Sunday August 7th

Started the day off early with a quick phone call to the parents to wish them a 40^th wedding anniversary! All is well in Sk. Boys got moving after 830 and we were out the door to church for 915.  Quick 10min drive to the oldest Catholic Church on the island and attended one of the most amazing masses ever. The deacon that gave the homily was bang on and applicable to everyone in the room. The music was stellar with piano, guitar and ukulele.  After mass there were blessings for newlyweds, birthdays, anniversaries and the children.

We headed back to the condo – had  a quick bite to eat and shot off to the Waimea Canyon just west of us about 45 minutes. We wound threw a couple villages and started the climb up the side of the canyon in the car. 3500 feet later we arrived at the top with some woozy passengers aboard! The view was absolutely breathtaking! On the way up we could see down into the canyon as well as 180 degrees of ocean – superb! The canyon from the top was Hawaii’s version of the Grand Canyon – not nearly as deep but filled with red rock and millions of trees and shrubbery. I had forgotten my video camera but we had the Ipad so we videotaped a bit of it – alas it does not do it a bit of justice.  We wolfed down some fresh mango and coconut and started our descent to the bottom about half an hour later. Nicholas suddenly began screaming in pain from a headache that would not go away.  It was clear he had some form of altitude sickness and we had to stop a few times on the way down to calm him down. After we arrived at the bottom and had a giant shaved ice filled with lime, mango and root beer – he amazingly recuperated completely…

We bought a couple souvenirs and headed down the road to the Shrimp Station – a little shack on the side of the road that prepared shrimp about 6 different ways. A dozen shrimp for 10 bucks.  I started with Cajun Garlic and the sauce was amazing! Finger licking good! Then we had some Thai chilli sauce ones and some deep fried coconut. All were great but the first were the best. We jammed back into the car and were hot and sweaty as the wind completely died and we were roasting.  Upon arriving back at the condo, we changed and were in the ocean within minutes.  We hung out Oceanside for about 2 hours enjoying our last swim and football games before heading back to the condo. Andrew and Bobbi left their two boys Kian (2) and Micah (3 months) with us and went out for supper. They arrived back at 8 and put our two to bed and Krista and I went next door to the resort restaurant where we had the wedding reception 5 days ago. We split a massive Chef Trio – consisting of Shrimp, Scallops, Rice, quinoa, steak, Ono fish and Snapper. There was enough for 5 people for $28.  We had bread and Caesar salad to start and were completely full for $40. Great choices!

We arrived back at the condo and put sleeping boys into proper beds for the evening. We put an hour in packing all our clothes and laundry as well as far too many souvenirs. Morning will come far too early and tomorrow will be the longest bloody day ever….