Hawaii Part 2

Above you can see the hotel where we stayed. In order to help Ryan with his slight apprehension (fear) of heights we were lucky enough to be in the very top corner room. Perhaps if you blow the picture up really big you will be able to see the girls and I waving.

Helen really enjoyed playing on the beach with her little bucket and shovel.

In the last blog post we went to the perhaps one of the least visited spots in Hawaii (The foster Botanical Gardens) and here we visited Pearl Harbor, one of the most visited locations. As you can tell by Helen's smile, the heavy artillery gun was one of the highlights from this spot.

Jane and I check out the periscope.

The Battleship Missouri as well as the Arizona Memorial are visible in the water. Helen was really disappointed that we couldn't visit any of those sites.

This action shot is from the Polynesian Culture Center, also among the most visited sites in Hawaii. Here Ryan's teaching the girls a native New Zealand game in which you throw and hit sticks together.

That little palm leaf fish provided hours of entertainment for all of us, but for some reason Ryan was ready to throw it away after the first 30 minutes.

We walked over the the Laie Hawaii Temple from the Polynesian Cultural Center.

We even stopped by BYU Hawaii on our way. As it inspires no nostalgic memories in us, we didn't stay long.

The girls on the beach of Waikiki at sunset. I have decided that Waikiki may single handedly supply oncologists with all their skin cancer cases in any number of places that probably should never see the sun.

Ryan had us walk barefoot on the beach for a little ways, in memory of his favorite poem that goes something like this . . .

Footsteps in the Sand, adapted by Ryan

As I looked back at my journey over the metaphoric sandy beach of family life,

I noticed that in the most difficult portions there was only one set of footprints.

So I asked my father, "Is that where you carried me to keep me safe?"

My father replied, "No, that's where you wanted to pick up a jellyfish and threw a tantrum when I told you no, so I carried you under my arm and sat you on a rock for a 2 minute time-out."

A week before we came to Hawaii, one of the speakers at church told a story about a child being washed out to the sea. Why such a story should come up in Iowa is beyond me, but it does explain the extremely suspicious look I am giving those "friendly" waves.

Here's a clip of the girls trying to imitate the Hawaiian dancers at the Polynesian Culture Center.