Aloha 'Oe (Part I)

Aloha, everyone. We returned from our visit to Hawaii last week. It was a wonderful vacation. We stayed in the Kaimuki house with my Auntie Cissy (my mom's younger sister) and Uncle Hutch. My cousins, John, Shannon, and Conor were also at home. It was a good time to be in Honolulu since John is now back from college in Oregon and Shannon had not yet left for Chicago. Also, my mom (who, I think I've mentioned, Zahra refers to as "nana-mommy") was also in town. She was born in Honolulu and stayed there until she was about 30, before moving to California (which Hawaiians refer to as "the mainland"). Not only was it good to see my mom for almost two weeks in a row, just to hang out and be together, she was also quite fun to go around the island with. It was great to have her in town for this visit because, although she's been gone for quite a few years now, she still knows more direct ways of getting around Honolulu than I do... I can make my way around the city and even the island of Oahu, but my trips are definitely not direct or orderly. I kind of drive around until I find something that looks familiar and then take that route and eventually make my way back to the house. The house we stayed at used to belong to my grandparents and now belongs to my aunt and uncle. They are in the middle of a huge remodeling process -- we're talking quite a few rooms that have only the framing up. I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures to give an idea of the progress. The house looks so different than I remember! Although a lot of things had changed, it was really good to stay in the Kaimuki house and we are truly grateful to the Palmers for their hospitality. (Thank you soooo much for letting us stay with you guys.)

Well, we took over 200 pictures during the 10 days we were there, so it will be hard to pick and choose the best to share with you. I'm putting together an album, so whenever you happen to be at my house next, you can see the complete bunch, including all the many scenic pictures we took that I probably won't include here. (Also, I'll probably be putting together several postings since there are so many pictures to share.)

This is one of my favorite family shots from the whole trip. We are standing in a park next to the beach at Waikiki. This was on Monday, August 10, and Hurricane Felicia was lurking around. As is typical for Hawaii, the weather was humid and warm the whole time we were there. This particular day, as we approached the beach, little drops of water were falling from the sky. When we finally got to the beach, it started to rain. Just a light drizzle at first and then it started raining pretty heavily. We almost decided to leave, but just as we were about to, the skies cleared up and the rain stopped, so we were able to jump in the warm ocean water for awhile.

This was a pretty typical face for Max, when we'd put him in the water. He was not particularly fond of the water. My guess is that the unpredictable nature of the waves really bugged him. It didn't seem to be the water per se but rather the fact that he couldn't predict when the next small wave would come in or how big it would be, so we kept him up on the beach towels most of the time.

Here is a much happier Max. Don't know how we managed to get him to smile here, but it's probably not really an accurate representation of his response to the water.

Again, you can see the look on Max's face and see that he's not exactly having the greatest time in the water. His sister, on the other hand, had a truly wonderful time at the beach. She loved being in the water and playing in the sand.

I took this picture with my mom in front of a little waterfall that is on the grounds of the Kahala Nui retirement community where my grandmother lives. The grounds of Kahala Nui on Malia Street (in Honolulu) are adjacent to Star of the Sea School, which is the Catholic school my mom went to from kindergarten through 12th grade.

I love this picture! I think it totally captures Zahra's playful spirit and it almost makes me laugh just looking at her expression. This hibiscus bush was on the sidewalk between Kahala Nui and the school grounds.

This is my grandmother (and Max and Zahra's great-grandmother), Marie Foster. We went out to lunch at Zippy's, a restaurant near Kahala Nui. We were able to visit Grandma every day while we were in town and it was really good to see her. Grandma had met Zahra when she was visiting Stockton back in 2004 or 2005, but Zahra was a baby then and didn't remember anything. This was Grandma's first time meeting Willie and Max. She seemed to be very touched by our visit and I'm so glad that we were all able to get together.

This picture was taken in the front yard of the Kaimuki house on our 2nd anniversary (August 11th). After we took the picture, Auntie Cissy drove us down to Waikiki and we went to Wolfgang's (a steakhouse) for dinner in the Royal Hawaiian Center. Dinner was pretty good, and we went to have a few drinks afterward at a restaurant/bar inside the Sheraton Hotel, called Rum Fire. The neat thing about Rum Fire was that it was right on the beach and there were big doors that opened up, so you could hear and see the waves as they crashed against the shore, all while relaxing inside the building.

We went to visit the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and this picture was taken there. Max fell asleep during the informational video and was apparently so tired he slept through the entire thing, including the boat ride over to the memorial site.

We also went to visit Iolani Palace, which was the official residence of King Kalakaua and Queen Liliuokalani (I think that name is really beautiful), who were the last in a long line of Hawaiian royalty. Kids under 5 weren't allowed inside the palace, so Willie and I took Zahra in to walk around. We missed the guided tours with a docent, so we had to take audio tours. They give each person a little wand that you hold up to your ear and press a code for whatever area of the palace you are in. They also made us wear little booties over our slippers to protect the floors. (And they were serious about protecting things! At one point, I was kneeling on some carpet to talk to Zahra in a whisper about her behavior, and one of the docents came over and told me I couldn't kneel on the carpet! I stood up very quickly since I was embarassed about being reprimanded.)

Max stayed outside with my mom while the three of us took our tour. Since it was a Friday afternoon, the Royal Hawaiian Band was playing outside Iolani Palace on the grass, and mom and Max could listen to the music. Since it was hard to keep Zahra occupied, I missed a lot of the history during the audio tour. You couldn't back up or repeat without listening to the entire recorded portion again. Although many of the rooms of the palace were empty, I tried to imagine what they were once like when they were full of people and things. It was neat to be inside rooms that you knew were once filled with famous Hawaiian royalty.

The title of this blog is Aloha 'Oe, after the song written by Queen Liliuokalani. The words and a little history behind the song can be found on the Wikipedia site, among other places, I'm sure.

Well, that's all for this post. I'll work on another one now, I think, since I have the time. But first, I'll post this.