they didn’t want them to go to waste and they knew that if we couldn’t use them we would at least have family or friends in Utah who could. Lisa really wanted to see him and I always want Lisa to be happy so we booked some last minute tickets to Utah and off we went. We invited Sarah and Sam and they drove.

Samarah (that’s what we call Sarah and Sam) picked us up Friday evening and we spent the night at Sam’s sisters house Molly and Mahonry Sanchez. Friday morning we did some shopping, had dinner with Sam, Sarah and Ezzy and then we went to the concert. It was quite amazing.

I’m not a big music fan. I do enjoy it but I wouldn’t normally spend good money and time to go watch a concert but this one was defintely worth it.

I loved how he not only sang amazing solo’s but also brought in other famous performers. At least if they weren’t famous before they will be after this concert tour.

Here is a list of all the performers he had besides himself:

-        The orchestra

-        The choir

-        A female soloist

-        A male soloist

-        A female dancer

-        A male dancer

-        An amazing cello player

Perhaps my favorite was when his daughter came out to sing with him. Not only was she cute but she was also funny and she obviously loves her dad. To top it all off she was an amazing singer too. I imagine she will be a famous singer one day.

Usually when I’m at one of these kind of concerts I’m ready for it to end even though I enjoy them. That wasn’t the case this time. The guy received four standing ovations and came back every time. I was cheering him on along with everyone else.