A wonderful week with Mom!

Mom is leaving tomorrow and we've been so busy that I haven't had time to post! We've been quite active! While Derek was at work we spent a few moments of normal life around here- doing school, going to the grocery store & Target, etc. But we also stayed busy showing her around. We took her to the North Shore where we went swimming in Waimea Falls. The rainfall in the mountains hasn't been as much as the past few weeks so the falls were much less full but that made it perfect to coax Ella into swimming out to them with us. Also, last time we went it was quite packed but this time we had the falls to ourselves. It was so peaceful and wonderful and of course, Mom loved the plants, flowers & birds! We also stummbled across the filming of the new Hawaii 5-0 show and it was fun to watch that happen for a bit- unfortunately no sighting of my Lost actor- Daniel Day Kim... bummer... no stalking today! :) We took Grandmom shopping & to the zoo too.
On Friday, Derek had the day off and we took off to Haleiwa on the North Shore. We stopped for delicious (ono) shaved ice- which is quite popular here. We also went to the beach there and rented a paddle board so Mom could try that out. We enjoyed trying it out on the open ocean too. The beach was so quiet- there were only a few other people on the beach and there were a lot of sea turtles out there to snorkel to and check out.

On Saturday, Mom & I took off alone and went to Pearl Harbor to tour the USS Arizona Memorial. It was so sad hearing the facts and traveling back into World War 2. There are about 1,000 men still buried under the sea in the Arizona and the memorial spans over the boat whose deck lies just 8 feet below the surface after it sank in 9 minutes taking 1,177 sailors and Marines with it. It was a quite sobering sight seeing oil leaking out of the surface of the water still. Then we had a wonderful treat when my Mom took us out to dinner and told us that my wonderful grandparents sent money along to treat us to dinner. That was such a fun gift! Mahalo Poppop & Grandmom!

Today we drove to the Leeward (West) side of the island to Waianae to take a dolphin watching tour. Just minutes out of harbor, we found ourselves inside of a pod of 50 to 75 spinner dolphins. They had several of their tiny babies with them and they put on quite a show playing in the surf behind the boat, racing in front of the boat and jumping and spinning out of the water. It was amazing to see that many dolphins together out in the open sea. We toured up the coast and saw more amazing beaches and mountains and views which we'll now have to find from the island side. It was wonderful to see them from the water side though!

All in all, this time with Mom has been amazing. It was such a blessing to have her with us everyday and I know that I'm going to hate having to drop her off at the airport again tomorrow. It will be another 3 months until we'll be together again when both Dad and Mom get to come out. What a blessing to have a Mom who is such a good friend and who loves me and my whole family so well!