Thursday, Happy Halloween!

Maile and her little family left last night, it is sure dead around here with just us old ones here.  We had a great time, I hope they did.  It was rejuvenating for me to have them here, I was pretty homesick for my kids.  Inde was so grown up, talking good now and such a big little boy and Esme is almost one.  She is such a happy baby as long as her parents are in sight.  W had such a good time.  Here's a picture of us at the Luau at the PCC Tuesday night.

Today I got up to a quiet kitchen and started in making a big batch of chili.  Then I made about 100 swig cookies with orange frosting, all for our Halloween party for the Elders and Sisters at the Visitor's Center.  We took some cookies over to Drummondos and visited a while with them.  Elder Sanft is washing the car and this afternoon we have to take tickets at the Hawaii Buffet at the PCC, so we'll arrive at the party late, but the Tuitupos are taking our food.  I also made some weird looking treats...

Monday

After our morning missionary meeting today we went with Maile and her family to Hanauma Bay to snorkel...no sharks there!  Here are some fun fish pictures I took with my underwater camera.  Still couldn't find "my" fish in hot pink and torqoise, the Christmas Wrass.  Several people said they saw him but I was unlucky.  I just want a picture to compare him to  the one that is green and orange I have at home on my office wall.

I just love the beauty
of these fish!

Sunday

Yesterday we had the baptism of Nikaia Geranio, she is the youngest Geranio to be baptised.  We hope to have her Mother join the family as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints soon.  It was a sweet baptism with Nick, her Father, performing the baptism and ordination.

Nikaia with Sisters Carter and Olsen

Nikaia with her friend Fiona and sister Shy

Last night we had our Branch Trunk or Treat at the church.  I made a big pot of chicken noodle soup and some fun ghost treats out  of pretzels and Hersey's hugs and candy eyes.  We took Maile and Inde and Esme with us.  We had dinner  first and then the trunk or treat.  Some people were really creative with their costumes and decorating their cars.  The Elders won my vote for best car and by far the cheapest one to design.

Inde

The Elder's car, a frog!
Made out of plastic tablecloths!

David Bowen Family
Maile and Esme












Tonight Sunday, after churches and dinner, we went over to Turtle Bay to watch the sunset.  It was beautiful as always.

Friday October 25, 2019

On Monday our daughter Maile and her husband and children came to visit us.  It was so exciting, we had two doctor's appointments for Ramon and I was so worried we wouldn't get everything done before they arrived at 2:30.  As it was we had plenty of time and even were waiting outside Costco for them to drive up.  I couldn't believe how big Esme was, I had only last seen her at one week old.  Then Inde had grown too, into a little boy from a baby I used to rock to sleep.

Tuesday and Wednesday we had mostly free.  We did the beach and then walked around the PCC, rode the canoe ride and went to the Tongan Village.  The chief chose Cameron to come up and be one of his special drummers.  Cameron was a good sport and hammed it up really well.

Inde and Cameron

Esme

Cameron

After we went over to the Visitor's Center and walked around there a while. I took a cute picture of them.

On Wednesday we went out to Kaena Point and watched airplanes and the ocean then came back for lunch and shave ice.  The kids do love the shave ice.  We got some when they arrived that afternoon too.

Thursday Elder Sanft and I were back in the saddle so to speak and had a ton of shopping to do for the Zone Conference lunch that was today, Friday.   We then came home and Cameron and Maile were nice enough to chauffeur me around while I handed out 6 lb pork roasts to all the senior couples who were helping me make pulled pork sandwiches.  So today, Friday, we had Zone Conference.  All the crockpots were full of yummy smelling pork and then we had pineapple coleslaw to top off our french bread pulled pork sandwiches.  We had a bunch left over but over all it was a success.  We also had chocolate chip cookies, tangerines, TGIF cheddar chips, water to drink.  Everyone loved this lunch.  One of the other Senior Couples offered to be in charge of the next Zone Conference lunch.  I am gladly letting her do it.  It is a lot of work.

Saturday October 19, 2019

So last Sunday, after posting on this blog, we went to our first Fireside for the beginning of the celebrations coming up of the dedication of the Hawaii Temple, 100 years ago on Thanksgiving Day.
The fireside was so beautiful and I took a picture of the program to always remember how special it was.

 The next day we flew into Kauai to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.  Our sweet Mission President told us to take a week but we are so busy on weekends we are just taking the week.  So it was pretty exciting.  I have to wait until Maile gets here (she's coming Monday with her family, Yeah! we're so excited) to help me download from my underwater camera but I will do the text now.

Sunrise off our lanai

Entertainment at our resort at night

We started out Monday having a catamaran ride up the Napali Coast, to snorkel and see the sights. We were to have breakfast and lunch and return in the afternoon.  Well, we went up the coast for about 2 hours and got close to a beach where we could get out and snorkel.  I waited until everyone was off the boat to ask if Ramon could please not wear fins, as that is how Ramon broke the screws in his ankle on our trip to the Great Barrier Reef.  The captain, a woman, said sure, if he stayed within her eyesight at the back of the boat.  I put on fins and was sitting on the slide to slide down into the water and was waiting for this couple to get out of my way.

Then guy said "She's been bit by something!"  and she said "it had long teeth and it hurts!"  So I helped the captain get her out of the water and saw the bites before they started to really bleed a lot.  We got her up and out and laying down and she was kind of going into shock so we wrapped towels around her.  Meanwhile, the captain yelled at her three guys to get everyone out of the water but don't say "shark!"  It was a young shark that bit her.  She ended up being okay and we had to turn around and take her back for medical care, of course.  She ended up laughing and we all told her she'd probably make it on TV.  It took us an hour to get back to shore, but they fed us la really nice lunch and then refunded all out money but $100. which was really pretty good of them.

As we were returnng,  a lady about my age came up and asked if we were from Utah, of course Ramon almost always wears his BYU shirts, if not Aloha shirts every where we go.  I told her yes, and she said they were from Idaho Falls.  I told her we were on a mission in Oahu and so we talked for a long time about missions.  Her sons have served.  She was really nice and had lived in Orem when a child.

We did see a whole bunch, like 100 dolphins playing and jumping and I have pictures I will post later.

The next day we were to go on a helicopter ride that Ramon wanted to do but I was a little scared of.  It was to be at 11:00 and at 9:00 they called and said the Pilot said he was cancelling the trip due to rain.  I was disappointed and all geared up to be brave.  Later our friends from the mission here, went on Friday and said it was wonderful and the highlight of their trip.  So we decided to just drive around and sight see. We went up the coast to where Captain Cook landed...

Ramon by Captain Cooks statue

So then Thursday we took a Roberts Movie tour of Kauai, to see all the sights where movies were filmed. It wasn't really fun but kind of interesting.

Coco Palms Resort Canal, Elvis floated along here in the day

I took some cool pictures of this place called Coco Palms where Blue Hawaii was filmed and many other movies.  It was destroyed in hurricane Iniki (the worst hurricane ever on Hawaii) in 1994, and then later burned badly  by homeless people.  Now it sits on 37 acres of beautiful land and a lagoon but it's terribly overrun.  There was this old,   as in 94 year old man,   there promoting his musical CD's.  He started at the Palms as a busboy at 10 years old and worked his way up.  He said he new all the old movie stars.  I asked him about Elvis.  He wrote for Elvis.  We bought a CD.  HIs name is Larry Rivera and he was a cute old man.  He wrote a song I knew well, Kamalani, the legend of a frog, the Princess told him to write a song and meanwhile she put legends in every room about the Toads/frogs that were so plentiful there.  He gave all the credit to God, he said he just made the tunes and words flow.  I recognize so many of his songs.  He's old now and only the old people remember him.

Larry Rivera, you can see how destroyed the property is.

Wailua River State Park

Wailua Falls

Spouting Horn

Princeville

Hanalei Bay, 18 months ago there was a horrible
hurricane that brought 9 feet of water  and wiped out most homes.  It has
taken them since then to rebuild, and as you see in this picture restoration
is still on going.  Every so many hours in the day the road
will be closed for 1/2 hour so they can do repairs on and off
during the day to the road.  It, like Oahu, has only one main
road in most of the island.

As we were driving home from the airport we were both happy to 

return, and Ramon took this picture of the Sunset at Sharks Cove.

Sunday

We had a super week last week.  As is known, Elder Sanft has macular degeneration.  He has lost the use of his right eye and the doctor's are trying to help his remaining eye.  A month ago we went into his appointment and the doctor told us his eye didn't look good and she was concerned.  She said to come back in a month and meanwhile go see an optomologist to see if it was just due to aging.  We did that and that doctor said he couldn't help and to just get stronger reading glasses.  Our daughter ordered him some 450+ readers.  Well meanwhile we talked about about what if he couldn't drive any more, ...we'd get rid of his car, etc.   I have been driving most of this mission, due to no drivers license and it is too hard for him to get one in Utah let alone Hawaii.

Well,  we went to our appointment in Honolulu, and he went through about 2 hours of testing, and the doctor came in, looked everything over and said it looked really good, his eye sight was back to where it had been before 20/50 she was very surprised!  Tender mercies of our Father in Heaven, as well as a great miracle for Elder Sanft and I.

Saturday our sweet friend Anela Wells, whose son plays football for Kahuku High school called and said she had some Kahuku football shirts for both of us and invited us to the Homecoming game this.  We were feeding our sweet Sunset YSA Branch Sisters dinner but we went to the game after.

That little white dot was a giant moon over the light
last night, I don't know what it looks so small here

We were late and hardly could find a place to sit but finally sat on the second row towards the far end zone.  Not long after my wonderful friend, Alan Uyehara, he's my old friend from CCH, walked by with his wife and they sat right in front of us.  Alan was married to another friend of mind, and moved from Laie to BYU to further his studies, and when we were newly married we got together a bit.  They had a new baby Jared, who looked like a little Budda, while I was pregnant with Doran.  I hadn't seen Alan but once in all that time until this past July when I met his wife at our "break the fast" for couples at the PCC and she happened to tell me who she was married too.  I was so happy to see Alan.  He had divorced from the other lady and married Dawnne, whom I love too.  She is from New Zealand and they live in Texas and are now here on a mission.  They are dorm parents at BYUH.  We love running into them.  You are never too old to start right out from where you left off in friendships. 

Alan's grandson was the Homecoming King, so is why they were there, to celebrate this occasion.  Here is a picture of Alan and his wife and his son Aaron, not the father of the Homecoming King but the uncle, Jared is the father of the King, and I didn't take a picture :)

Elder Sanft, Dawnne, Alan, Aaron Uyehara

Tuesday

Today we ran in to Trippler VA for Ramon to have a test and we were really worried something would go wrong and we'd not get back for our luncheon we are in charge of with the Mission President and his wife and the returning missionaries.  But we prayed that all would go well, and we were at the appointment an hour early and all went well.  We even got home two hours early and so didn't have to rush. But then when I went over to pick up the order from Taco Bell they had forgotten it and I had to wait while they compiled 48 nacho tacos and 24 chicken burritos!

Here are some pictures of these remarkable Elders and Sisters returning home after fulfilling an honorable mission!

They are singing
a "Thank you"
song, then "We are as the Armies of Helaman"  bring tears 
to  my eyes every time.

"My" Elder Tauteoli, torqoise lei I made,  "My" Elder Bass black lei I made, two special young men I love!
Both going home to  Utah and we hope to see much of them in the future!

Elder Allen, black lei I made, he's my 4th cousin Mom's side, has red hair!

Last night we had a unique FHE at the PCC,  They were celebrating Oktober Fest with the Senior Missionaries and gave us all brats and root beer floats, but they were out of root beer!  But it was nice of them and we enjoyed the company.  After we ran back to our YSA FHE where they were have a dance off to a video.  It was interesting to watch them dance.  Some had some pretty good moves.  We didn't stay very long as I had to get up at 5 a.m. to bake cookies for the luncheon with the Elders so we could leave early for our doctor's appointment in town at 10 a.m.  Here's some pictures...

I love these kids!

Sunday October 6,2019

This weekend was Conference weekend.  Such a nice two days to enjoy the spoken word and inspiration from our church leaders.

Last week on Thursday we went into Honolulu with the Tuitupos for an activity with the couples.  We went to the Floating Pagoda Restaurant!  The Walkers met us there.  They are the former Car Zare and nurse who have extended for another 6 months and been assigned here in Laie, mainly so our Sisters at the VC have a nurse.  It was a fun night and the food was great.  Here are a few pictures.

Tuitupos on back left, Elder Walker in front of them, and Sister Walker in front of us

Saturday my son Doran ran in the St. George 
Marathon again.  He ran the last 5 miles
with bloody blisters on his foot.  I'll spare
us the pictures of his foot.  But here he is...

He's in orange on right.

Today after conference at noon I ran into
Laie and picked up Grace Miller and Maggie
Christensen from their dorms.  These girls are
from our ward in Provo and here attending
BYUH.  We had lunch and then a fun afternoon
showing them some sights close to where we
live.

Waimea Bay looking down from the  Heiou

Then we drove to the turtle beach but no turtles were out and then on the the"lost" beach and the giant Banyan tree there.

Grace and Maggie

Maggie and Grace at TurtleBay

We had a great afternoon with these beautiful young ladies!