15 Mar 17
Our family, Mom, and Cụ arrived in time for Liên's Pi Day Party. Her best friends, Jenn and Joe, brought salmon fig tarts, a bacon lattice lamb pie, and a baked Alaska. Never one to be outdone, Liên had prepared a lattice li hing mui apple pie, a cottage pie, and a chicken camembert pie; for insurance, she had also bought a hot coconut pie and a chocolate haupia pie. After the eight pies had been sampled by one and all, Liên and Jenn played their ukuleles while the out-of-towners went to bed at an unsociably early hour.
Mom & Drakeson
Cụ & Milli
Cụ, Lan, Milli, Mom holding Mabel, & Liên holding Zoltan & Pixel
16 Mar 17
The morning began with a trip to the Kaneohe Bay Sandbar with Jenn and Joe. Jenn used her military status to get us into the base and rent a boat. The sandbar is unlike anything I've seen: the floor of the bay rises towards the surface of the water, creating a large floor for wading. We borrowed Jenn's snorkeling equipment to see many fish in the neighboring reefs and enjoyed a picnic on the boat.
Milli on a Boat
Sandbar Stripe
Sisters
Mother & Daughter
Jenn & Joe
Drakeson on a Boat
Snorkelin'
Pouting
Cụ with Pearls
16 Mar 17
Leaving the sandbar by noon, we should have had plenty of time to make the 13:00 tour at the Tropical Farms Macadamia Nut Farm. We took the wrong way and got caught in a traffic jam, but they rewarded our efforts with our very own tour bus. The charming guides, dressed in traditional attire, made fire from wood, performed a fire dance with drums, opened a coconut with a rock, and made coconut milk with a sharpened stick and coconut husks. It was entertaining and very impressive.
Jenn and Joe brought broccoli cornbread over for a light dinner of George's pork ribs and Liên's five-cheese spätzle. (That was a joke.) We played the board game Avalon, even though half of the participants didn't understand the rules, and then I stayed up with Liên and Jenn for ukulele time. After Jenn went home, Liên and I continued to play, delirious from fatigue.
Ti Plant
Dragon Boat
Fire Dancing
Shredding Coconut
Souvenirs
Turtle Island
Cụ stayed at home while the rest of us took a five-mile hike at the Kaena Point Seashore and Albatross Sanctuary. Although we didn't see any whales, we watched a very elaborate albatross mating dance. George and I carried the kids the entire time, and treated ourselves to boba teas on the way home. Liên picked up cupcakes for her anniversary, and we spent the afternoon at home. Liên played her ukulele while I sketched an octopus onto a canvas. The evening was spent seeing the Hilton Friday night fireworks and dining at the elaborate Japanese food court, Shirokiya.
George & Drakeson
Milli & Sisters
Albatross
End of Hike
Climbing Structures
Climbing Rocks
Sunscreen
Sea Breeze
Time with Uncle Bill
18 Mar 17
Saturday morning was my only real opportunity to paint an octopus, so that's what I did while Liên and Bill attended their friend's wedding. Everybody else went to the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum to watch a lava show, and I managed to get most of the paint onto the canvas before George brought home a lunch of poke and udon. In the evening, Jenn and Joe met us at Cirque de la Symphonie, a Hawaii Symphony Orchestra pops concert combined with the breathtaking skills of Cirque du Soleil veterans. The conductor, Stuart Chafetz, was quite the show himself, doing impressions and offering friendly opinions along the way.
Sleeping In
Ready for Ron's Wedding
Bishop Museum
Whale
Exhausted
Painting like Mama
19 Mar 17
Sunday was a whirlwind. Ron's after-wedding party was held at Bellows Field Beach Park, another treasure that requires military access for entry. He and his wife Dana were gracious enough to allow our entire family to attend the party and enjoy their beach picnic. We spent the afternoon at a matinee performance of "The Little Mermaid" at Mililani High School starring Ron's daughter as Ursula. There was a bit of a fiasco in first arriving to the wrong venue, but we didn't miss too much, and from there, we drove straight to Aulani.
Bellows Field Beach Park
Aulani
20 Mar 17
Aulani is a Disney Resort. It has 359 rooms, 460 Disney Vacation Club Villas, 16 suites, and 4 restaurants. A paradise of lush manicured greenery surrounds a lazy river, water slides, children's play areas, pools, hot tubs, and the manmade lagoons beach area. I'm such a proud Mama that I got a kick out of shoving my 16-month-old down a long, dark water slide all alone. After the kids had worn themselves to a frazzle, we took a terrible picture with Pluto.
Aulani is a Disney Resort. It has 359 rooms, 460 Disney Vacation Club Villas, 16 suites, and 4 restaurants. A paradise of lush manicured greenery surrounds a lazy river, water slides, children's play areas, pools, hot tubs, and the manmade lagoons beach area. I'm such a proud Mama that I got a kick out of shoving my 16-month-old down a long, dark water slide all alone. After the kids had worn themselves to a frazzle, we took a terrible picture with Pluto.
Water Slides
Slidin' with Cô Tins
Tubing with Dadas
Cold & Cuddly
Lazy River
Hanging Baby
Splashpad
Sand Casltin'
Lagoon Ladies
Hugs & Kisses
Injustice
Too Tired for Pictures
20 Mar 17
There were too many art projects awaiting our arrival at home. Mom, Liên, and I wasted no time in making bath bombs and preparing dinner with each of four macadamia nut oils before it was time to have a movie pot-luck night at Jenn and Joe's. Liên and I sent the rest of the family to the party while we stayed back to make a video recording of "The Roseville Fair" with ukuleles.
Rehearsal
21 Mar 17
For our last hurrah, Mom, Liên, and I went hiking on the Makapu'u Point Lighthouse Trail. Although the hike was rushed, we were able to see several whales. We ate chocolate macadamia nut pie and wrapped bath bombs before Liên dropped Mom and Cụ off at the airport. While they were out, I put some finishing touches on the octopus painting and made a few shrinky dinks. In our final hours together, Liên gave Drakeson and me pedicures, and then we all went out for snow.
Lighthouse
Three Ladies
Summit
21 Mar 17
The flight home was terrifying. I've been on many plane rides, but never one in which I've endured half an hour of such extreme turbulence. It felt as if the plane wouldn't hold, and making matters much worse, the pilots were in no way reassuring. Panic-stricken passengers repeatedly paged flight attendants, who were instructed to remain seated. We were hours away from land while George and I considered the increasingly real possibility that this was our end. Probability was on our side, but much less so than when our flight had begun. I stared at my sleeping children with cold sweat on my palms, wanting more than anything to protect them. I knew where the infant vest was. The kid in front of me was watching "Pete's Dragon," and I wondered if that kid would ever get to see the end of the movie. I thought about all the money United was going to lose, and how the headline wouldn't create any sort of emotional stir amongst the unaffected. I thought about how the mystery of my own death might no longer be a mystery. I wondered if my dad was going to be involved with writing a program to help find the plane, and I wondered how our assets would get divided between our siblings and our parents. I thought about how this octopus - hardly a masterpiece - might be the last painting I would ever create. It's a true story - a true ending to our week in paradise. Jetlagged and emotionally drained, we fell into our own bed at 10:30 am the next day. It was a moment of pure bliss.
Morning Octopus
Evening Octopus
Glowing Octopus
Constellation Octopus
