Day 4, and a milestone anniversary!

 

 

Wednesday was an extra special day.

Casey and I marked 10 years of marriage!

It honestly doesn't feel like its been TEN years since we got married.

I blinked and all of a sudden I had 3 kids and have been married a decade.

Casey makes marriage life easy.

He never has raised his voice to me. Like ever.

He is always first to forgive.

He is patient, loving, and encouraging.

Don't get me wrong we have had our ups and downs but

with my stubborn personality I was fortunate to have

been blessed with a husband with such an easy going spirit.

Sometimes I don't know how I deserve such an amazing guy.

I feel lucky he chose me to love for the rest of his life.

To be his partner in crime.

To share the hard times with.

To be the first person I text when I need to vent,

or when our kids say or do the funniest things.

I love how he chooses to sit on the couch and watch tv with me at

night even though he is dead tired.

Because he wants to spend time with me instead of sleep.

I love how he loves to make us waffles and homemade syrup  for breakfast.

And it's nice having a husband who is always on board for getting blizzards

or making homemade cookies!

He is one in a million!

 

We had tickets to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center that day.

They don't open until 12:30 so we decided to do a temple session first.

We took a different route to get to the North Shore than on Monday.

 Boy, it was the most gorgeous drive I have ever been on!

It was an overcast day so it was more misty and cloudy than normal.

We were on a typical looking highway then had to drive through a

long, dark tunnel. When we drove out of the tunnel this was what

we were greeted with:

 

It was so green and lush everywhere.
It was like that the rest of our hour drive.

I know it sounds cheesy but the primary song My Heavenly Father Loves Me

kept popping in my head as we were driving along.

It was a beautiful scenic route and a perfect way to start a temple session.

 

 

This is Chinaman's hat.

People will actually swim out to it.

I think they might be a little crazy.

When we pulled up to the temple it started to sprinkle.

I didn't think much of it because in Hawaii the weather is so unpredictable.

I felt bad for Casey.

I didn't pack real church clothes for the sake of space in our suitcases.

 Plus we were going to the PCC right after so he was a

good sport and wore this to temple.

I figured Hawaii is the only temple we could get away with it.

I knew he was feeling a little uncomfortable walking into to the

temple like that. Luckily the man behind us was wearing an aloha shirt:)

 

Our session was great.

 I was anxious to see if the weather had let up.

It hadn't. In fact it was pretty much raining when we walked out.

I wanted a picture but we were getting soaked so we went into the

visitor center to see if it would let up.

We talked with the sister missionaries for a bit then looked outside and it

had stopped raining! It was more like a light mist.

They sister's walked out with us and took our pictures.

 

 



 

Then we drove down the street for some lunch at the Hukilau café!

The place is a dive but it was really good!

They are well known. They were on the show Diners, Drive In's and Dives

with Guy Fieri. LOVE that show!

 





I got the traditional Hawaiian meal.

Bbq chicken, beef, macaroni salad and rice.

We could have easily shared it.

 Casey got a burger that was really good.

Then we were off to the PCC!

The Polynesian Cultural Center is run by the church.

However most of the tourists that go are not members.

It is world known and is AMAZING!

BYU Hawaii offers scholarships to students.

Mainly those that live on other Pacific Islands like Fiji, Tahiti, and Samoa.

They offer free schooling and board in exchange for them to work at the PCC.

The PCC is like Sea World in a sense.

There are different Islands you visit and learn about their culture.

Most of them have shows you sit down and watch.

 

We started in Fiji. The show had already started so we decided to watch the

demonstration on how to make coconut oil.

We were the only ones that showed up so we got our own little lesson.

This guy had come to BYU  Hawaii 4 months ago from Fiji.

It sounded like the village he lived in was poor.

Like grass hut houses, and no windows.

Part of their weekly chores was to make coconut oil for the family.

And this is exactly how they do it at home.

 

First they had to pick the coconuts which is a task in it's self.

You have to get the coconut out of the husk by pounding it on a stake.

 



 

Then you crack the coconut open with a big rock and dump out the juice.

Then they sit on a wooden bench with a metal scrapper nailed on the edge.

They say this is the worst part, scrapping the meat out of the coconut shell.

then you get some hairs from the husk of the coconut and put some coconut

meat in the middle and squeeze and strain the milk out of the meat.

 

That is the milk he strained out.

Then you let it sit and ferment for a few days.

The oil separates from the milk and voila, you have coconut oil!

He says they put flower pedals in the oil to make it smell pretty.

They don't cook with their coconut oil, just us it as lotion and in their hair.

It was so interesting!!

 Then we went to Tonga where we laughed our heads off!!

These guys were a hoot.

They grabbed 3 men from the audience to participate in their drum show.

They try to make it funny and pick people that don't know English or who look

super shy. Oh my, we were rolling by the end of that one!

We had a guy from Canada who was eating the attention up.

Then an older man from Korea who was flippin funny and kept saying I fro KoreA!

Haha, then a black man from Nashville TN who had a deer in headlights look

the whole time. When it was his turn to copy the Tongan with drum beats,

the Tongan guy went crazy then started yelling in the microphone a chant of some sort.

Now it was his turn to copy so he did a few pounds on the drum then sang, who let the

dogs out and we all lost it!!!

I WISH I had a picture of it!!!!

 

 



 They do a canoe boat show in the middle of the day.

But first we had to indulge in their special treat they serve at the PCC,  Island Delights.

 They were selling their desserts off of canoes.



Its fresh tropical fruit cocktail with rainbow sherbet.

I am not a sherbet fan but this was good.

Back in the day they used to serve it in a fresh, hollowed out

pineapple.

 

 

Then the show began.

They had each of the 7 Islands come out on their own canoe

and do a dance while being rowed to the river.

 

The Tahitian dancers are my favorite.

I seriously don't know how they move their hips that fast.

I made a mental note to myself that if I was ever having a

bad hair day to remember these poor girls and that it could be a whole lot worse!

Ok, this guy was a riot! He served his mission in Samoa so since he knew

the language they let him be with the Samoa group. He was getting way into the dance

and you can see how is chest is all red from him pounding on it with his hands.

 



 

After the show we bee lined it to the Samoa show.

This guy was a crack up as well.

He had a Rico Suave soft voice and mannerism.

 



 Then he showed us how they climb up the coconut trees.

 Some of the food they were cooking for the Luau later on. 

 We took a ride in the canoes.

 

He loves posing for pictures:)

We bought tickets for their Luau and night show.

We hopped in line where we got laid then sat us at a table with 8 other people.

this is what the set up looked like.

They sure know how to handle crowds!



There was a buffet with typical luau food.

 For part of the show they had any couples that were celebrating anniversary's come up to the stage.

We stayed put.

 So glad we did because they made them dance in front of everybody.

We probably would have just sat back down while everybody else danced!



After the luau we walked around for 30 minutes before the big night show started.

You weren't allowed to take pictures inside but the show was really good.

We were beat by the end. It was 10pm and we still had to drive an hour home.

We got lucky and it never rained again.

It ended up being a perfect anniversary day with my honey!