Hawaii Trip, pt 2

We took a tour of BYU Hawaii on Saturday, very interesting. Did you know they have a museum of natural history display? It's only one room, but they have quite a few animals. In the afternoon/evening, we drove to Waikiki to check it out and go to the beach. Sunday, we went to the Laie Second Ward for church and then relaxed the rest of the day. Monday, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was fantastic. There was a lot more for children to do than twenty years ago. We had a great time! The luau had a show and the food was really good. The evening show was fantastic. We came back on Tuesday and did some of the things we couldn't get to on Monday. They have a 3 day “bounce back” program. A reporter for a Japanese magazine followed us around and took pictures of the kids to advertise the PCC in their magazine. We just got a copy last week in the mail. Cool, huh! Make sure you go to the PCC on your trip to Hawaii.
Wednesday, we visited with Suzanne. It was great to see her and I wish we had more time to hang out. Then, we went to the Dole Plantation. They have a huge gift shop where they have demonstrations on how to cut up pineapple and oysters to open and buy pearls out of. The largest maze, according to Guinness, grows there. We had a great time losing and finding each other while racing to find all the stations and get out first (actually, only a few of us were actually racing).
One a couple of mornings, during low tide, we took turns wading out to Goat Island and snorkeling there. It was a little challenging to wade through the waves coming to waist and chest deep over rocks, but worth the struggle (not for little kids). We walked around the island and snorkeled in the shallows on the lee side. There weren't the same kinds of fish as Hanauma Bay, but interesting and fun nonetheless.