Mom and Dad Visit - Day 10

Today was beach day. The wind had died down and so it made it nice to be at the beach.

Mom wore her short pants but dad decided he would just take his shoes off and roll up his pants.

Mom walked along getting her feet in the water but dad stayed on the high side.

Dad finally decided he would put one foot in the water so he rolled up one pant leg. I told him to hold there for just a minute while I took the picture.  In the mean time, I saw the wave coming and instead of one foot in the water....

...he got them both in - pants and all!!!

Then he just rolled up both sides and went for it.

He ran from the waves as they came up the beach.

Brandon build a city for his boats.

There were surfers out in the water along with the boogie boarders. I was pointing out some of the differences to mom.

Dad sat down to take a rest because standing there watching the waves was making him dizzy.  He sat down on the mat and was resting comfortably until...

...a wave came all the way up and, as he puts it, filled his back pockets!!!

In the mean time, I grabbed my boogie board and headed out to catch a few waves.

Whichever one of these you thinks looks the best at what we are doing is me!!!

If you catch the wave just right, you can ride it all the way back to the beach!

Here are a couple of videos showing the wind (that died down today) and a boogie board ride!

After the beach, we came home and cleaned up and headed to the famous Kahuku Grill for dinner.  My friend (the Stake President - pictured below in the middle back row with the sun glasses) is the owner and we love eating there.  I took great pictures of the huge burgers, wonderful coconut macademia nut shrimp, and the fried banana bread with ice cream on it along with an acai bowl. I got a little quick with the delete button as I was transferring them from the camera and I lost all those pictures, so just picture us eating here!!!

This the the cheeseburger combo mom, dad and Brandon ate. I had the coconut mac shrimp above. Linda had another burger. Yummmm














Then we enjoyed some chocolate chip, coconut fried banana bread with ice cream and an acai bowl.










Had a great day but we wore dad out!!! He is off to bed!!!

Mom and Dads Visit - Day 8

Saturday - a big day of shopping and fun! We drove down to Honolulu to Aloha Stadium where they hold the swap meet and went in to find just a couple of things.

We did end up with a few items and dad was quite the bargaining customer. He made sure he got good deals.

 He found him a Pearl Harbor hat that had a strap on it so he could wear it while riding the rhino. Then he found one for mom also.

We came out with a lot of fun things they will be able to use.




Then we headed up to the Punchbowl, the National Memorial Cemetery for veterans of wars.

There were thousands of graves, known and unknown, from the various wars. They were all lined in neat rows all through the cemetery. The Punchbowl is actually the crater of an old volcano where the Hawaiian's once buried some of their royal dead.






These trees were growing throughout the cemetery. They have quite the root system that is built to collect water and hold it.

Then we walked up to the overlook at the cemetery. From one side, you see the cemetery and from the other side you see the city of Honolulu with Diamondhead in the background.

Mom finds the plants all so interesting. Everything is so green and most have flowers growing on them. This one had little spiky red flowers that were very interesting.

This is overlooking the cemetery with more of Honolulu in the background and rows and rows of grave markers.

Dad was quite pensive at times during the visit.

This was a big cactus growing up on the hill side.

This is the memorial at the top of the hill. looking back down over the cemetery with Honolulu and Diamondhead in the distance.

 This is looking at the front of the memorial. You can't see under it but their are mosaics and histories of the various wars. Underneath the lady that stands on the bow of the ship are these words written below.

Mom and Dad are standing out in front of the memorial. Again, you can see Diamondhead and Honolulu in the distance.

 As we walked to where the car was parked, we took one last picture looking from the memorial back to town and Diamondhead.

 This is the view looking back to the enterance to the cemetery. The flowers were beautiful.

Linda was in a class all day so we left to go pick her up. We drove the old highway going up to Pali Lookout. It is a fun highway because it is through the lush, green rain forest and the trees have grown over the highway forming natural tunnels.

We picked up Linda and then stopped by the macadamia nut farm. Dad and mom got some cinnamon coated nuts (sorry, they will probably be gone by the time they get home!!!) and got to view this beautiful flower arrangement. They are all real flowers.

Here they are standing under a macadamia nut tree.

 This was the view leaving the farm. Another couple crazy trees. The one looks dead but it isn't. It's just winter so the leaves will come back out in the next couple months.





After we got home and ate, we were off to the BYU-Hawaii Seasiders last home basketball game of the year. We had a good game against University of Hawaii - Hilo and in the end, pulled out the victory.

It was senior night so they recognized the four seniors and then took a few team pictures after.

Number 10, Junior Ale (standing third from the right, holding all the leis) and I served in the Bishopric together. and Nkosi (standing on the far right with the duckie) has been in the EQ Presidency of the ward I served in while in the Bishopric. Coach Wagner (standing on the far left side) is the Bishop of the ward I now serve as a High Counselor. It's fun to see them off to the tournament.



Then we all came home exhausted, read the scriptures together, had a snack, and headed to bed after a busy day.