Hello Kids, Shelton’s and Mom & Dad,
We have had quite a time in Hawaii. While in Honolulu we went to an outdoor arts festival which mostly displayed pictures and jewelry. We also went to the Dole Plantation where we had a couple of helpings of Dole Whip ice cream. We visited the Polynesian Cultural Center where we learned how to weave palm leaves into things and how to climb a coconut tree. We learned many things about Hawaii and the surrounding islands like Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and others. We visited the USS Arizona and USS Missouri, and then we boarded the ship.
The ship, called “Pride of Hawaii is huge and lavish. When we drove up to the pier to get on board, we saw it towering over other buildings. It is, in your Mother’s words, Ginormous. It has either 10 or 15 elevators that all talk to you and have a TV that tells you what is on each deck. The pools, hot tubs, waterfall, and waterslide are all nice and fun. We have seen two shows in the theatre. One was a comedian and the other was based on an old TV game show called the Newly Wed Game. Our room is verrry nice and has a picture window for ocean or whale viewing. We can have room service any time we want and there are restaurants open 24 hours a day. It’s even easy to find late night ice cream. There is a library, shuffleboard, and chess and checkers and the pieces are as big as Gillian.
We have seen amazing water falls, experienced a Hawaiian Luau. Luau means party and they usually roast a pig. Then they have hula dancers and a fire knife dance for the grand finale. Today we went snorkeling and your mom got a little sick on the first stop, but we saw some pretty coral and some colorful fish. I went by myself on the second stop which was called “Turtle Arches”. What do you think I saw? That’s right, I saw a large sea turtle that swam down to the bottom and buried himself in the sand. It was way cool. I also saw an eel, a trumpet fish and some like “Gil” in Finding Nemo. Another high point of today – we saw Humpback whales. There were even mamas with their babies. They were flipping their fins which looked like they were waving to us and others were swimming close by and blowing air out their blow holes. After these excursions, we had a nap and are getting ready for dinner. The food on the ship has been good and we are going to eat steak tonight.
We're having trouble with pictures. We'll try them again later.
Love you all! Mom, Dad, Scott & Kayla
