an-yeong and aloha...

i've always said, "if on your way home from the orient, you happen to overfly a small tropical island where half your family is gathered, including a sister who can get you a smokin' military discount at a beachfront hotel via a deployed husband; you might as well stop in for a couple of days." i've always said that- ask anyone. and so it was in the name of integrity that we stopped off in honolulu for a little beach play and time zone depressurization- above all else, i have to be true to myself.
if korea was a complicated trip, we oversimplified this one to the extreme. for three days, our movements were confined entirely to an area so small it would have driven a common housepet crazy. our activities consisted entirely of playing at the same beach, and we had bames ship all of our food in. (mostly gyros, which to my shock, mom ate with much enthusiasm- i have been trying to get her to taste a gyro for the better part of 15 years, and she fought it the whole way.) any reference to our "back to basics" schedule, however, should not be interpreted as meaning that there were not a fair share of complications. a walk to the beach which could reasonably be accomplished by a semi-healthy geriatric in under three minutes took an average of just over an hour for our group, as the path calculatingly lead by the hotel snack shack. penelope also insisted on "washing" her feet at the courtesy spigot until i was sure the o'ahu coastline was going to meet up with neighboring molokai. satisfying repeated supplications for refreshment detours gave us little respite. while scotty (who subsisted primarily on nachos) censured grandma's "unhealthy" election to drink soda, penelope cried as her ice cream dripped down the cone, wailed as it began to tip, bawled if anyone tried to lick it for her, and otherwise absolutely dissolved in tears when she was encouraged to eat it for herself. eli on the other hand enthusiastically consumed his chocolate cone, sobbing only afterwards, because he had wanted "swirl".
the sun was unforgiving (i was severely disappointed to learn that the human leg was not designed with built-in ultraviolet protection) although the water was perfect for multiple group swims to a 100 meter buoy, and water football with a serendipitously happened upon rubber frog which we had planned to return to the universe upon leaving, but became so popular that it now makes its domicile somewhere in bames' limited storage space. overall, the combination of sun, water and gyros made waikiki a comparable, if not slightly better family reunion locale than vernal, utah- and i gained tremendous clout with my nephew scott when i admitted to methodically relieving myself in the ocean.

scott's sand-crafted lounge chair.

sand in the mouth.

eli holds the aligator we found along with its amphibious cousin. the frog we held hostage- the aligator somehow managed to return to the universe on its own.