Aloha!!

We went to a national park and took a couple of pictures of Chinaman's Hat. It's said that at low tide you can walk out to the island. I believe it, the water is very shallow pretty far out around the island.
I forgot the place where this was taken, all I can remember is that it's famous. I'll ask Miguel and edit the caption for this picture later. (hours later on the edit) Miguel just told me that this picture was of us at Nu'uanu Pali.
This was at the Dole Pineapple plant. We didn't go in the pineapple shaped maze but I was driving so I held the keys hostage until Miguel took this picture of me as a giant pineapple. Maybe I'll have Miguel photoshop a Santa hat on it and I'll use it for Christmas cards next year... what am I saying? I haven't sent out cards for the past 2 years, I'll have to make a bigger effort.
Dole Pineapple plant. It amazed me that groceries were so high: a dozen eggs was 9 dollars, a gallon of milk was 7 dollars, all that I can understand it has to be shipped from the mainland, but even pineapples were expensive 3 dollars a pound and there were no pineapples less than 3 pounds. I found a surf shop that sold cut up pineapple and it was cheaper and worth every penny, but seriously a native crop being that expensive??
This was at the luau. We attended Germain's Luau, according to the locals it's the best one on the island. Miguel made friends with the lift operator at work, evidently this guy's aunt works at this luau and got us in for a big discount. These luaus are expensive too but this one we could afford and it was awesome!!
This is the memorial at the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. What an amazing side trip. The memorial is so well taken care of and everything is so respectful. You can walk over the wrekage in the white square tube. At the opposite end as the door is a cut out of the floor looking down at part of the ship then the opposite wall as the door is a wall list of the men who lost their lives in the ship.



We got back from a week in Hawaii last night. It was definitely a trip of a lifetime. We drove up to Chicago and dropped Isa off with her godparents Bill and Jen, then we got up at about 3 am and drove to O'Hare and flew off to the beautiful island of Oahu. That's where we camped out while the midwest got pounded with some nasty cold this past week. We got off the plane back in Chi-town and were so glad to be near Isa again, it's the first time it's been cold outside and I haven't nagged about it. I hate being cold and if the majority of people I care about weren't here, I'd move to a warm tropical island and not think twice.

We went because Miguel was there on a business trip and I was the beach bum tag-along. While he was at the job site I spent the first day on the beach then the second day I took a hula dancing lesson and crashed a surf lesson. I got up on the surf board for a grand 3 seconds and proceeded to drink half of the Pacific ocean on my graceful fall off the board. The 3rd day is where the pictures pick up. I didn't want to leave the camera on the beach unattended while I was in the ocean for hours at a time.

There are so many more pictures and so much more to tell but one of the babies is up and I have to see what all the screaming is all about, plus all our luggage stinks like 2 day old beach.