Hawaii

~Taking a break from the now to get caught up on the past~

January 2011

So after Uncle Ula's funeral we decided to stay in Hawaii for a few extra days......I mean we had all our kids w/ us and Jr & Tina were there with all their kids, and so was Gramma & Grampa Fangupo and Sau.....so why not make a vacation of it??  The funeral was on Thursday and Friday, and we stayed in Hawaii until the following Wednesday.  We had tons of fun on our little family vacay....spending the whole time just cruising the island, swimming and of course, eating!!  :)

Friday after the services were finished and we had buried him, we all decided to go on a little drive......we just wanted to go site-seeing and we stopped by a beach and let the kids get out and throw some rocks in the ocean. 

It was getting dark really fast, so we didn't site-see that long that night.  Gramma & Grampa took off and we went with Jr & Tina, just crusing around.....we went and visited old Tonganville.....it's the place that all the Lomu's lived at back in the day....called Tonganville because it was full of Tongans.  We drove through it and now it should be called Phillipinoville, cause it's all Philipinos now....hahaha... The houses were so close, like if you walked out your door in 5 steps you'd be at someone else's door.  I just sat there and listened to Ova and Jr reminiss about the time they stayed there and how they can't believe how ghetto it is, but when they were there they didn't think it was.  There's a huge mango tree on the corner that they all used to hang out at....we drove by that, it was still there.  It was a nice walk down memory lane for them.  After that, we decided to go back and get some sleep so we could wake up bright and early the next morning to hit the swap meet.  That's one of my favorite things to do in Hawaii.......we don't really buy too much stuff when we're there, but we eat the li-hing mui mangos and pineapple and chew on the sugar cane as we walk up and down the rows of vendors.  Ova always gets his beach shorts from there because they're big, comfortable, and cheap!  And I think 8 t-shirts for $20.00 isn't to shabby of a deal for my boys!  And of course, I bought Lautala the jade bracelet that I've always wanted her to have!!  Fun times!

After walking around the swap meet for a few hours, we were all hot, tired and hungry.....so Gramma and Grampa took us all to Rainbows to get some good Hawaiian food.  We stopped by 7-11 to get some drinks and then headed down the street to a little park to eat.  It was so funny because while the kids ate and played on the playground, all us adults sat on the little cement fence and didn't say a word for like 20 minutes while we stuffed our faces.....must have been hungry!  hahaha

After we got our grub on, we all wanted to go swimming.  We were heading to Kailua beach.....which is the beach right down the street from Uncle Ula's house, the one that we always go to, but when we drove by it...it was WAY too packed.....we didn't really have a plan in mind or where we were going to go, so we kept driving and headed to Lanikai, where Uncle Ula worked.  We drove by the Paul Mitchell estate and it was a huge rush of emotion remembering all the times we were there with Uncle.  I couldn't help but cry.  Of course, the house is enclosed by a big huge fancy gate and you couldn't see the house through the gate...so we pulled over and went up to look over the gate.  As I looked inside I saw one of Uncle Ula's co-workers in there cleaning up and doing the maintenance on the yard.  I immediately called Tina over (cause she has no shame.....and I love it!) and told her to talk to him.  She yelled his name and he came over to the gate and Tina was just chit-chatting with him, telling him that we just wanted to come one last time to see where Uncle Ula worked and that we wanted to swim but the beach was too full......he told us to hold on and he walked away, and all the sudden the gate opened!  He invited us in to swim on Paul Mitchell's private beach while he finished up his work.  It was perfect and totally made our trip to be able to swim there for the last time. 

Can u believe the background? Breathtakingly beautiful!!

Kina, Ova & Lautala w/ Rick (Uncle Ula's co-worker)

On the beach

Couple shots!....Fun in the sun!

Hangin' out enjoying the view

We swam pretty much until it was dark and by the time we were done, we were all exausted.  We went and grabbed something to eat and went home to sleep.  The next day we didn't really have anything planned....we slept in until like noon and then went to Cinnamon's, this little restaurant down the street from Uncle Ula's house....we used to go there with him everytime we were in Hawaii.....so now we always try to make it there, just to remember him.  They serve breakfast all day and it is delicious!!  They have the most delicious guava pancakes and Ova loves their loco moco!  We didn't do much that day, just drove around a little more and enjoyed our family time!  That night we met up with all the rest of Ova's cousins that came for the funeral and headed to the Laie point.  All the boys kicked it outside talking and catching up while us wives sat in the cars with the kids (not fun! haha)

The next day was Sunday and we just wanted to spend the whole day cruising again.  Jr & Tina left Hawaii that day so it was just our little family and Sau.  We drove the entire island.....from the North Shore to Hawaii Kai........we do that every single time we go to Hawaii and it never gets old.  I love going there, it always reminds me how beautiful nature is and how much I love it!  The greens and colors of the flowers make me happy!  Honestly, that's one of my most happiest times is when I'm cruising around Hawaii with Ova just enjoying each other's company and the beauty of nature.....we always seem to have the best conversations about anything and everything while driving around.  We went to Pali look-out.....that's the first time we'd ever been there....there's a whole history story about that place and how it was founded and stuff, but to be honest I wasn't really paying attention to the story....I was completely mezmorized by the beauty I was seeing.  We were high up in the mountains and we had such a nice view of almost the entire Oahu.....so beautiful!

Some random pictures while cruising the island

That whole entire day was spent site-seeing, it was such a good day!

Monday came around and that was our PCC day....always gotta have one of those!  :)  We got a hook-up from one of Ova's family members that got us a full-day pass with dinner and the show for a very good price.  We spend the whole entire day at the PCC with our kids.  Good times!

They've got a new night show now....they've changed it from the one they've had forever....their new show is called HA, the breath of life, and it was awesome!  I actually LOVED it and thought it was so much better than the old show!  The Tongan section did a laka laka and it was so powerful....I really enjoyed myself and my kids loved it too!

The next day we packed up our things from Aunty Lavi's house and headed to spend our last couple days in Hawaii with Ova's other side of the family, the Fangupo side.  His cousins are the Kemoeatu's......one of them, Chris is #68 on the Steelers and the older brother Ma'ake plays for the Washington Redskins.  They grew up their whole lives in Laie, their dad is the faifekau for the Methodist church in there.....but when Chris won his first Super Bowl he bought a mansion in Hawaii Kai (the rich part of Hawaii where a lot of the celebrities live)  We'd never actually been to that area before besides just site-seeing, but the houses there..... W.O.W!!!  And Chris and Ma'ake's house is no different.  It's huge and all decked out....they have a waterfall and pool in their back yard and right across the street is a private beach.  The house was totally a bachelor pad all equiped with a pool and foosball table, a bar and a theatre room with reclining couches.  It was probably nicer than any place I'd been in before.  Chris and Ma'ake were not there, of course, since the Super Bowl was in a couple weeks....but while they are out of town, their little sisters live in and take care of the house...so we stayed with them!   It was really nice!  I had a hard time sleeping there though because there are really no walls, the entire house is surrounded by windows.....so I kept freaking myself out that someone was looking at me (I hate that I do that to myself....haha)  Ova's cousins were there from New Zealand and Australia, and we all stayed together in Hawaii Kai.....family time is always fun!  I'm so sad I didn't get any picutres of them....or of the house, but Mone broke my camera when we were at the PCC so the last two days in Hawaii I took no pictures.....uugghh....that frustrating blog post is coming next!!  :)

Even though we had a lot of fun, I was ready to go home by the 3rd day......I was just exausted because Lautala was sick the entire time we were there....she actually broke 5 teeth all at the same time, and of course during the week we were on vacation.  She was fevering and fussy and because her gums were sore and swollen and bleeding, she didn't want to eat.....I had to buy some orajel to numb her gums just so she would drink her bottle.....so sad!  It's not fun to have sick kids....but when you're on vacation and your kids are sick, it's even worse!!  She was such a trooper though!!  Hopefully on our next trip to Hawaii she'll actually get to enjoy it!