Hawaii-Saturday, Day One

The comfortable couches were made up for us to sleep on, and we slept like rocks. Until we both woke up at 3:30 AM Hawaii time (9:30 AM EST.) Kate easliy went back to sleep, but I lied there tossing and turning. I don't know if I slept or not, but boy was I glad to see the sky turning pink outside. I watched the sun rise, and then we read our bibles on our first day on Hawaii! Kate is reading through the Bible as well. Each day here I realize how very blessed I am to have her as my friend.

That morning at around 10 Embla had a birthday party at the big Waikiki Mall and so we all joined her at the Build-a-Bear workshop that the party was held. Kate and I set off to find an electronics store to buy some batteries for her camera, which took a while due to the enormity of the mall and included a nearly disastrous encounter with a salesman of 'dead sea' salt. :-) When we got back they were just getting through and then everyone except Arnheidur, Kate and I went to the food court. Arnheidur had wanted to show us around a real Japanese Market where there were all kinds of foods to choose from. If you ask me, I think it all looked the same-fried or boiled parts of U F O's (unidentified food objects!) wrapped in seaweed or a dough. It was interesting though, and I don't think that I have ever seen so many Japanese people before in one place at a time in my life!

When we met George and crew at the food court, we also met Rachel, the birthday girl, and her family. They are Filipino, and all the girls and women have the longest, most beautiful black hair I have ever seen! They were so kind, too.

We ate some of the U F O's from the Japanese Market as well as some clementines I had brought from their house. After lunch, we drove to Waikiki Beach in Honolulu and walked around looking at all the sights like the international market, where, as Arnheidur put it, "It's all trash; but you have to see the trash to say that you've been there!" We did find some souveneirs for our families back at home, and shortly after 200 games of 'I spy' with Embla we made our way up to the beginning of Diamond Head, where we would hike to the top of that beautiful green crater with plunging cliffs and crashing seas below them. Embla had on flip flops, which would be a problem for walking the rugged landscape, so I carried her on my back all the way up (except on the stairs), and most of the way down too. It was an excellent endurance workout for me, and she had fun.

Anyways......the view from the top was breathtaking. The clouds, the pacific, the beach, the green rolling hills and the mountains all rolled into one amazing panoramic view of God's marvelous creation. Once we got to the bottom, we all had a Hawaiian shave ice, like a snow cone but much, much bigger. Kate and I got a pineapple one to split. It was pretty good!

Afterwards our full day got even fuller because we got to go to the base grocery store, where they have excellent quality groceries for cheap! Kate and I picked out some things we wanted to have on hand for the week and discovered that we are alike in another way-salad! We both really enjoy eating it so we got several boxes of spinach and lettuce as well as some carrots and dressing. When we got home we were too worn out to eat anything much, and crashed at a fairly early time of 9:00.