Aloha Nights – Utah Style!

The past few days we have been able to attend some AMAZING (and free!) entertainment! Monday, July 28, was the latest installment in the “World Concert Series” at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center. It was dubbed “Aloha Nights” and featured the Polynesian dance group, Tevaka Nui, as well as singers Janoe Kalawa and Keola Santos. The show was wonderful! All of the musicians were extremely talented, and the dancers were incredible!
The highlight of the evening was Kap Te'O Tafiti, the fire dancer from the Polynesian Cultural Center! He is in Utah to perform and teach a workshop on fireknife dancing. It was so much fun to watch his amazing talents again! He has a fun sense of humor, and we always love watching him, wherever it may be. (Photo: PCC)
We also enjoyed a dinner of Kalua pork, rice, and mac salad. We commented that an evening like this in Hawaii (with the meal, the musicians, the dancers, and especially the fire dancer) would have cost us $80 to $100. We were pretty darn excited that the performance was FREE, and the meal was extremely reasonable. (Kristin and Abby, you KNOW we missed you! We hope you’re back for next Monday’s show!)

You all know that Ryan is a wanna-be-Island-boy. Most of the performers were Polynesians who have now moved to the mainland. The majority of them have settled in Las Vegas. They joked that the Polynesians in Las Vegas call it “the ninth Hawaiian Island.” No wonder my little Vegas-born baby is such an Island boy!

A "Happy Birthday" shout-out to my baby brother who is now "middle-aged" and expecting TWO babies of his own! Love ya!

Country, Rock & Roll, and the Tabernacle Choir

On Saturday, July 26, we had the opportunity to attend the Pioneer Day Commemoration Concert by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, with the Osmond Family as special guests.

Before the concert began, we talked with the sister missionaries sitting in front of us. As we visited with them, we were excited to learn that one was from Mongolia, and the other was from Tonga. Interestingly, Frances’ grandparents served as mission presidents in Mongolia, and then served a mission in Tonga. The sister from Mongolia knew the Clarks, and was baptized while they were serving there! The sister from Tonga loved visiting with Ryan! In the course of their discussion, she learned that he was baptized at Temple Beach in Laie (she attended BYU-Hawaii and was thrilled to learn he was baptized there); she asked him if he liked football, and he told her that he liked football, but LOVED rugby; he told her that he knew the haka, and she just about went crazy! She kept saying, “He’s an Island boy!” She told him several times that he needed to move to the Islands to be an Island boy. (Please…don’t encourage him!). He also just happened to be wearing a cute Hawaiian shirt! We had a lot of fun visiting with them and getting to know them.

Just before the concert began, Lloyd Newell welcomed President and Sister Eyring, who were sitting on the front row, right down from us. He also welcomed “members of the Quorum of the Twelve,” although he didn’t introduce any by name.

We have attended numerous events in the Conference Center. We have attended several concerts in the Conference Center. This was unlike anything we have attended there.

The program started with the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra performing a couple of my favorite pioneer heritage songs: “They, the Builders of the Nation” and “Faith in Every Footstep.” Then the Osmonds were introduced. This is where we wondered if we were still in the Conference Center. An electric guitar started playing, and spotlights started shining and circling around on the Choir. We commented that it was probably the first time that either of those things had happened in the Conference Center!

I have to mention here that we were pretty big Osmond fans growing up. My dad worked for the publishing company that did all of the Osmonds’ media printing. So we had Osmond books, paper dolls, trading cards, posters, and just about anything else you can imagine. You also have to know that the TV-watching was very limited at our house. We were NEVER allowed to watch “Three’s Company,” or similar shows of that time period. We were, however, always able to watch “Donnie and Marie” (you know…wholesome Mormon entertainment). :) The past few years, Ryan has also become quite the Donny fan via “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

So, back to the concert. The Osmond brothers did several of their hits – “Down by the Lazy River,” “One Bad Apple,” and “He Ain’t Heavy,” with their old videos on screens behind and to the side of the Choir.

The Osmonds then took a break while the Choir did some of their Americana songs. (Melissa, tell Justin that we enjoyed all of his solos! We noticed at least three or four!)

The Osmonds came back out and started with “Yo Yo,” which Ryan declared was his favorite of the evening. Donny and Marie then did a medley of their hits. Please, no one yell at me, but I thought that the Choir singing “She’s a little bit country” and “He’s a little bit rock and roll” was kind of cheesy. Sorry. It seemed to be a big hit with most of the rest of the audience.

I was touched by two musical numbers – the first one was “Whenever You’re In Trouble.” Donny told the story of when one of his sons was on his mission. His son sent him a text message when Donny was in the middle of a recording session, but he took the time to answer, and they sent a few messages back and forth. His son then said that he was ok – he just needed to know that his dad was there. Donny wrote the song following that experience.

The second number that was touching to me was “Through the Years.” While the family sang, video clips ran on the screens behind of the family performing through the years. It started with a clip of the boys doing an audition with Walt Disney, followed by clips from the Andy Williams show. There were several photos and videos of their parents and older brothers. The whole Osmond family was in tears, and many in the audience were, as well.

For the last two numbers, the two older brothers, Verl and Tom, joined their younger siblings on stage. (For those who may not know, they are both deaf.) The younger seven siblings took turns paying tributes to their older brothers. Then Verl and Tom signed while their siblings sang the last two songs. That was also very touching. This concert was the final performance in the worldwide “50th Anniversary Tour.” It was also the final performance for some of the brothers. That obviously made it even more poignant for them as they performed.
The final number was the Choir and Osmond family singing “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” another pioneer favorite. It was a fun performance, with both light and funny moments as well as touching and sentimental ones. I was glad we were able to attend.

(Photos by Tom Smart)

Back in the Real World

Since a few of you have asked for updates, here’s what has happened the past couple of days.

We’ve had a REALLY hard time getting back on a “mainland time” schedule. As I have put Ryan to bed at his regular 7:30/8:00 bedtime, it has occurred to me that it is 3:30/4:00 in the afternoon on the schedule we’ve been used to! No wonder he can’t go to sleep for a couple of hours! I’ve had difficulty going to sleep, too. Sunday night, I finally fell asleep at about 1:15 or 1:30, I think. At 2:40 am, my doorbell rang. It was Delta delivering our luggage. In the past when I’ve had lost luggage, they just leave it in the middle of the night as a pleasant surprise upon waking in the morning. Apparently due to theft and wrong addresses, they now wake up the already jetlagged and cranky weary travelers to have them sign for their luggage. Oh well, at least we have it.

My poor little Ryan went back to school to end-of-year testing yesterday and the rest of this week. I was really concerned about how he’d do without a full night’s sleep, but it sounds like he did ok. After I took him to school, I logged in to my work email account and discovered that I had 226 emails from and/or about students. (That’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be!) I only got through about half of them yesterday, so I still have a busy day today. The nice thing about working from home is that I can throw in a load of laundry between student phone calls or emails. I did two weeks of laundry while sorting through two weeks of email. How fun for me! Last night after Ry went to bed, I alternated between folding the aforementioned two weeks of laundry and sorting through two weeks of regular mail that was all delivered yesterday. But my “economic stimulus rebate” notice was in there! I checked my account online, and sure enough! That made me pretty happy, since I did such a great job stimulating the Hawaiian economy the past couple of weeks!

Marc went straight from the airport to the InstaCare. He has an ear infection/sinus infection. He was pretty miserable our last couple of days in Hawaii, but still did a great job entertaining Ryan in the water. What a super uncle! He is now on antibiotics and ear drops, so we hope he feels better soon.

We’re glad that we were able to come home to nice, sunny weather instead of six inches of snow like the last time we came home from Hawaii! It has made the return to reality a little less shocking.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Our last couple of days in Hawaii were quite eventful!

Friday, May 2 we spent most of the day at Kama’ole Beach in Kihei. Since there had been a couple of days of high surf advisories, we hadn't been able to swim or snorkel much. We slathered on the sunscreen and spent the day in the water and on the beach. We snorkeled a little bit, but the water was still pretty cloudy after the high surf. So we had a lot of fun taking turns on Ryan’s boogie board.

Cloud: Even though we all put on a lot of sunscreen, all of us got burned on our shoulders.

Silver lining: We didn’t really burn anywhere else, and are coming home with nice tans. :)

We went back to the condo, showered, slathered on the aloe and went to Lahaina for dinner. We had decided to go to Bubba Gump’s, and had to park several blocks away and walk. Frances and I were walking together a little bit ahead of everyone else. As we approached the block where the restaurant is, a man suddenly appeared right in front of us, flashed his FBI badge about 4 inches from our faces, and said, “Excuse me, ladies…FBI…I’m going to have to ask you to cross the street.” We did, and as we walked down the other side of the street, there were about a dozen FBI and INS agents questioning a whole bunch of people right outside the Bubba Gump kitchen entrance. We went in and were seated at a table right on the water with a gorgeous view. We had an Australian waiter (now a US National), who appeared distracted as he was taking our order. Obviously something was going on. Before long, we were informed that the INS had raided the restaurant, half of the kitchen staff had been taken away, and that they were closing the restaurant. We would still be served, but no one else would be let in. We were one of the last groups in. With most of the kitchen staff gone, the managers and some of the waiters were doing the cooking.

Cloud: Our food took FOREVER! By the time we got it, we were starving!
Silver lining: We sat there long enough to watch a beautiful sunset. More silver lining: They also gave us an extra entrée and took off half of the bill because of the inconvenience. We all decided that it was worth the wait and the excitement to get a cheap dinner. Oh yea, and it’s a great story for the blog!

Throughout the night, we had seen the manager, a woman in her mid-30’s, hugging employees and crying. I went up to her as we were leaving and told her how much we had enjoyed our meal, and that we had a very pleasant evening, despite everything they were dealing with. I thanked her for keeping us posted on what was happening, and thanked her for keeping everything running the best that she could. She started bawling and just mouthed “thank you” to me. We’d love to know when they were able to open again.

Saturday, May 3, we had to check out of our condo by 10:00 am, but our plane didn’t leave until about 8:00 pm. We drove north to the Iao Valley and hiked to the Iao Needle. It was cool, but we decided that we weren’t as awed by it as other busloads of people pulling up because of our experiences with similar amazing monoliths in our Utah parks.
Ryan had been singing “I wanna go back to my little grass shack” all day. The Iao Needle state park had a few trails that we took. On one trail was this little grass shack. We had to take a picture!
We then drove the rest of the way around the northwest part of Maui. There was a 12-ish mile stretch of road that was all one lane and very narrow, with steep cliffs all along. It was pretty nerve-wracking. But Frances and I had read in our guide book about the Olivene Pools – lava rocks with calm pools of water right out into the pounding surf. We HAD to see them! They were beautiful, but since we had already packed our bags and dressed to go home, none of us swam in them. We just enjoyed hiking down to them and around them.
Cloud: Extremely scary road with crazy drivers. We were all stressed and had motion sickness by the time we got to the end.
Silver Lining: Beautiful pools and views. And “the best banana bread on the planet” according to our guidebook. (And pretty yummy dried coconut and dried mangoes, too.) We turned in our rental cars and went to the airport in Kahului. It was a zoo! Marc and Frances opted to go through the regular check-in line, while the rest of us let the porter/sky cap check us in. We were a little concerned that the porters just kept stacking bags on carts, and didn’t seem to be taking them anywhere. We explained that we were flying to Honolulu, with a connection to Salt Lake City, and asked if our bags would make it. We were assured that they would.

We flew to Honolulu, then on home. It is a 6 ½ hour flight. It was all night, but none of us really slept well. We landed just before 8:00 am, and went to get our bags. The carousel kept going around and around, with no sign of any of our bags. When the conveyor belt stopped, we knew it was a bad sign. We reported our missing bags to the baggage office, and were assured that they would locate them and deliver them to us. As of the time of this post, we are all still missing our bags.

Cloud: All six of our bags are somewhere between Kahului, Maui and Salt Lake City.
Silver Lining: We didn’t have to unpack yet! We came home and slept for several hours to try to make up for no sleep last night.

Even though there were a few unexpected glitches, we had an amazing time together. With Frances and Marc’s twins due in a few short months, we’re not sure when we’ll be able to do a vacation together like this again. We had a wonderful time, and made a lot of fun memories.

Swimming, Snorkeling, Road to Hana, Haleakala Crater

Sorry I haven’t given an update for a few days. Obviously we’ve been having a lot of fun. As we’ve been swimming, snorkeling, and playing in the sun, we’ve thought many times about the reports of snow from home. We’ll try to bring some sun home with us on Sunday!

Monday, April 28 we went to the dive shop and rented all of our gear for the week. We followed the guide book we have and stopped at a tiny town called Olowalu. We drove on a dirt road to the mouth of a little canyon, where we then hiked to some petroglyphs.
We drove to Lahaina and enjoyed sightseeing. We saw the old courthouse, the Baldwin House, and Banyon Tree Park.
We had a great lunch at the Front Street Grill, where Ryan was fascinated by Duke Kahanamoku’s surfboard on the wall (his surfing hero).
We visited the old jail and other famous sites in Lahaina, and enjoyed shopping at Hard Rock, Hilo Hattie’s, Crocs, Del Sol, and other favorite stores.

We left Lahaina and went to Ka’anapali Beach/Black Rock Beach. Ryan and I snorkeled, and were thrilled to see a humuhumunukunukuapua’a in person! I thought Ryan was going to inhale half of the ocean as he was trying to get my attention! We also saw several different colors of butterfly fish, a needle nose, several grouper, and even a puffer fish!
That's Ry and me snorkeling in the middle left with the divers in the background.
Tuesday, April 29 had a high surf advisory, so we started the day at the Maui Ocean Center in Ma’alaea. We were able to see the only tiger shark in captivity in North America…
We were fascinated by "the tube"…
And the jellyfish…
We made friends with a gecko on our bench…
And learned that humuhumunukunukuapua’a means triggerfish (humuhumu) with a snout (nukunuku) that looks like a pig (apua’a).
We met Marc and Frances in Lahaina for lunch at Cool Cats Café. Both Monday and Tuesday, we talked with Mani, the newly returned missionary who spoke in the Sacrament Meeting we attended Sunday. He is a fourth generation carver and is set up on Front Street. We bought a turtle and a tiki from him, and he carved our names, the date, and his name into them for us.
We went to Ka’anapali Beach again, but the high surf advisory was still in effect. The surfers loved it, but it wasn’t conducive for snorkeling. So we just played in the surf for a while.
Wednesday, April 30 we took the famous Road to Hana. We enjoyed playing at several different waterfalls…
We were awed by the surf pounding against the lava rock…
We tried breadfruit, and Marc taught Ryan about the extremely non-nutritious, but hilariously fun EZ Cheese…
One of the neatest things we saw was the Black Sand Beach near Hana (that's Ry and me walking into the surf)...
We also saw a very cool red sand beach near the Hana Bay Pier (I'll post a picture later, it's not on a digital camera).

We had heard mixed reviews about the Road to Hana, but we were extremely pleased that we decided to do it.

Thursday, May 1 we drove to the Haleakala Crater. We drove the same route that our friend Kevin ran about a month ago. We went from sea level to 10,000 feet in just a short period of time. As we ascended, we went through a layer of clouds, and ended up above the clouds. It was an amazing view.
We picked up a Junior Ranger booklet for Ryan (we do at every state and national park we visit). We had fun doing the activities and having him “sworn in” at the end of our journey.
The Haleakala Crater was amazing! It is HUGE! The pictures don’t even do it justice. But I’ll share a couple.
As amazing as the crater was, we made it home in time to see the most beautiful sunset tonight! We’ve been out pretty late the past several nights, so it was fun to be home early enough to see it. This was the view of the sunset from our balcony (lanai).