Week 22

Memorial Day Lantern Floating Ceremony

Each year on Memorial Day, a Buddhist tradition is carried out here in Honolulu as a way for people of all nations and beliefs to remember their loved ones who have died. Small floating boats are given out to the public where a message of love can be written on one side of the lamp. Then the boat is released into the water with thousands of others. At the end, they are gathered up and recycled for next year's ceremony. This was the first time Romney and I had ever gone to see it for ourselves. There were over 30,000 people there. We met up with Steve and Melissa Moody to watch the release of the boats and then take pictures once we could get close enough to the water to actually see anything. They also had a stage set up where talks were given, local singers performed, and some buddhist ceremonies were performed.

A boat was out in the water with a large camera crane aboard to take video of the boats. Here's a picture on the screen of the lanterns in the water.

Week 21

My brother-in-law moved to Hawaii this week to start a new job. If all goes well over the next few weeks, he will fly back to pick up my sister and their kids and bring them back to Hawaii with him. That means I'll have someone in my family living in Hawaii with us. We've thankfully had Romney's extended family here and we've done tons of stuff with them, but I never imagined we'd have someone from my family. So, since he didn't have to work today, we took him to Ala Moana Beach Park for a hamburger/chicken barbecue. Welcome to Hawaii Brent!!!

Week 20

Last weekend, Romney and I went to the North Shore with Caleb and Jen. Jen's mom and sister were in town for a week-long visit so we all went to Malaekahana Beach.

There is an island a little bit off-shore called Goat Island. Because the water is fairly shallow, it's possible to walk all the way over to it, without needing to swim. Romney and I had water socks so it wasn't too hard, but Caleb and Jen went barefoot and got a few scraps. Luckily they didn't step on any sea urchins. Most of the time, the water was around our knees or waist and the deepest it got was about up to our chest, before getting shallow again as we approached the island. Here's an aerial view of where we walked. We started at the left point and walked to the nearest point of the island. We guesstimate that it is about 1/2 a mile and it took us 20 or 30 minutes to walk it because it was really rocky and the waves kept pushing us around as if we were in a a washing machine.

After getting to the island, we walked around for a few minutes and then decided to head back since it was getting late in the afternoon. However, as we approached the tip of the island, suddenly a huge Hawaiian Monk Seal started heaving itself out of the water and onto the beach to sunbath in the late afternoon sun. Romney was the first one to see it and gasped out loud, causing the rest of us to look up. It honestly startled all of us as it was so close. To top it off, it beached itself right where we needed to reenter the water and Monk Seals can be very territorial so we didn't want to scare it but we couldn't wait for it to leave as we'd end up spend the night on the island. Instead, we got into the water farther away and walking wide around the beach where it was sun bathing while it kept turning to keep an eye on us. I was really nervous that it would get back into the water and then attack us while knee deep in water. Thank goodness it stayed where it was and it was shallow enough we could walk wide of it and then cross the channel. It was an amazing adventure! We were all devastated that no one had a camera on us since we don't have waterproof cameras. However, we spotted a turtle out in the water where we were sitting on the beach and I was able to capture a few good shots.

Click on the image to make it larger and see more detail.

Week 19

We're not even half way through the year yet and we're already running out of places to go take pictures. Only so many places to go on an island! Today we went to Kakaako Waterfront Park.

This is some kind of amphitheater even though we've never heard of any events taking place here. It looks like you bring a blanket, beach towel, or beach mat and throw it down on the grass. Nice!

Week 18

I was at a house in Manoa when I saw this frog. According to the homeowner, this is a Poison Dart Frog. She said that Manoa has a lot of them as they were brought in to keep the mosquitos down. Because they get so much rain, they have a lot of mosquitos. The rain also helps the frogs to thrive. Drive outside the valley and you won't find the frogs anywhere. Oh, and she said not to touch it.