Oahu

After Kauai we hopped on Aloha Air for the 29 minute flight to Oahu. Aloha has replaced Jet Blue as my favorite airline. Granted they have the built in advantage in the fact that you will always be flying to or from the Hawaiin Islands but they also serve up fresh baked chocolate chip cookies on the flights. Delicious. This part of the trip was on our own and not part of the Novell trip. Needless to say when I'm in charge and use Priceline to plan the trip it isn't as luxurious. It didn't matter though because we were very busy and had a great time.

The first order of business was Pearl Harbor. One bonus was that since I was there last the Battleship Missouri Memorial opened.

My favorite part of the Missouri was seeing where a Kamikazee pilot penetrated the air defenses and hit the Missouri. It left these cute little dents in the side of the ship. The only casualty was the pilot.

We also toured the Bowfin and I was able to confirm that I would never be able to serve on a submarine without going crazy in the confined space. I'm so grateful there are others that can.

The Arizona Memorial was as powerful as ever. If you've never been it is a floating memorial over the sunken battleship. You can still see most of the ship just below the surface. Over 1,000 sailors were killed and still lay with the ship. There is a wall with the names of all that died. We didn't find any Emmetts or McEuens but wouldn't you know we found some Millers . . .

and some Smiths . . .
and Elvis.
After Pearl Harbor we drove to Kailua to visit some friends or ours, the Westbrooks, from BYU. Lynn made a great dinner and Ben and I were able to talk about how great it is to be a Lakers fan again. The next morning we hopped in our rental car to spend the day on the North Shore. We asked for the Michael Scott special and were excited they had the grey Sebring convertible. It turned out that you need to pay close attention to where you park in the touristy lots because apparently we weren't the only ones with the Sebring on the island.
First stop on the way was the Dole Pineapple plantation. I went with the chocolate covered pineapple and Beth elected the pineapple ice cream. We both shared the pineapple muffin. Thinking about it makes me hungry.
We spent the first half of the day lounging around Waimea Bay before lounging around Pipeline. I love seeing surf spots that I've seen and heard so much about. The surf was only 5-8 feet when we were there. We heard the old "you should have been here last week" and from what I read the swell was 25 ft+ the week before we got there. The Pipe Masters bodyboard contest was going on while we were there, so unfortuneately I couldn't paddle out. It's always overhead for those guys. I took a short video of one of the sets.

I picked up boardshorts pair #19 while we were there and no, that's not the British flag. It's the State of Hawaii flag. I convinced Beth that while I may not need another pair it would be a great conversation piece. "Why are you sporting the British flag on your trunks?" "Actually it's not the British . . . ."
After checking out Sunset Beach we went to Laie to see the temple and visit the Polynesian Culture Center. We saw the standard shows with hula dancing, fire starting, tree climbing. The evening performance was great. Beth clapped a lot in approval. I was pleased to find that the PCC has less white kids from Idaho pretending to be from Polynesia than I remembered from 10 years ago. The PCC is owned by the Church and proceeds help support BYU-Hawaii. I tried to get a discount with my BYU i.d. but it didn't work. We still had to pay a bundle to get in.
Our last day in Hawaii was spent snorkeling at some state park bay and then hanging out at Waikiki. At Waikiki I rented a surfboard and paddled out with the crowds for a while. The board was the biggest piece of junk I've ever seen but I still had a lot of fun. The surf is pretty small this time of the year on the south side but there was enough for everybody.
The last night we were pretty exhausted but when I mentioned something about the Cheesecake Factory Beth perked right up and was convinced it would be the perfect place to go on our last night in Hawaii. Waikiki is so different from the rest of Oahu and the rest of islands. It's like Vegas on the beach. It was fun to see but it's pretty low on my list of places to return to.

Sorry for the travel log but I'll forget everything if I didn't do it. We were so pumped to go home and see Jack. We got the feeling that we missed him more than he missed us. My mom said he was perfect and didn't seem to miss a beat without either of us there. We don't want a kid that falls apart without us but come on buddy! at least make us feel needed.