Lagoon Hike and Monkeypod Kitchen

Here are two random little highlights that I will give their own post.  One morning a group of us took the 5 mile hike out and back to see all 4 Ko'Olina lagoons.  This was a lovely 2 hour stroll that let us talk, and see some beautiful new scenery and a bit of fun wildlife too!

At the end of the lagoon line up is this long spit made entirely of dried coral pieces!  When you walk on it, it's strangely crunchy and quite cool to spy coral in all different shapes and sizes.  Ella found one piece that's heart shaped-- actual human heart, like the organ, shaped! :)

Colorful birds like we've never seen and vibrant geckos were spotted as we hiked!

It was a perfectly lovely little walk and I'm so glad to have done at least a bit of hiking on this vacation.  Notice which hiking-hating daughter is NOT in any of these pictures! ;)

Another night, we left our big kids back at the hotel to order pizza and play Jackbox games while we all met Dave's cousin Ed for an adults only dinner at the most delicious place we ate all week-- Monkeypod Kitchen.  Ed lives and works in Oahu and entertained us with his stories of life on the sea while we ate fresh local fare, served in interesting and delectable ways.  I had the pork tacos with spicy kimchi and Asian pear slaw and it was amazing.  

 After dinner, we all reunited at Sunset Point so the kids could meet their cool second cousin too.  Two more little outings that will be favorite memories.

The VMs Go to a Luau!

We were all in agreement that the best night we spent together was at the Ka Wa'a Luau, officially celebrating Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary.  This was the Aulani Luau, so the service, storytelling, and delicious food were all of superb quality, exceeding our expectations!

I'll start with lots of group shots in our fabulous florals...

We got our drinks and kukui nut leis and then got to string our own orchids to make a bracelet!  So cool!

The food was different than the luaus we've been to in the past and we decided we really liked it-- salad, main course, and dessert bento boxes for each of us!  Nice to get a little taste of everything already dished up and not have to wait in a buffet line!  Note our fun kid and adult tables! ;)

The program was really great too!  This luau was smaller and the performers spread out all around us, so some, it seemed, were dancing right for us!

 We hula danced as a family and admired singers, dancers and fire twirlers telling different stories, like of Maui the demigod, or the history of poi making.

We left with sore smiles, loosened hips, full bellies, and full hearts.

Pearl Harbor

Our one big outing was to Pearl Harbor.  Because tickets are only released the day before, they go *like that*, and I could only get 10 at at time, we did this outing in groups.  Our group went first and it was our family, Mom and Dad, Eric, Kris and the boys who shared this sobering, special experience.  

We did the audio tour which led us around to about a dozen stops, with commentary, while we viewed amazing pieces of history.  Some of audio was actual testimony from people who were at Pearl Harbor!

And some of the artifacts were insanely cool, like this rough draft of the famous "Date in Infamy" speech!  You can see President Roosevelt's pencil edits, changing some of its most iconic lines, like "suddenly and deliberately attacked".

As interesting as the museums are, though, the most impactful part of Pearl Harbor is standing on the Arizona Memorial above the earthly resting place of the 1,102 sailors killed in the surprise attack.  The audio tour continues and eventually finishes here with one of the Pearl Harbor veterans sharing a message of love, hope, and forgiveness.  It's something we'll always remember.

The still active USS Missouri can be seen from the Arizona Memorial.

In the middle of a war we can hardly imagine, we heard and saw stories of courage and sacrifice and forgiveness.  And we stood over the tomb of a thousand plus soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom.  I'm so grateful to have honored our history and shared these important moments with our own loved ones.

Underwater Adventures

Because our resort sat right on a beautiful private lagoon, we enjoyed plenty of family quality time taking beach walks, SUPing, snorkeling, and swimming in the warm waves too!

Ko'Olina is actually known for its 4 separate lagoons right next to each other.  Some have resorts on them, like the Aulani, some do not.  After exploring the snorkeling at the Aulani Lagoon, which was pretty good, we decided to walk to the other, less-crowded and more reefy, lagoons to check them out too and they were GREAT!  We saw sea turtles 5 times of the 7 we went out snorkeling!  

How cute is Dave swimming around holding hands with Mom?  

Some of the sea turtles were super friendly!  This one swam RIGHT UP to Kyle!  We were screaming in our snorkels as we watched!

The underwater camera proving to be a fun investment again as I tried to photograph some of the different fish we saw.  Not pictured here is possibly the coolest thing we ever seen underwater-- an OCTOPUS!!  It was super camouflaged and zoomed around quickly, so no picture, but a forever memory!

 Besides family, obviously, those salty, turquoise lagoons, with their gentle rocking waves and underwaters teeming with astonishing wildlife, will be what I miss most about Oahu!