Exciting March and Water, water, water

So an interesting month in Hawaii. I left on the 8th for a business trip to the mainland. The day after I left, there was a hail storm and flood on the island. The hail storm did not reach Laie, but the rain did. It rained pretty hard for about three hours and here are the results. We didn't get any in our house but others in the neighborhood did.  We learned why everyone keeps sand bags near by.

 Our front yard.

The street in front of our house.

Looking down our street toward the chapels. 

The side of our house outside our wall.

Brandon riding his bike after the rain had stopped for a little while. We don't have any snow days here that cancel school but this rain day cancelled it!!!

While I was gone, Linda, Cory, and Brandon hiked Diamond Head. It is an old volcano that served as a strategic bunker during the wars and is now a national park. They hiked across and took pictures looking down at Honolulu and Waikiki Beach on the west side and out to the east side looking toward Hanama Bay and Koko Crater.

 The stairwell in the bunker.

Looking out from the bunker.

This barge is scraping the sand back up to Waikiki Beach. It is not a natural beach and has to be worked a lot.

After hiking the crater, they went down to Waikiki and walked around discovering some of the area downtown including this bannion tree.

I, on the other hand, flew to Las Vegas and Mom and Dad picked me up and I spent the weekend in St. George visiting family. I then drove to Provo and SLC for meetings that  week. I got to see a lot of friends and spent the days in meetings.  I then flew to Denver where Skyler picked me up and I spent the weekend in Colorado Springs with them. Ethan told me all about the green man that had visited them (the St Patrick's Day leprechaun) and Teigan told his mom it was the best day ever after we visited the Velvet Freeze and they got corn dogs and ice cream. It was fun seeing them. I also visited our old ward and got to see so many of our friends there which was really fun too.

Yesterday, while Brandon and I and one of his friends made pinewood derby cars for the races this week, Linda and Cory went and hiked to China Man's Hat. This is an island off the eastern coast and when the tide is right, you can hike across the reef through the water to the island. You can then climb to the top of the island which takes about 10 minutes (not a big island). They had a lot of fun.

                                                                           

Put these pictures side by side and you can see the reef they crossed to hike out to the island.                    

 

So ends the month of March in Laie.

Rain, waterfalls, and sunsets

It has been a fun and exciting few weeks here.

First of all, Brandon was selected with a few of the other 4th graders as the "Super Citizen" for January at the school. They had a big assembly with the school to present the awards and the parents and friends could then go up and present them with leis and take pictures.

Brandon with his class getting ready for the assembly (they hold them outside and everyone brings their chairs out from their classrooms and set them up on the lawn).

Putting the leis on Brandon (along with a few others he received.












Linda, Cory and Brandon hiked up to a little waterfall while I ran some errands in town.

 We got an unexpected phone call one morning from Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy and they were in Hawaii with some of their children. We haven't seen them for a long time but were able to spend some time with them enjoying them during their vacation. We enjoyed dinner one night and had a great time with them. We were so glad to see them.
































Brandon has also been playing on a basketball team. They have been having a good time and he is learning a lot. His team is currently undefeated.

Brandon also drew some artwork on the driveway.













He also received his first Webelos activity badge for Showmanship. They made puppets and wrote a little puppet show for the other boys and performed it. It was a lot of fun.

They also held the Blue and Gold Banquet that night and the boys had to eat their dinners with just two toothpicks. It was fun to see them eating lasagna and salad with toothpicks and they were glad it wasn't rice!!!










They got their desert off a string!












 This week, Kelly and Wendy Parker, our friends for many years dating back to High School and college days, came to visit. It has been fun to have them here.

During their visit to the Dole Pineapple Plantation, they were given this Cocoa Bean. They cut it open and it looked like it was full of oysters! When the outer slimy stuff was peeled off the bean, there was the cocoa which was bitter!!! (Is it any surprise why I don't like chocolate much???)








It has been raining a lot and despite the rain, we decided Saturday that we were going to hike to Manoa Falls. It is a 100 foot fall in a rain forest near Honolulu. We hiked the muddy trail and saw all kinds of great plants and vines.




We are once again assured that Dr. Seuss got his inspiration from the plants and fish in Hawaii!

The falls were beautiful when we got to them. The fall was a lot bigger because of all the rain we have received.

 This tree was huge and looked like it was growing sideways.











It has been a lot of fun over the past few weeks and we have enjoyed having the visitors. We are enjoying it here and are excited to have visitors so come on over. And by the way, here is one more picture of a beautiful sunset from the historic town of Ha'liewa.