Ok, sorry, had to take a little break.

Better to split up all these massive amounts of pictures anyway 😉

Next up on the agenda (after swimming with sharks in the LAST POST), we decided after all the surf longings the day before we better take some surfing lessons.

Yes that is a LOT of surfers, but they were still able to learn a lot…

…and all four of the big kids got up came out with ear-to-ear smiles.  It was so fun to watch them from the shore where Lu and I got to relax and read our books.  Heaven.

This is the closest shot I could get (above) but luckily there was a professional photographer right there with his whiz-bang waterproof lens who caught a bit more of the action:

This is the only picture he got of Grace, but I love how she’s rocking it out there between those other two surfers:

Here she is zoomed in:

 Elle was loving life.

(Thank you williamedwards.photography!)

Dave rented a board and went out with them too.

Next we headed over to Laie where BYU Hawaii is…and the temple too.

But first, apparently you cannot go to Laie without eating a burger at Seven Brothers Burgers.  Everyone we talked to for advice told us to get our booties over to that place so we obeyed.

Yowzas.  Now that is a burger!

It did not disappoint.

Then we continued on our sight-seeing to BYU.

Elle applied to BYU Hawaii so it was kind of fun to check it out.

We walked the campus which was quite sleepy since everyone was gone for Christmas break, but what an incredible place to go to school!

My brother and sister-in-law met there so it’s kind of special just for that! 🙂  It is a beautiful campus.

At one point I made everyone stop and check out these treasures that had fallen from one of the trees:

Perfectly symmetrical beauty and one of the thickest most lush green leaves you can imagine.

Elle should go there just so she can see those treasures every day, don’t you think?  Ha!

Who knows, maybe some day.

Next it was off to show the kids the Laie LDS Temple.

That is one gorgeous spot on earth I tell you!

We were a little disappointed because Max, Grace and Elle all brought their things to hopefully do baptisms there but it was closed until January 16th.  Darn it!  It was sure great to just be there and soak it in from the outside though.

We ran into not one, but TWO sister missionaries from Taiwan in the visitor’s center.

They were pleased as punch to tell Max all about their country, how much he was going to LOVE it, and how tall people would think he was there 🙂

We watched a cool short movie on the history of Laie and the church and found our Books of Mormon from “our” countries as per tradition.

We needed to have Dave in this pic. with Max, darn it!

(More gorgeous leaves and beauty all around.)

Of course we had to walk all the way up to “touch” the temple (our little tradition).

I loved how Lucy RAN to touch it:

Our friend who is a student at BYU Hawaii told us about a cool hike around there so we headed to find it.  It was called “Crouching Lion” and it looked awesome from what I could find online…one easy way up (good for Lucy) and one much more difficult way (we figured we’d opt for the easy one).
We double checked directions with the people at Seven Brothers, and the two people we asked told us “you can’t miss it.”  

I guess we’re certainly not locals because we did.  
Like three times.  
The information online to find it was so funny…”don’t park in such-and-such area, or other-such-and-such area,” then “you’ll see a ‘do not pass’ sign just west of the crouching lion restaurant that doesn’t exist anymore, pass that sign and you’ll see a fallen tree to climb over,” and on and on. 
We were cracking up.  We finally just stopped close to where we thought it was and figured if you can’t miss it all trails should lead to it.  But it was so muddy and slippery we didn’t go more than half way up the first hill before we called it quits and decided to opt to head back to the beach.
Here we are after our failed hiking attempt:

Luckily we got Pillbox in a few days before, and to be honest, I don’t know that there could have been a hike more grand than sitting on the beach watching my family as the sun sunk behind the horizon.

We headed back to Waimea Bay where the surf had died down considerably from the day before which made for a perfect evening.

Sorry in advance for all these pictures, but know there are 497 more where these came from (I kid, but I couldn’t stop it was just so gorgeous)…at least I spared you those 🙂

You can’t see them up close and personal, but Dave, Max, Elle and Grace were out there body surfing…finally some perfect surf for that.

That spot will always have a magical spot in my heart.

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8 Comments

  1. Seeing your pictures brings back such fond memories of my time spent attending BYU-HC. Elle would love it there! Waimea Bay was my favorite beach. SO beautiful!

  2. My old missionary stomping grounds, muu-muus and all. That place will always have a huge chunk of my heart. Back in the day, Ahi's was the best grinds around!

  3. My temple there has a place in my heart always as well- my husband & I got married there! Hawaii in the #1 vacation spot for Alaskans. Love it!

  4. My husband is 6'7" and served in Taipei, Taiwan. He got yelled at while tracting for being so tall, the lady opened the door and then took one look at him and his tall companion and yelled, "Don't do that!" and slammed the door in their faces.

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