Christmas morning! We make pancakes in the condo for breakfast. The girls are anxious to open some of the presents we brought. We’ve left most of the gifts at home because they were too bulky to bring or inappropriate for Hawaii. But somehow one of the girls still ends up with a pair of warm fleece mittens. Bree’s gift to Jan is a kukui nut lei. Liya gives Anya a beautiful jeweled little shell that can open up.
We spend most of the day by the pool, and have dinner at Merriman’s Market Café. The food is great, but it’s really windy, and the girls can’t wait to go back inside.
We go to Beach 69, a small beach a bit north of us, to meet up with some friends who have returned to their parent’s house in Hawaii for the holidays. Beach 69 used to be known only to locals, so we’re not exactly sure we’ll find the right unmarked turn-off for the beach. As it turns out, the beach is now described in enough guidebooks that we can just follow a line of cars into the parking lot. As promised, the beach is beautiful, and we set up under some great trees growing in the sand at the top of the beach.
A short while later, we’re joined by friends Jean, Scott, and their young daughter Serenna. Bree and Serenna know each other from a Mandarin playgroup and from preschool, and immediately begun running around the sand and water giggling. They giggle for about 5 hours straight.
At one point, Scott happens to be looking out at the ocean, when he suddenly shouts, “Whale!”. And, indeed, there’s a humpback whale far out that’s breaching. Several times it jumps far out of the water and slams back down.
The beach has some great snorkeling. Jan takes Anya and Liya over to the left side of the beach, where a great coral reef grows in front of some rocks. As Jean and Scott point out, the reef’s probably in great shape because it’s just deep enough that people can’t step on it. The girls are delighted to see a small group of baby humuhumunukunukuapua’a triggerfish swimming around.
In the evening, Marla comes again to babysit so we can get a date night. We drive up to Waimea again to have a nice meal at Merriman’s original location. We’re glad we had reservations – when we leave, the restaurant’s foyer is absolutely packed, and we have to push our way through to get to the door.
Jean, Scott, and Serenna join us at the condo for some pool time. Once again, Bree and Serenna spend several hours giggling and splashing. Anya and Liya like to put on snorkel masks and take turns hunting for a coin tossed into the pool.
Hawaii to Seattle. The trip back is smooth.
Some silliness we’ll remember from this trip. (Most of these are Jan’s fault.)
Inspired by playing the ipu (“ee-pu”) drum, Jan tries drumming on Bree. He calls her the “Bree-pu”.
Although the girls think they’ve found 100 geckos on this trip, Jan keeps claiming there is really just one small group of geckos that keep letting us see them. In fact, each family visiting Hawaii is assigned a small collection of geckos to find. Jan claims that each family is only assigned four. (The girls carefully collect six geckos with Marla’s nets specifically contradict this claim.)
While stargazing, Jan points out that Orion has a belt — but no pants. He’s probably looking for them.
The “Cookie-lau” song, sung to the tune of the ubiquitous “Hukilau” hula song.
When Jan takes the girls to Essential Bakery for lunch, Anya ends up squabbling with Sabriya over who gets to sit in a particular chair. Later, Anya wants to have some food on Bree’s plate. Bree thinks this over, then says, “Well, okay, Anya you can have some, but I think you’re going to have to show a much better attitude.”
Liya’s Christmas gift to Daddy was a father-daughter movie outing. They choose to see the movie “Hugo” in 3D. The glasses are “one size fits all”.
Happy New Year, everyone!