luaus and waterfalls

While in Hawaii we mostly hung out at the beach and ate shaved ice, but we occasionally did other things like zip lining, scuba diving, and one night we went to a luau. My parents have lived in Hawaii I think twelve years, and I have visited many times. But in all the times I have visited I have never been to a luau. I thought the kids would really like seeing the hula and fire dancers.

We got there just as the sun was setting. We filled Lincoln’s sipping cup with some POG (Passion, Orange, Guava juice. He LOVED the stuff) and sat down to watch the show. Sitting did not last long with 2 little ones. And we each took one kid and wandered off in different directions.

Lincoln wanted to do one thing; watch the band. Since he learned to walk, he realized he could have a little more say in what he wanted to do. So he pulled my hand over and over again to go watch the band. The guys in the band loved him and thought he was adorable. He got high fives (he loves giving people high fives, and we were near the food and when people lined up he tried to get high fives from as many people as he could) from all of the band members. He wanted to stay up by the band even after the performance started and so he even got a high five from one of the fire dancers. He was one seriously happy little boy.

Fiona was a little grumpy when we got there since she her nap got cut short. it took awhile for her to wake up and be agreeable. So unfortunately she missed out on a lot of the activities. But she did love watching the hula dancers and thought all of the dancers were very pretty.

On one of the days we decided to drive around the island to go see waterfalls. It makes for a long day to go see the waterfalls, but I thought the kids would enjoy seeing everything around the island. We stopped at several waterfalls and at the volcano. Fiona got to hike up stairs and go through lava tubes. She was one tired little girl at the end of the day. When we got to the first waterfall Lincoln had fallen asleep so Grandma volunteered to stay in the car with him while the rest of us braved the rain to hike to the falls.

I loved how Fiona had to hold her dress up as she walked up the stairs. Her dress was short and it was raining so holding it up didn’t really do anything, but it was darn cute to watch.

At the first stop, which I think was Akaka falls, there were two big water falls and one little one. Fiona loved them. Mark and Papa lagged behind a little taking photos so Fiona and I headed back to the car to see if Lincoln was awake yet. Which he was!

We didn’t do the full hike again, but we did go see the little waterfall and we stood at the top and Fiona pointed out the big waterfall to him. How cute are his curls? I love his hair and humidity. He will probably hate his curls later, but the girls will all love them.

I’m not sure who taught Fiona her “funny face”, but often when we asked her to smile this is what she did. Not always the look we were going for, but when you have little ones sometimes its just easier to roll with it then try to fight them on things. So we have many, many photos of her making this face while we were on vacation. If it kept her from melting down over a smile we went with it. A funny face, for a funny little girl.