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The next day we all decided to go on a walk.  It was so beautiful outside and the sun was warm, why stay in?  There were so many people doing the same thing.  No one wanted to miss the Hawaiian sun, especially on Christmas Eve!  Like I said before, our hotel was within walking distance of the beach.  Mommy said it's called Waikiki Beach.  There was so much sand there, it went on until almost forever .  There was so much water that when you looked out the sky touched it.  Now, the only sand I've ever seen was a place Mommy and Daddy call Santa Cruz.  It's cold there even when the sun shines and the water makes my feet feel like I'm standing in a bowl of ice cream.  The sand at Waikiki Beach is so warm, it feels like a heater all over your feet, but it wasn't too hot.  I loved playing in the sand.  It was so fun digging in it, squishing it through my fingers and throwing over my hair all over my hair.

But then I got interested in the water.  The water at this beach was so warm that it felt like my bath water.  It was clear and I could see all the sand at the bottom.  I felt like checking out the water right away.

Daddy walked around the beach with me while Mommy took all the pictures.  As you can see, I REALLY enjoyed the water.  It was so amazing to me because the water comes up to you and then runs away.  At first,I walked up to it to see if it would do anything and then I'd run away from it, too!  After a little while I got braver and then got into the water.

I sat in it and splashed a bit and then I'd run up back into the sand.  By the end of it all, my shirt and shorts were soaked and dragging down.  Unfortunately, I wasn't actually dressed for beach play so my diaper was pretty wet, too.

Oh well, that's what makes it a vacation: I jump into water and get myself all wet, Mommy and Daddy cheer me on and don't even get mad when I get sand in my bottom! 

Anyways, I got all washed off, sand, diaper, clothes and all and we continued on our walk.  The stop at the beach was just meant to be a stop but I got so excited as we got closer to the water that Mommy and Daddy didn't want to tear me away.  A breeze was gently coming in from the water.  It felt pretty good.  Mommy called it the Tradewinds.  I like the tradewinds.  They helped dry me off with its warm and soft breeze. After getting all of the sand off of me, I got what Mommy called "beach hair" which means it was kind of salty and messy and a little bit sandy.  I looked like a real Hawaiian boy.

Later that afternoon, Grandma Aurora, Grandpa Tom and Uncle Chris arrived on their long airplane flight.  They decided to come a little bit later than we did.  They arrived right on time, which is lucky because we were really late.  Some rain clouds and rain didn't want us to start our vacation and delayed us by about 2 hours.

The very next day was actually Christmas.  We got up kind of late.  That's the weird thing about spending Christmas on vacation: no tree, no lights, no presents, no chimney for Santa to use to visit.  Instead, we had planned to go to Christmas day mass at a church that Uncle Steve (Ninany Nancy's boyfriend) used to go to when he lived in Hawaii.  Mommy and Daddy did some research and found out that the church was near a place called Aloha Stadium.  Grandpa made it sound like it was really far away but it wasn't too bad.  We found the place pretty easy.  The church is connected to a school and you can literally see Aloha Stadium from their parking lot.  The church was all decorated with a huge Nativity scene (that's what Mommy called it) at front.  The wall behind the altar where the priest stands is a long row of windows which let in light during the whole mass.  I thought that was pretty neat.  The best part of the mass, other than just being at mass to celebrate Jesus' birthday, was the music.  It was just like home.  The man that is in charge of the music there began a LifeTeen ministry at the church.  They use the same book of music that Mommy and Uncle Nelson have.  They have very good singers there.  Mommy kept saying how she liked the music and the 'harm-o-nees'.  I just liked the way everything sounded.  They even were singing the same mass parts that we were singing back home and Mommy said they sang the exact same responsorial psalm that we were scheduled to have back home!  So going to mass there was just like being back at SMG for Christmas mass.  Mommy liked their music so much that we decided to go back for New Year's Day mass the following Sunday.  The Christmas morning mass was pretty empty.  Either most of the people went during the Christmas vigil mass or they were skipping Christmas day mass.  The priest said during our mass that the vigil mass was pretty packed so I hope the people didn't decide to skip the Christmas mass entirely.  After the mass ended the priest greeted everyone a Merry Christmas.  He asked if we were visiting and we told him we were visiting from the mainland.  We also told him that we came to that specific church because of Uncle Steve's suggestion and that we really liked it.  He said he was glad we liked the mass and hoped we'd return.

Later that night was the family Christmas party.  This is an annual event for all of Grandpa Tom's family in Hawaii.  Everyone that can come does.  This year it was held at Carol's brother's house.  Carol spends time travelling to the mainland to do crafts fairs, mainly in Japantown.  Her brother's house is near Tripler Hospital, north of Aiea, if that means anything to anyone else.  There were so many people there.  I had never seen so many people in one room before who were all related to each other.  Some of the people knew Mommy but Mommy didn't remember all of them.  It was really interesting to see all of these people.  They were so nice to me and the little kids played with me.  But you know, the best part of the night was meeting my great-grandma: Mommy's daddy's mom or Grandpa's mommy.  She was there.  Her hair is all white and she smiled very softly at me.  She kept saying something to Mommy but I couldn't hear because it was too loud in the room.  I do know that Uncle Chris videotaped the whole thing because it felt kind of like an important moment in my life.  I know that Mommy, Daddy and Grandpa seemed very interested in our first meeting.  Unfortunately, we didn't get any regular pictures of our first meeting.  We took all of those pictures when we met again for New Years the following week.  But we did get some nice pictures of Grandma by herself and with her sisters and brother.

The rest of the night was lots of fun.  Grandpa's family likes to play lots of games and give lots of presents.  While the big people got to play the games, us little kids got to run around and be kids.  That was pretty fun for a long time.

Then near the end of the night, Grandma decided it would be a really good idea to do a big family picture time.  They split into each family and then did a big group shot.  There were so many people in the picture!  Now don't you ask me who all these people are because I don't know.  Mommy told me she knows that  Grandpa's cousin Carol is in the middle with short black hair.  In front in the red is her mom.  Next to Carol's mom in the black shirt is MY great-grandma.  Grandpa is standing behind her.  Next to Grandpa is Grandpa's sister, Auntie Marion and kneeling in front with the yellow shirt is Uncle Calvin.  The rest I know somewhat but I can't remember all their names.  It was a big happy family reunion, though.  Lots of people and lots of smiling. 

After that who photo business, I was pretty tired from running around with all the kids all night.  I kind of got sleepy and a bit grumpy.  After lots of goodbyes and thank yous, we loaded into the car and drove back to Waikiki where our hotel was waiting for us. 

The next day, Christmas was done.  No more Santa and no more party.  But there was still LOTS of fun to be had!  The night before, we had gotten some Christmas presents to open. I didn't know anything about this so it felt like Santa had really come to visit me.  But he got lost since I wasn't home for Christmas and so the presents were late.  So we ate breakfast, got showered and dressed and then opened up the little goodies that we received the night before.    I decided to be my usual helpful self and help Mommy and Daddy open up the packages.

After we got to see what was in the goody bags, we headed out for the day.  I had no idea but we were headed towards the famous North Shore of O'ahu.  Was I destined for big wave surfing?  Was I headed for huge pipeline poses?  Was I going to hang 10 with my 10 little piggies?  Well, no.  Being winter, the waves were are their highest - somewhere in the neighborhood of 35" that particular day.  So instead, we wound our way up a highway called H1 and then another called H2 and then another called 99.  I noticed that the big tall buildings went away very fast.  They were replaced by big tall green mountains.  Then suddenly the mountains were gone and then everything was a hill and then flat.  Lots of dirt and flowers and trees.  Where did everything go?  I don't know but since it was so flat and the ride was so comfy, I fell asleep.

When I woke up we were somewhere totally different than anything I've ever seen before.  The air smelled fresh and kind of sweet.  There was a soft breeze in the air which felt really nice.  We were are the Dole Plantation.  I didn't know it at the time, but Dole is a big thing for Hawaii.  They grow those yellow things called "pine-apples" I see in the grocery store. Did you know that the plantation has a big maze and a choo choo? 

I didn't go through the maze but Daddy bought us tickets to ride the train!  But since we had to wait for the train, we walked around a little bit and took pictures.  Here Mommy and I are posing in front of baby pineapple plants.  We just liked the color of the flowers behind the plants.

Then we got in line to wait for the train.  They had benches to sit on in case the train got delayed.  When it did come back, you could see the train coming from pretty far away.

We loaded onto the train and found a good seat. Mommy wanted to make sure I could see. Thankfully, there was lots of room on the train.

The train ride took us all around the plantation.  I saw flowers, dirt, pineapples, macadamia nut trees, and LOTS of plants.  There were plants until the sky met the ground. 

At the end of our Dole plantation tour, we took what Mommy calls the customary tourist pictures.  Apparently these pictures are for my benefit.  Mommy has been all over O'ahu so we did the tourist thing because Daddy has never visited these places and, of course, neither have I.

After our picture taking, we loaded back in the car.  Little did I know I was in for a treat.  Further of 99 is a split in the road.  This split will take you back down the western side of the island or up towards the big waves of the North Shore.  We headed North.  After a lot of traffic and little big of back tracking we found our wait to a place called "Haleiwa".  Mommy seemed particularly anxious to get to this place.  We drove into town and passed some tiny shops and restaurants.  Our car parked next to a little building with a VERY long line in front of it.  It has a sign: "M. Matsumoto Grocery Store". This was no ordinary store.  It was a special place where the best shaved ice in the world lives.  It was Matsumoto Shave Ice.  Grandpa brought Mommy to this store when she first visited Hawaii many years ago when she was a little girl.  She never forgot the amazing taste of the shave ice there.  She says there's nothing else like it in the world.  Because of that we couldn't leave Hawaii without tasting it.  So we got in line and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  But when we got inside there were decisions to be made. How many shaved ice?  What size?  What flavor?  No doubt they HAD to have ice cream.  Did Daddy want beans?  Okay, no. They wondered if I would eat it or not.  Oh well, if not, more for them...  So we ordered and got our world famous shave ice.  I did eat it and it was YUMMY!!!  Oh my goodness. it was cold and sweet and colorful and YUMMY!!! 

We spent  lot of time driving around the island that day.  It began with presents in the hotel room, a nap and a drive out to the Dole plantation and continued with a visit to the north shore.  After Matsumoto Shave Ice we left the little shop and drove further down the road.  The next town over from Haleiwa had more picture spots were photographers and tourists could catch the sunset over the pounding waves.  We stopped because Mommy noticed the sun was setting and the lighting was really good for taking pictures.  It was kind of scary and amazing and impressive at the same time.  I'd never seen anything like it in my life.  So we took a few pictures...

These pictures are undoctored with the exeption of resizing and one level of sharpening.  (The lens was a little dirty because of my little fingers.)  But the sunset really glowed like that.  Also, these pictures were taken in a matter of minutes.  Mommy said that the light at this time of day fades quickly so you have to get your shots in quickly or the light is gone.  She was right.

After the sunset over Haleiwa and the rest of the island, we continued our journey down the eastern side of the island.  Whatever remaining light was fading fast and we still had lots of road ahead of us. Remember, we were just outside of Haleiwa on the north shore and we were staying in Waikiki on the southern shore.

Fortunately, the roads were pretty clear and clean.  Not much 'country road' around this island.  We travelled through so many valleys and I lost track.  Mommy would read the names off as we travelled through them just to keep track of our progress along the way.  Finally, long after the sun went to bed and miles after we left Haleiwa, we got into Kaneohe and took the highway through the mountains back to Waikiki.  It was dark and no one else was on the roadway.  That was kind of spooky, especially because the mountains were black and the only think you could see was the road and the lights on it.  After travelling through the mountain we got back to the 'city'...we found our exit and got back to Kalakaua Ave.  It was nice to be 'home' after spending all that time driving and sitting and looking out the window.  I was ready for some milk and bedtime.