We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (this is a link) at Waikiki. It was a huge resort, right on the beach. It was a great hotel, great location and very pretty. Here is some of the entertainment at the Luau. Our hotel tower is in the background.
At the Luau, they had lots of yummy native Hawaiian food. They cooked a roasted pig, which you can see them pulling out of the pit in the ground. We actually ate this pig just moments later. It was really good!
After that first night, it rained pretty much constantly. Here is one of the few moments of sunshine. Our hotel is in the background. This was pretty much my only opportunity to go to the beach or wear my cute new swimsuit.
Here we are in front of our hotel.
Despite the rain we headed up to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It is a really neat museum and display of all the Polynesian Cultures, not just Hawaiian. It is near the North Shore, and is ran by the LDS Church. It is right next to BYU Hawaii. Due to the rain storms, many of the nearby homes were flooded. On the local news, we heard that the storm had been the biggest of the decade. We had about fifteen minutes before our dinner reservations at the dinner show/luau there, so we thought we would take a gondola tour around the Center. Here we are on a gondola tour of the cultural center. Our tour guide, which you can see his arm, was hilarious. He was Korean, not Polynesian, and he was very funny. Right after we took this picture, it started pouring buckets of rain, by the end of the gondola ride, we were soaked, and we ran straight to the dinner show, which you'll see below.
At the PCC, as some call it, there was a dinner show as well, which you can see below. What you don't see, is that right behind the performers, it was open to the outside, and there was more rain than I have ever seen before. Fortunately, the ampitheater was covered, so we enjoyed a nice dinner. After the dinner, we went to the other ampitheater where they had a really neat dance program in which all of the Polynesian dances were shown. Once again, fortunately this ampitheater was covered as well, because the rain continued. After the dance show was over, it was time to go back to the hotel, they made an announcement that the one and only road back was closed down due to the flooding. So that meant we had to go the long way back, and had to drive completely around the island.
Our last day, we visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Here is a picture of the USS Missouri in the Harbor. The Memorial was so sad, in the harbor, you can still see oil leaking out of one of the sunken ships today, over 60 years later.
Despite the rain, it was still a fun trip. At least it was still warm, almost 80 degrees, not like the freezing rain some places have. All of the rain makes me want to go back again, to see it when it is not raining. According to some of the locals we talked to, even though it rains alot in Hawaii, that amount of rain was unusual. Many of the locals apologized for the rain, as if they had anything to do with it. They warmly invited us back to enjoy their island in good weather. I'm very glad we went. When we got home, we were very happy to see our kids. They missed us, but they were in good hands. A neighbor girl, named Mandy babysat them. They loved her. She was a better mom than I am. I was so impressed that she had made the kids their own blankets, the house was spotless, she even handled Ian puking at the ward christmas party that she took them to. Sorry Mandy. A couple weeks after that, Mandy got engaged, so congratulations Mandy! You'll be a great wife and Mom someday. We then came home to a huge snowstorm, so the rain wasn't that bad after all.
Our whole family came, as well as many friends and neighbors. Afterwards we had everyone over for a dinner at our house. Here is some of our family at the church afterwards.
