22 June 2025

We're spending a week in Hawaii as a family. We all arrived on Wednesday, traveling from Washington, Oregon, and Utah. Abe and Helen's flight was delayed so they didn't get in until very early Thursday morning. We had surf lessons at 9 am on Thursday so everyone was up and at the beach to meet our surf instructors, Suzy and Sari. In this photo, Sari is teaching Nate, Helen, Abe, and Gibson how to stand up on their boards.

Here they are standing.

With only a little instruction, they were ready to try out some waves. Here's Gibson.

Here's Helen.

This is a photo of Abe and Nate waiting for a wave.

And here's Abe.

Here's a photo with Suzy and her dog, Luna.

This is Gibson swinging on a rope swing at the beach.

After showers and lunch we hiked to the Kapa'ele'ele Koa, a fish shrine that overlooks Kahana Bay.

Here's a view of the bay from the hike.

This is the shrine.

Abe climbed an enormous tree.

Gib made us some Malaysian style chicken and rice for dinner.

After dinner we went to the Laie Temple to do baptisms. This temple was dedicated by Heber J. Grant in 1919 and is the first temple still in use that was built outside of Utah. It was the 5th temple built after the Saints left Nauvoo. Its location and architecture are stunning.

At the temple visitors' center, we met Sister Davis. Abe taught her in the MTC when he was a Korean instructor. From the left are Sister Hansen, Sister Davis and Abe.

This photo is outside the baptistry. The Laie temple has been updated and rededicated twice, but it is essentially a smallish temple. It appears to operate and maximum capacity.

Plumeria blossoms had dropped from the trees onto the walkway.

Abe, Gibson, and Helen all wore the blossoms.

Sofi suggested we all bring a book to swap on our trip. Right now the books are available for anyone to read. Before we go home, we'll have to decide who gets which book.

Bright green geckos live on and under the front porch of our remtal.

We're staying in a small town called Hau'ula on the north shore on Oahu.

On Friday we hiked the Hau'ula Loop Trail near our house.

The canyons are lush and green.

Another big tree.

A road near the hike has a retaining wall covered with pristine graffiti.

This is a particularly nice example.

We passed the town sign on the way back to our house.

We spent Friday afternoon at Turtle Bay.

Snorkling is irresitable. There are so many interesting creatures right below the surface of the water. The ocean is warm and inviting.

The ocean breezes and a bit of cloud cover made this the perfect spot to enjoy the sun.

On Saturday we spent the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. This unique attraction celebrates the cultures of the islands of Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Fiji,  and New Zealand (called Aotearoa by the Maori).

We got an eclectic lunch at the food trucks at the PCC: sushi, hot dogs, quesdaillas, tacos, poke bowls and fries with furikake seasoning.

This poke bowl nearly did Abe in as the sauce conatined kukui nuts, a nut we have never heard of before. Luckily, Abe stopped eating lunch as soon as his lips started swelling. He must have gotten a very small amount as he only suffered mildly.

This is a statue of Hamana Kalili, the man who inspired the shaka, a universal gesture of goodwill and friendliness. Hamana lost the three middle fingers on his right hand in a sugar mill accident. After the accident, he moved to work on the rail line for the sugar mill. He would wave with his remaining fingers to let the trains know when they were loaded. Children who were catching rides on the train would wave back, curling their middle fingers so their hands looked like Hamana's. The gesture spread widely and is a symbol of the Hawaiian spirit of sharing aloha and being pono: righteous and balanced.

Amid mile markers to major cities and islands in the Pacific, we saw a sign for Utah.

At the PCC, Abe saw Euiryeong, a friend who served in the same mission in South Korea. Euiryeong is studying International Relations at BYU Hawaii. Many students woek at the PCC in exchange for a scholarship that covers tuition, housing and food.

The PCC is home to Iosepa, a traditional Hawaiian canoe. Polynesians explored the Pacific Ocean on canoes like this. Iospea is a small canoe. Historically, some canoes carried hundreds of people between islands. The Iosepa just returned from a sea voyage around the Hawaiian Islands. Robecca, the person in the photo, was one of the students on board who learned traditional methods of navigation like watching cloud formations and feeling ocean swells.

This carving from a Maori gathering house is a portrait of a famous ancestor.

The gathering is painted with symbols that represent ancestors, with the ridgepole of the house representing the spine and the rafters representing ribs. Instead of a family tree, it makes a family ribcage.

We speant all afternoon at the PCC, exploring cultures, watching shows and trying activities. These photos represent a tiny fraction of the variety of adventures we had. Abe, Gibson, and Helen tried ukeleles in Hawaii.

We played a fun stick game in New Zealand that was simple enough for anyone to learn and challenging enough to keep the most athletic of us competing.

Helen, Abe, and Gibson collected tattoos in Hawaii, Tahiti, and Fiji. 

Gibson caught a fish in Tahiti.

Brandan and Becky caught the last canoe ride back to the entrance of the park.

After the island exhibits closed, we ate dinner at a delicious buffet filled with both traditional and Hawaiian-inspired food.

Our last activity was watching a show called Ha: Breath of Life which used dancing and costumes from all the islands and ended with an amazing display of fire dancing. This is a photo with one of the performers after the show.

It was a fantastic end to a great day spent experiencing Polynesian cultures in a limited space and time.