Aloha Friends

Here we are in the village of Samoa at the PCC in Hawaii. We had the most wonderful vacation and this village was definitely a highlight. The boys want to become island boys and never return to the cold harsh land called Utah. We arrived in Honolulu on March 17 after a long 7 hour flight. The kids didn't know what had hit them. After getting our car and luggage we were off to shop for food! After Sam's Club and Walmart we were headed to the North Shore. It was a getting dark by them and Aunt Malia, who was leading the drive, had a few problems navigating, but we won't hold it against her. We finally got to the house and were very excited. The first morning everyone was up by 4:00am because of the time difference. However we held off until 6:00am before we actually left the house. We spent most of our days at the beach, Sunset and Waimea Bay were our favorites, alternating between Dole Plantation pineapple ice cream and Aoki's Shave Ice. (yes, it is called shave ice NOT shaved ice...a point that drove Will crazy!) We also spent 3 days at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We loved visiting the different island villages and seeing the shows. The kids especially liked getting tattoo's in Fiji and Tahiti :) Their favorite was in Samoa where this wonderful man, see picture, showed us how to make fire (called "he" in Japanese) and how to break a coconut and scrape the meat out to get milk. We actually videoed the whole thing when Dallin got to go up and drink the milk - I know, Dallin of all people drinking something interesting. He had to drink all of it, because of course, well look at the guy, are you going to tell him no? Will turned into the angry Hawaii once on the island and pronounced all the Hawaiian words with his "angry hawaiian" voice. "Kahuku, Po'pokea, Haliewa" to name a few of his favorites. We also visited Pearl Harbor and took to tour out to the Arizona Memorial. The kids loved snorkeling - especially Shark's Cove on the north shore. The Pali lookout of was the most windy - but it is where Evan decided he would be on King Kamahameha's side and force the others off the cliff. We all hiked the 282 steps up to the top of Diamond Head and took beautiful pictures of Waikiki - that was the closest we ever got. We all decided that this was our new second home and felt we better visit often because we needed to be reminded of all the things we loved. We had a great time meeting Great Aunt Pat and Kapewa who came for dinner. All in all this was probably vacation #1 for the Thomas Family