Day 9/Last Day

 We needed to be out of our hotel at 11:00 am, and our flight left at 8:30 pm. We decided to see some sights since we needed to stay dry this day. Our first stop was the Laie Temple.

It was wonderful to spend some time on the temple grounds. 

We asked the sister missionaries what the significance of this statue is, and I really loved it! This is a mother pouring water over her children. The water represents her love for them, and the water flows from each fountain to the next, signifying a mother's love continues on forever. If you stand at the statue and look down at each fountain, it looks as though the water connects to the ocean, which adds to the unending love a mother feels for her children.

Next, we went to the Byodo-In Temple, a Buddhist temple built in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. It's a smaller-scale replica of the 950-year-old temple in Japan. It was built in Hawaii in 1968 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii.

It was absolutely beautiful!! It's nestled right at the base of a mountain range, which only makes it that much more stunning!

We were able to go inside and light incense below the statue of Buddha.

There is a statue of a phoenix on the top of the temple, and the belief is that the phoenix will take the ashes of the incense up to our loved ones who have passed away.

The kids enjoyed feeding the fish, ringing the gong, and checking out the bamboo.

Our next stop was the Kahala Hotel in Waikiki to see the dolphins. We met Melanie at a park and then walked along the beach into the Dolphin pools at the hotel. We found some beautiful flower arrangements along the beach, and stopped to soak in all the beauty for a bit. At one point Paul told Mel and me to smile since we were centered in the flowers anyway. :)

I loved having this time to visit and catch up with Melanie, and for Paul and the kids to get to know her better. I'm so glad we were roommates 18 years ago, and have stayed friends ever since!

The dolphins were very cute. We all thought it was so funny when a man's hat fell into the pool and one of the dolphins picked it up and took it over and returned it to a trainer.

We went to Raising Cane's for dinner and then headed over to the airport. We were so so sad to leave Oahu. It was seriously the best and we had such a fun time.

Day 8

 We went to the pool Monday morning. It wasn't too crowded so Rockwell and I were able to play frisbee in the pool for a while. That was a lot of fun.

Tessa and Damon wanted to play volleyball.

Rockwell and I thought that looked fun too so we joined in.

Damon was so excited to find some flowers that had fallen off a tree. There were beautiful flowers everywhere and the kids had a hard time all week not picking them. He was excited that these ones were already off the tree so he could keep them.

I love these hibiscus flowers.

After lunch we went to Malaekahana Beach. Melanie had told us that there were big waves there and a place to rent surfboards. The kids wanted big waves for the last day, and I wanted to surf, so this was a perfect beach. Tessa and Damon dug a hole in the sand and then made a defense surrounding the hole to protect it. :)

There were a lot of people surfing in a certain place. They all looked really good and it was pretty crowded there, so I decided to try the waves closer by where we were playing.

There were some pretty big waves down there. I had a really hard time getting out beyond where they were crashing, so that I could catch any of them. Paul was so sweet and came and took the board out past them for me, and I swam out to meet him there. I really love surfing, but the biggest challenge for me is the strength to make it out as far as I need to. He stayed out there with me for a while and it was fun to have him there. I saw a huge fish(?) come up at the top of one of the waves. I wasn't completely sure it was just a fish, and so we decided that was our cue to head back to shore. Paul watched a lot of videos of sharks swimming right around people before we went to Hawaii, and we weren't interested in risking it. :) I rested for a while and kept my eye on that spot to see if I saw anything else. It seemed safe, so I went back out until it was time to return the board. I was determined to get out on my own, and I did it this time. I was proud of myself. The waves slowed down a lot once I was out there, so there was a bit of wait time between each one, but I did get a few of them.

Rockwell and Paul spent a lot of time boogie boarding. The waves were awesome for it! I think Rockwell could boogie board from sun up to sun down and not get tired of it. There was one huge wave that caught him off guard and he was swept under. Paul pulled him out pretty quickly, but it shook him for sure. He took a break for about 10 minutes and then got his confidence back and went back out. It was fun to watch him get better and better at catching the waves all week.

Tessa and Damon loved playing in the big waves in their life jackets.

It was funny to watch how far the waves would take them. I was trying to get a picture of Tess in the wave, and then she washed all the way past me and up the shore. :)

We wanted to make it to Matsumoto's Shave Ice on the North Shore since it was our last day and we hadn't been there yet. We were so glad we made it before it closed, because those were SO delicious!

Day 7/ Sea Life Park

On Sunday we went to Sea Life Park.

The first part that you walk through is the shark tank. :)

Next we saw the sea turtles.

Then we found the penguins. Rockwell was so excited to see his favorite animal! We went to the penguin show and Rockwell thought it was great that he learned a couple new things about them.

We went to the Sea Lion Nursery for a little show. They were really cute too.

We walked past a pool with some dolphins in it and they put on quite a show for us. It was awesome to be so close to them!

There were some seriously beautiful views from this park! I loved seeing the Makapu'u Lighthouse on the cliff.

We watched the dolphin show, which was really cool.

And then it was time for the sea lion show.

We went to the touch pools after that. The kids got to pet a turtle, and Rockwell was patient enough when he held out some seaweed that one fish came and ate it and Rock was able to touch the fish.

I think everyone's favorite part of the day was the bird exhibit. We all loved the lovebirds and got so excited when they would land on us and eat from our sticks. We went in earlier in the day, and didn't have much success with feeding them. But we tried again at the end of the day and had much more success. It was pretty funny to look over at Paul and see birds all over him. :)

This bird was so funny! Rockwell was holding it and it ate the whole stick upside down like this. :)

This bird landed on Paul and checked out his phone for a while. Haha!

We stopped for some food on the way home. We had heard great things about Giovanni's Shrimp Truck. They only accepted cash and we didn't have enough for two meals, so I got some street tacos instead. Sadly the shrimp didn't really live up to the hype.

There was a truck that sold acai bowls so I got myself one of those too. It was SO good!

I took the kids swimming that night. Damon got cold pretty quickly and went up to the room with Paul, but Rockwell and Tessa had a great time together.