The Palm Tour: Day 1 and Day 2

The Palm Family Tour service has officially started! Brian's mom and step-dad arrived in town late Tuesday night after traveling for nearly twenty two hours to get here from Michigan. Needless to say, their internal clocks were a little off, so we just decided to just take it easy on Day 1 of the tour. Yesterday was mainly a small driving tour . . . we drove around Kapolei, the town that we live in (actually, it's more like a small city with nearly 80,000 residents) . . .up to the nearby Army base where we do most of our grocery shopping and medical visits . . . down to Costco, where we grabbed a quick but yummy lunch (for less that $10 I might add, thanks to Costco's reasonable prices) . . . down to a popular shopping area . . .over to the Ewa Beach area . . .a quick drive by the Air Station where Brian works . . . over to the grocery store for a few items . . . and then home. Nothing too exciting, but they got a good lay of the land. Once we got home and relaxed a bit, the kids were excited to learn that their official book reader (a/k/a Grammy) had brought some new books. Yeaaaa!!!!



We concluded the day with my home made Thai peanut sauce, rice, egg rolls, and California rolls, and then we all hit the sack pretty early.

Today, Day 2, we decided to venture out a little further, and first we hit the Dole Plantation since Brian's step-dad had not been there yet. I have been to the Dole Plantation several times now (five times I think) and have already taken lots of pictures there, so today I decided to take some pictures of some new stuff. You can see that Zander was already quite exhausted by this point.



Charley's favorite part is the Coy fish pond, where for $.50 you can get a hand full of stinky fish food to feed the fish. And, as you can see, the fish go nuts.



Did you know that pineapples actually grow on a bush-like structure on the ground? Maybe I'm the only total moron around here, but for some reason I thought they grew in trees. Boy, was I wrong.



Looks good enough to eat!


After the Dole Plantation, we drove up to the North Shore to a town called Haleiwa (pronounced Hall-ee-ay-va), which is a cool little surf town with lots of neat shops and restaurants. We grabbed some lunch up there and then walked around and looked through a bunch of touristy shops. Then we decided to hit Matsumoto's Shave Ice, which is one of the most famous shave ice retailers in the world (it was featured on the movie "50 First Dates"). They have the yummiest shave ice around, so we stopped in there for some dessert. The line was long, but it was worth it! After munching down our treats, we decided to head to the Navy Exchange, which is the one of the largest exchanges in the world. The coolest part of the exchange, however, is that the entire ceiling in the main area is painted by Hawaii's most famous artist, Wyland. Hopefully one of these days I will remember to take my camera with me so I can get a picture. The ceiling and walls are painted to look like you are underwater, with whales, dolphins, and fish swimming all around. It's absolutely breathtaking! After wandering around the exchange for a while and letting the kids ride on a couple kiddie rides, we headed for home. Tonight we ended the evening with some of my famous tacos, which I think everyone enjoyed.

And now I must run for my weekly dose of girl time at the neighbor's house since Grey's Anatomy is all new tonight. Check in later for more on the Palm Family Tour!