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I forgot to add this little tidbit in the last post. A while back while Koa was identifying body parts I decided I should expand Koa's vocabulary by giving him the Spanish words for some of them. After I told him that his eyes were ojos for about a week he called his eyes his "uh-ohs."
Yesterday we were riding in the car and he was drinking water. I asked him if he was drinking H2O and he repeated back, "ates-two-uh-oh."
What a full weekend!! Zak started his philosophy class this weekend. It is an interim semester class so it is condensed into two weeks. It is his first class where he actually goes to a classroom to take it. It was kind of funny to send him off to his first day of school during his last semester of college! Friday was his first day and he had class from 5 to 10 PM. I had a girls night out slumber party that I was going to as part of the "Chanda Goodbye Tour." So, I took Koa with me to that and then Zak picked him up after he got out of class. Then on Saturday morning he had class again at 10 AM, so he brought Koa back to me since the girls were having breakfast together, and he had class until 2 PM.
Saturday afternoon Zak did homework and I did some chores around the house and then we headed out to dinner at Sarento's to continue the "Chanda Goodbye Tour." We had a lovely evening in this small private room with a beautiful view of the city and Waikiki beach. The best part, however, was the company. What a neat group of friends we have!
This morning we got up and headed to church and then right after church we drove downtown to see the off-Broadway production of "The Lion King". It was excellent!! We have had tickets for several months now, so it has been much anticipated, but it was way better than I expected it to be. I've seen pictures of the characters and the sets and all of that, but it was so cool to see just how they executed all of it! It's been a very long time since I've seen a big production like that and I'm sure my perspective is very different than it was years ago, but I think this was my favorite play I've ever seen. One of my favorite things about it was just how involved the audience was. There was a lot of cheering and whistling and such like that I have never experienced in a theater before. It was really cool!
We really wanted to take Koa with us, but in the end we decided not to and it was a good decision, I think. As much as he loves music we thought he might really get into it, but since he doesn't even watch TV yet, I think it would have been too loud and over-stimulating for him. I look forward to taking him sometime when he's older, though.
Koa's Auntie Jessi graciously agreed to keep him today while we went to the play and they went to the park for a picnic and games to continue the "Chanda Goodbye Tour." As they were getting ready to leave the church building Jessi asked him if he was ready to go and he said, "yes" and headed to the car. She asked him if he wanted to say bye to his parents and he waved in our general direction without even looking at us and kept on walking!
After the play we headed back to the church building to continue our second week of Malama Group training. Zak is doing a really great job with that and we are making baby steps towards starting our groups. It's getting pretty exciting!! He has set up a website for our leaders and anyone else interested. You can check it out by going here.
When we were done with that it was a couple steps from the classroom to the auditorium for evening services. We walked in and sat down with Auntie Jessi and Koa and he acted like we weren't even there. He was just sitting there eating a snack an having a drink like such a big kid and didn't even acknowledge us for about 10 minutes. I guess he was showing us just how independent he is! It was pretty funny. Jessi said he had a great day and only asked for us a couple of times, but never acted like he was upset that we weren't around.
After church this evening they still had a bunch of food left over from the picnic, so everyone was invited to the Aloha Room to have dinner together and fellowship some more. After that we headed home and we are pooped!! Koa was fast asleep about the moment his head hit the bed and I hope to be in the same boat here in a few minutes! Zak will probably be up doing homework until the middle of the night again!
I know I'm a little slow getting around to it, but I have to report just how lovely Lana'i is. Our trip was too short, but it was a really nice time.
Lana'i is about 50 miles from Oahu (a 30 minute flight on our little bitty plane), so it is a quick little trip to this island that only about 3,000 people call home. It used to be owned by Dole and covered in pineapple fields until recent years when all of the pineapple industry slowly started moving elsewhere. Now it has a quaint little resort town and is owned mostly by the developers Castle and Cooke. Within the mere 33 miles of paved road on the island are two Four Season's resorts within walking distance of each other and the other hotel, Hotel Lana'i.
Being the sort who generally have a distaste for resorts we stayed at Hotel Lana'i. However, upon arriving we discovered that we couldn't dislike these resorts no matter how hard we tried. In our Lana'i Over Labor Day photo album you will find many pictured of the beautiful Lodge at Koele and the property surrounding it. One of the cool things about these resorts is that everyone is welcome to use the amenities on the property whether you stay there or not.
We found ourselves at the Lodge almost one whole day enjoying croquet, the scenery, some yummy lunch, and the executive putt putt golf course. I didn't even know such a thing as executive putt putt existed! This was a beautiful, and very difficult course designed by Greg Norman. We found ourselves back at the Lodge the next day because Zak and Eric were too competitive to let one game decide who was the best putt putter! Now it's just split one game to one and we didn't have time for a tie-break. Now we will never know!
Most of the time we were there it was convenient to just walk or take the shuttle that ran between the three places of tourist residence, but one day we decided to rent a four-wheel drive vehicle to do a little off-roading and see some of the sights like Shipwreck Beach and Kaumalapau Harbor. Unfortunately the car rental companies only have Jeep Wranglers to rent and they only seat four comfortably. Since we would have a car seat, we had to come up with another option. Since Bethanyanne and Eric had been there before they had some connections--specifically Kayak John. Kayak John owns a Land Rover and it seats five comfortably. So, Eric called and asked if we could rent Kayak John's Land Rover for the day. He said he would. So, we rented someone's personal vehicle for the day and took it off-roading--weird!
While we were at Kaumalapau Harbor I saw a guy fishing and stopped to chat with him for a while. I don't know how many times I have seen these guys standing out there with those enormous fishing poles in the ocean, but I have never seen anyone catch anything. I asked him what he was fishing for and if he was catching anything. He said he was fishing for Ulua but so far he was just catching bait. We were just about to pull out of the parking lot when we saw his pole bending and the struggle begin. Eric and I jumped out to take in the action. That poor guy (Charlie I think was his name) fought and fought with that thing. He was there fishing by himself, but everyone on the harbor came to help him. It was pretty cool to watch. Eric and I helped him move his other fishing gear out of the way as he went back and forth down the pier. Another guy took the gaff down to help him pull the fish up once it was on the rocks. When I asked that guy if he was fishing with Charlie he said, "No, I don't know him. I'm from Maui." It was pretty fun to watch everyone chip in to help. It was like a family reunion by the time he got that big Ulua up there. Even Zak and Bethanyanne got out to see the final product! I wish we knew how much it weighed, but Eric and I were guessing somewhere around 75-85 lbs. That's a lot of sashimi!!
We also took our vehicle on The Munro Trail which was supposed to lead us to this most fantastic view at the top. Unfortunately the view at the top was not much different from the view very close to the bottom and there were a lot of bumps in between. So we just renamed that The Trail to Nowhere!
The only part of Lana'i Zak and I had been to before was Manele Harbor and the beach nearby. We had taken a ferry from Maui to Lana'i when we were on our honeymoon. We had to take a jaunt to the Harbor just to see how things were five years later. Just like our marriage, it's under construction with good things to come. You can see pictures of the final plans (of the harbor, that is) in the Lana'i photo album. From that vantage point we could see Haleakala on Maui, Kaho'olawe (a large uninhabited island) and very far off in the distance, the Big Island of Hawaii.
Most of the rest of our time on Lana'i was spent in Lana'i City. It is such a neat, quaint little town. There were three little cafe's and three local grocery stores (that's using that term liberally), the world famous jail (we still don't know what makes it famous, but that's what the map says), a community pool, a school and the central park and that's about it. Our little hotel was right at the top of the hill from there. We were very excited when we read on our hotel's website that there would be a farmer's market in the park on Saturday. When Zak and I travel to other islands we typically find a farmer's market one of our first days there and get some fruit to have in our room for breakfast and snacks. So, that was the one thing we had planned for Saturday morning.
That morning we got all packed up and headed out our door right down the street and we couldn't find it. We thought they must have already closed up or they didn't t have it that week for some reason. We were so disappointed. We finally found it--it literally consisted of three tents. One family was selling apple bananas, eggplant, bok choy and taro stalks. Another family was selling some very random clothes and our hotel was selling t-shirts. We got some apple bananas and a t-shirt. The apple bananas were great and lasted Koa the whole time we were on Lana'i.
There is no shortage of great places to eat on Lana'i. You would think being on an island that small and demure you might not find much in the way of fine dining. Quite the opposite. There are more fine dining establishments than there are little cafes, I think. To say the least, we ate well while we were on vacation.
Traveling has proved to be tough on Koa's potty training. I guess he just misses his own potty. So, we spent this week getting back in sync. He's doing better again. Right before we left he was staying dry pretty consistently all day and all night.
Other than that, he was a great little traveler. We hauled him all over the place for four days straight and we were always eating dinner too late and missing his naps. Most days he didn't seem to mind. In the hotel room we just made him a little pallet on the floor and he slept on it just fine (when he got a chance). He did have to wear his long pj's since it is cooler there and he thought that was great! He wanted to wear them all the time. Even when he was dressed for the day in shorts and a t-shirt he would insist that we put his PJ pants on over his shorts. Of course we would take them off before we left the room, but he was so thrilled to be wearing them anytime we would let him. Even when we got back home and I was unpacking the suitcase, he found them again and insisted on wearing them almost all day Tuesday even though it was boiling in our house!
The rest of us are doing well, too!
