The Last of the Pictures

I've finally gotten around to posting the last of our Hawaii pictures. We'll have to get back someday to take some more. It was such a fun trip, and I recommend it to everybody! I would say that everybody should come visit us when we move there, but I don't know if there will be room in the 500 sq foot studio that we'll be able to buy for the price of our current house... :-)

Cathy and Steph reminisce about grad school.
Steph gave this flower to Cathy- it smelled wonderful! Cathy kept it and pressed in in one of her books. You can still kind of smell it.
Steph boggles at the idea that we're even considering going home, having seen Hawaii!
Kirk models the gorgeous leis that Steph gave us before she left. They smelled wonderful!

Coming Home

We're not ready, but we'll be on our way home tonight. We'll fly all night and be home sometime Thursday.

Cathy will update on our Tuesday and Wednesday activities from Wichita. Tuesday was a great day- We got to hang out Cathy's friend from graduate school. It was great to see Stephanie again (shout out to Steph!) and since she has lived here most her life, she was able to take us to some spots that tourists don't necessarily know about. It was COOL. Cathy will post the pictures from that day tomorrow. Or Friday. Whenever she wakes up. :)

Shout out to Stephanie- and thanks again for showing us around. That was one of the best parts of our trip.

Monday: The North Shore

On Monday we took a scenic drive to the North Shore. It was so pretty seeing the beaches, and you could tell that the waves were higher and less gentle the more north we got. We also saw tons of surfers. Taken from the car.
Also taken from the car...
Hey, did I mention that we were taking pictures from the car? You can see the waves in this one.

We also stopped at Weimea Falls park to see the waterfall. We had lunch at the outdoor restaurant there. The plate lunch was really good, and featured a green salad instead of macaroni. Yum! There were some dangers lurking in the area...

Meet our nemesis.

He likes food.

We were warned that the peacocks actually had a strategy when it came to stealing food. One would jump up on the table and start flapping, and the other would shove the food to the ground. I'm glad we were warned about this, because we were able to shoo them away when they were getting a little *too* close. We did not see anybody else's food get stolen either, but the staff was pretty good at warning everyone.

The hike up to the waterfall was really pretty. Cathy especially liked the leaves on this plant.

The waterfall.

It was closed for swimming that day for some reason, so we were not able to get in the water. It would have been a cool picture, but just seeing the waterfall was really neat.

We also stopped at Puu O Mahuka Heiau, which is a still a sacred spot to native Hawaiians. It was a temple that was sometimes used for human sacrifice. The lava stone walls are all that remain- along with the stunning views! We had to drive over a rather questionable road to get here, but it was worth it for the views alone. The wall.
The center- once the inside of the temple.

We also stopped for shaved ice. It was good! They put ice cream in the bottom of the cone and added shaved ice and syrup. Cathy got cherry and Kirk got coconut and strawberry.

Some lady decided to pose with me while Kirk was taking the picture. We have no idea why.

Mmmmm...cherry.

We were glad we sprung for the yellow holders. It would have been a huge mess without it.