We left on December 21. It happened the be the 32nd anniversary of the very first time I ever went to Hawaii and my love affair with the islands started! I went when I was 14 years old on December 21, 1985. It was fun to be heading back for another wonderful Mele Kalikimaka!
This has to be one of my favorite flight tracker maps ever! SLC HNL! We arrived that afternoon and got settled in and relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.
On Sunday we went to Church. It was Christmas Eve. The Ward did a cute Christmas sacrament meeting. Every thing in Hawaii is simple, yet it was sweet and so nice to think of our Savior's birth. On Christmas day we spent the day together and just enjoyed each other's company. It was delightful.
On the day after Christmas, it rained like crazy. In fact, I've never seen it rain so hard for so long in Honolulu except for the time I was there during Hurricane Iniki. It poured all day. We stayed in the room and watched movies and talked and it ended up being a wonderful day anyway! We ordered a pizza for take out and brought it up to the room and had a ball.
The next day we went zip lining! Wow! That was a blast! I'm not gonna lie - I was nervous. But once we got all tethered up and on our way - it was a kick! The guides we had were so fun and we were with another very nice family from Florida and it was really great!
Later that evening we met up with our neighbor, Sister Farr's daughter. Her husband is a base commander at Pearl Harbor. She arranged to have him take us on a private submarine tour. That was so cool. It was amazing and makes me proud to be an American. I loved it!
One evening, Jordan and I were wandering around the Hilton property. They had a timeline history of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. I saw this and it reminded me of the time that Steph and I were staying there during one Hurricane Iniki in 1992. I mentioned that earlier. It was during the time I had come home from my mission and was waiting to go back out. Steph and I went over and happened to pick the time when that hit. It hit the island of Kauai the hardest, but Oahu received it's fair share of damage. I'll never forget the Hilton Superpool being full of sand and seeing rivers of water with palm fronds where streets used to be. Steph and I still laugh about it to this day. We had all been ordered to stay in our rooms so we just took a nap. My mom called and couldn't get over the fact that we were sleeping through it. Steph said to her, "well, what else are we supposed to do?" I really wasn't nervous. We were in a concrete building and the hotel did an excellent job keeping us informed and safe.On the last day, we went up to Laie. Don and the girls were going to do baptisms and I went to do initiatories. There weren't enough workers so they weren't doing initiatories that day so I went and watched Don and the girls.
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It was just a wonderful time and I am so thankful we had the opportunity to go. I love Hawaii, but I love my precious family more and it was so wonderful to be with them for an exquisite week!
ALOOOOOOHA!
