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.