Hawaii - Day Three

We got up early and headed to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial.

Alison and I blocking the sign for the Aviation Museum so Andrew can't see. He thought we wanted a silly picture taken of us. No, we just didn't want to go to the Aviation Museum and look at airplanes for hours and hours.

Andrew pulling Ali away from the sign.

Pearl Harbor - USS Arizona Memorial

We hopped on a ferry and headed out to the USS Arizona Memorial. The Arizona is the battleship that sunk and took over 1000 sailors with her.

Here is the list of sailors who died. The the large quote in the middle says: "To the memory of the gallant men here entombed and their shipmates who gave their lives in action on December 7, 1941 on the USS Arizona." It was a beautiful memorial and very solemn.

A part of the ship that isn't under water.

Andrew and I.

The top of the Memorial was beautiful. I loved that it was open to the sky.

Part of the ship that is totally submerged. Something that was amazing is that there were pools of oil in the water that were leaking from the old ship still, after 68 years. They call them Pearl Harbor's tears.


Leaving the Memorial.

My first sighting of Birds of Paradise was on the way out of the Memorial.

Pearl Harbor Naval Base - USS Utah Memorial

Jason, me, Andrew, Alison, and Dave in front of the USS Utah, another ship that was sunk and taken out of service because of the damage done. When the ship listed (tipped) 40 degrees, the crew abandoned ship. About 450 sailors were able to escape and about 60 sailors were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor Naval Base - Ford Island
Sorry, you won't be able to go unless you have a military friend who can get you on base.


This is my favorite picture that I took from the whole trip so far.

This picture of the USS Arizona Memorial is taken from the original Memorial on Ford Island.

Us in front of the original Memorial.

Ford Island - Butts in a Banyan

I seem to have a love/fascination with Banyan trees, and the one on Ford Island was HUGE!!! We had fun climbing in the tree.

Dave's butt.

The Banyan.

Alison's butt.

My butt.

Andrew's butt (my personal favorite)

Electric Beach
When I first heard the name of this beach, I was a little wary and worried that it was named so because of electric eels and other freakish fish. No. There is a power plant nearby that shoots warm water into the water off the shore through a tunnel. As a result, there is a lot of coral and fun fish, so it is great for snorkeling!

Me in the waves.

The following pictures are of the rocky cliffs that we didn't swim at.





Ready to go snorkeling.

Andrew boogie boarding. That is probably his great beach love.

After a good boogie up to the shore.

Ali after she went snorkeling.

Corvin
Andrew's little cousin Corvin (CK) loves to play with Andrew. They wrestle, jump, CK takes Andrew's hat and says, "My hat!" and Andrew screams and falls down on command. It is so entertaining to watch them!



This was a very fun day in Hawaii and I hope that the pictures are showing it! Merry Christmas to all! Well, I guess I should say Mele Kelikimaka!

Hawaii - Day Two

We had a change of plans and decided to switch a day. It worked out better so we could sleep in and I could get rid of my headache. This was "MY" day, that I planned. We were flexible and also threw Chinatown into the mix. Enjoy!

We started the morning out with a lovely walk on Hickam behind the officers' housing.

Plumeria - beautiful! My favorite flowers in Hawaii.

Hibiscus - also lovely and extremely stunning.

Some random statue in front of Alura's elementary school. Lucky her got to skip out on half of school to go do cool historical stuff with us.

Check it out! There is a road in Honolulu called Salt Lake, so we had to get a picture.

Downtown Honolulu is one of the most beautiful downtowns I have been in. There were palm trees, colored glass buildings, narrow streets, and a lovely cool breeze. Excellent.


Where's Steve McGarret? (Book 'em, Dan-o)

Andrew in his element: speaking Cantonese in Chinatown. He was so happy. :D And all the Chinese people were so surprised to see a white kid speaking Cantonese!

Andrew eating Dragon Eyes.

Me eating Dragon Eyes.

The Goddess of Mercy or something like that. She's in Chinatown. I just liked the statue.


Queen Lilokalani, the last queen of Hawaii.

The interior of the state capitol building. Not the traditional dome we are used too. Instead, this one looks like it is straight out of the 1950s in modernish style. Oh wait, that's cuz IT IS.

"Sarah, do you really need to read ALL of the signs?"

Pointsettias growing in the ground with Hawaiian Santa. I tell ya, Christmas in Hawaii really doesn't feel like Christmas at all.

Kapu, or forbidden. Only the king is allowed to enter this area on the palace grounds.


Iolani Palace, which was the main attraction of the day. When you go, make sure you buy the audio tour. This is the only imperial residence in the United States, and is where Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned while she protested the US takeover.

Having a blast in my HOT sunglasses and diggin' historic downtown Honolulu.

Chilling with the tropical birds, aka my cousins' pet Polly who likes to chew on toothpicks.

Dave who took us everywhere with the other two birds, Skittles and Sunny.

Alison eating our first Hawaiian pineapple. YUM FEST!

Love you all! Pictures are coming slowly but surely (today is Day 8 of our trip...)

Hawaii - Day One

In an abrupt change of scenery from my last blog post... I am in Hawaii with Andrew and Alison for a weekish. Ali is here cuz we are playing and she is awesome, and Andrew and I are really here for a wedding. So enjoy our first day of vacation!

Me in my very cute new coat (thanks The Mom!) and our bags, all ready for the trip.

Ali checking her bags - cute pink ones, too. Nice butt! Stay tuned for more butt pictures of all of us, especially Ali.

We're on the plane to LA!

I said, "Oh Andrew, look out the window!" And then he slammed the airplane window shut - but I opened it anyway and look what he missed out on!


Goodbye California! My first time over the open sea!

This is the cool map on the seat in front of us that showed us where we were. It was so wonderful when we got closer to Hawaii!

Wahoo! There's Oahu!

Our first picture in Hawaii. What cute cousins in front of the tropical display in the airport.

Andrew's cute beach towel loaned to him by Kirsten.
Dave and Kirsten took us to Dave's office on Hickam Air Force Base and showed us the bullet marks from the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the above picture, you can see some of the shots. In 1941, this was a barrack for the soldiers on base. They haven't filled in the holes because they are historical, so they are keeping them there forever. It was really cool and solemn to see.

This is the flag that flew over Hickam during the attack.

This is a monument dedicated to the soldiers in Pacific Wars: World War II, Korean, and Vietnam.

More bullet holes and a cool shot of a palm tree.

More bullet holes and the flag. It was cool to go to; you won't get to see this unless you are friends with someone who can take you on base.
We went to the beach on Hickam (another place you won't get to unless you have military friends and/or relatives) and Andrew and Alison did some skim boarding. Poor me had a headache, so I didn't do it. Andrew hit his back a lot.

More beach.
Alura and her new octopus friend! Everyone held it (but me, I came late and wanted to throw up, so I don't think holding a gross sucking octopus would have helped in the least).

I had never seen a real live octopus before, and here we were up close and personal! It gave Alura several hickies.

Sexy.

Snow Day!

Yesterday the snow was so powdery and I just wanted to go skiing! Today the snow was much more sticky and perfect for making a snowman. So, after Primary wherein we sang "Once There Was A Snowman" twice, I knew that Andrew and I would have to go play in the snow.

There's Andrew working on our snowman's midsection. I made the bottom pretty much by myself while he tried to find his gloves, which were in the car. Then we tried to put on the midsection but it was too heavy for the both of us (I tell you, this snow is WET!), so then it broke into little pieces and we had to snow-cement them into a ball. It was so fun to make the snowman!

Andrew is very talented at smoothing out snowman bodies. He is a smooth smooth man.

We sure do love the snow, right Andrew? :D

Time to make the snowman's head. I love the camo pants.

Hooray for our snowman! He is an engineer (Andrew's idea) - please note the mechanical pencils in his "pocket protector" on his left side. He also likes to play fat bat and his mouth is made out of a banana. We had to get a little creative.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... One, two, three, four..."

The view from the ground when Andrew pushed me in the snow.

Us and our happy snowman. This was the first time we have ever made a snowman together. How tender and special.

Time for snow angles!

Go Andrew, go. You make the snow angel. Flap your wings!

Andrew resting after a hard core hip abductor workout moving very heavy snow with his legs.

Ta-da! I feel like singing due to Andrew's angel: "Hark the Herald Angels sing!"

My turn for a snow angel! And a pretty cute picture of me, if I do say so myself.

Working on the snow angel.

I was flattening out the thing between your legs when you make a snow angel.

Oh how beautiful!

Woot for my cute little angel. It was fun. And we were very very wet from playing in the snow.

This calls for hot chocolate...with a Peep! They are rock hard and we found them in our cupboard today. I love Andrew's face in this picture. It's a face only a wife could love!

NASA Experiment

We got some exciting news today! NASA accepted Andrew's research team's proposal, and they will be going to Houston in June to do their experiment in the vomit comet! That's an airplane that flies up and down and you float around on the way down so it is like you are in outerspace!


So how exciting that NASA accepted their proposal. Their experiment is kind of lame, so I'm a little surprised that they got accepted. It is pretty much just about boiling water in space. Apparently, there have been tons of experiments about boiling anti-freeze and Coke, but now about water. So they are smarter than rocket scientists. On Earth when you boil water, the bubbles go up, but in space the bubbles go everywhere - the little bubbles are called nucleate boiling and it is a good way to get a nice heat transfer. So that is what they will be doing on the Vomit Comet.
Their team is called the GAS team, or Get Away Special. There is another name, MRT or Microgravity Research Team, which is kind of lame so it hasn't stuck so far.

So now my new sewing project (which pushes aside quilt and afghan projects I'm currently working on) will be to make Andrew a big boy NASA jump suit PJs.

Finals Week

Today starts finals week. That is exciting cuz finals week means no class, just studying and playing! To start my finals week out right, I slept in. :) That is because it is a whopping 17 degrees outside! What is this January weather doing here when it is only December? I don't get it. It is cool and I loved snuggling with Andrew in bed.

I have been working on a paper that is due tomorrow all morning. See, for history majors, finals week means papers are due and you don't usually have a test. Anyway, the paper is on a very interesting topic (to me). I am talking about Sikh immigrants to the US and a lot of them married Mexican women because of anti-miscegenation laws in the US in the 20th century. I'm talking about some photographs about these mixed race families. Because it is about an interesting topic, it isn't so bad to write. In fact, I'm pretty excited to keep writing!

I have two other papers to finish/write. One is a research paper about the mammy caricature and how black women had to combat that to get into the defense industries during WWII. The other is for the Arrington Mormon History lecture essay contest. I'm writing about the newspaper called "The Women's Exponent" and how it promoted suffrage among polygamist wives. I have to get that one turned in by Friday to be eligible for the contest, and if I win I could get $1000! These two papers are also very interesting.

Anyway, here are some interesting websites about my paper topics if you are interested in learning more:

http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/menu.htm
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/echoes/toc.html
http://relarchive.byu.edu/mptc/descriptions/womans_exponent.html

Silent Monks Singing Halleluia