Aloha!
Imagine that I have just fed you a five-course dinner. After carefully burping and wiping the chocolate from our chins, we wander into my living room and start chatting about what's new.
I tell you that I've just been on vacation.
Wanting to be polite, you respond, "Oh, how nice."
I eagerly continue, "Do you want to see some photos?"
You attempt not to choke as you say, "Of course."
I pull out three photo albums, a DVD, and a laptop. You wish you were in Norway, but you smile and nod as I show you photos of Hawaiian ketchup.
Gawack! I have a photo of some ketchup. Wanna see it???
Okie dokie... if you insist...
Gary and Julianne watching an episode of The Office on her iPod while we waited during a layover in Los Angeles.
Welcome to Hawaii... and lunch.
Waiters in hula skirts. Made me want to giggle.
Hawaiian ketchup (as promised)
This is what it was all about.
We made the decision to go on vacation so that we would have a chance to spend some quality time with Julianne. We hoped that it would help us become closer with her because we all went through a few rough years when she was in high school.
It worked.
We had such a great experience with her that it made it worth every penny we spent on bad buffets, sun block, and t-shirts.
Views from our room. I don't know why I didn't realize that Hawaii had a large metropolitan area. How did I think they were going to house all of the tourist that came? In grass shacks?
Duh.
The sunsets are amazing.
I had to have a matching sunrise photo. I got up before everyone else and sat by the beach and read scriptures.
What do you do when you are waiting for your tour bus to arrive? Read the paper.
Julianne became interested in politics during our stay in Hawaii. On the first day of the trip, she pronouced, "I don't want to hear about politics... we're on vacation." At the end, she was having lively discussions with us and started have fun talking about the issues.
(Random factoid: I love politics. I keep my political opinions out of my blog - on purpose. But if you get to know me in "real life", it's fairly hard to talk to me for an extended period of time without learning how I feel about what is happening in the world today.)
The sunburn begins...I can't help but notice that I look more and more like my grandmother every day. But come on... she was a old lady when I was a kid... except...gulp... I'm now as old as she was then.
Gary had to have this particular photo. He was excited to see an aircraft carrier in the bay. (He was in the Air Force.)
The Arizona Memorial. Going to Pearl Harbor was a highlight. I have wanted to see it since I was a child because they built it when I was in elementary school. I remember fund raising events that were held to get the money to build it. My favorite souvenir from Hawaii is a flag that was flown over the memorial on Memorial Day, 2009.Very patriotic person here...
On the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri (the ship where the peace treaty ending the war with Japan was signed). Our tour guide served on the Missouri and was very interesting.
Brother George - our tour guide of the Punchbowl (a national cemetery for veterans who served in wars). He was fascinating. He remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor and went over the Pacific war step-by-step. He is native Hawaiian and taught us a lot about their culture. He made the term "aloha" feel special - sacred - and after that when people in the tourist industry went around shouting, "AHHHHH-LOW-HAAAA!", it felt almost sacrilegious to our family.
He told us about prophecies that the Hawaiians had, including one that said that a white man would come and teach them about a God that they could give all of their "junk" to - meaning, their miseries, problems, etc.. It's complicated and I can't remember all of it, but we were very impressed.
He's quite a guy... He spends his time volunteering at the Punch Bowl and with the homeless. He said that he regularly takes alcoholics and drug addicts and turns their lives around in 40 days. I can believe it.
We lucked into being in Waikiki during the annual Pan Pacific festival. There was an amazing street fair the first night.
We heard the crowd cracking up and went over to investigate. Ninjas! I tried to persuade them to try digital scrapbooking. Yeaaaaaoooowwwww!
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