Another interesting week

Aloha from Hawaii...We went to the Polynesian Culture Center (PCC) with Brandon last Saturday and had a lot of fun seeing the various villages and performances around but, I forgot to take the camera so I took some pictures using my phone until the battery died. The bad thing about that was this...we went to the Samoan village for their last show of the day (it was our second time seeing the show that day because it was the one Brandon enjoyed the most) and as we sat down, I looked over and there was a small group of PCC guides standing together by someone. I looked and turned to Linda and said, "that is Stevie Wonder" and sure enough it was. He was there with a Samoan dancer experiencing the show through his hands (for those who don't know who he is, go to You Tube and look him up - he is a blind entertainer). Unfortunately, my phone was dead by then so we didn't get any pictures, but here are some we did get.

 This is the canoe pageant beginning with the Hawaiian Royalty.

 Fiji and New Zeland.

 Fiji and Samoa.

Colorado and somewhere else?!!!

We also had our ward Christmas party this week and it was a lot of fun. They had a talent show and all the auxiliaries had to perform. Brandon played Silent Night on his violin.

 Santa was having fun.

Notice the bare feet under the boot covers!!!  Only in Hawaii!!! 

Brandon was a little unhappy that his bell didn't work and had a little chat with Santa.  Fortunately, Santa had an extra and replaced it with one that worked.

We also went out to the beach Saturday to see some of the surfing competition. The waves were pretty big (we were calculating they were about 20 foot waves) and the surfers were having a good time. (We were too late to catch any of the competition but maybe next week).  We could watch some surfers through the binoculars so we could see them pretty good but I couldn't get very good pictures - maybe you can get an idea from these.

 I took this picture through the binoculars.

These are kites some surfers use to pull themselves across the water. It's pretty amazing to watch them.

To round out the week, we were invited to a "meet the candidate" lunch and got to meet with Matt Romney. He spoke of his dad and told some stories about the family and shared with us some of the things that his dad will do if he gets in office and allowed us to ask questions. It was an interesting lunch.

We also went to a BYU-H Seasiders basketball game this week which they lost, but it was still fun watching the game.