We are leaving today, but i wanted to post one more time before we leave. We’ve still yet to pack and try to fit all the gifts we bought at the swapmeet into our luggage. We brought one extra suitcase knowing that we were going to bring home WAY more stuff than we brought.

Here is a picture of the Poulos family with whom we stayed. This was taken at a food court in the Pearl City Mall. We wanted to thank them for letting us stay in their home with them by taking them out to dinner. We had something a little bit more extravagant in mind, but since the kids all seemed to want something different to eat, we ended up at the food court. Our dinner menu ranged from Chinese to pizza to tacos.

Steve and Lisa Poulos knew Becky when she lived here. She was saved and then started attending Pacific Islands Bible Church where she joined the Poulos college and career group and was discipled by Lisa. The last time we were here (10 years ago) they had onlly three children, the youngest of whom was merely months old. Now they’ve got four kids and we enjoyed hanging out and playing with all of them.

Thank you Poulos family for putting us up and for putting up with us!

This last picture is an example of how rough the water was outside of the reef. The thundering waves are awesome to hear and feel. It is a sound and feeling you will never forget.

Hawaiian sunset. Becky and I spent some time on Waikiki beach today. We parked at the zoo which has parking meters that cost 25 cents an hour. We didn’t have any change, but managed to find a quarter and a spot that still had one hour and nine minutes left on it. That gives us two hours and nine minutes.

Once it got near the time to either leave or feed the meter, the sun was too close to setting to walk away from the beach. We decided to stay and hope for the best. This first picture is of a huge barge in front of my setting sun. I was hoping that it wasn’t going to block it, but as you can see, there was plenty of time for the barge to move on. A few minutes later and we were able to catch my first live sighting of the sun setting into the ocean. It was beautiful!

Once we got back to the the car, we noticed a $35 parking ticket. We’re going to write a check for the fine and enclose these two pictures along with a little note.

The only thing it will say is, “It was worth it!”

I have never seen so many rainbows in my life. Every day that we have been here, we’ve seen a rainbow. Two essential ingredients to rainbows are rain and sunshine and there are plenty of both here. This rainbow pictured here is right across the street from where we are staying. There is a valley right behind the house and the rainbow went right down into it. Very cool sight!

The beach. Ahhh! Guess which one is me. Yeah, I’m the really WHITE guy amongst all the brown bodies. If I were to lay down in the sand, I’d be camouflaged.

Becky and I are in Hawaii right now and we spent most of the day on the beach. But before we even got to the beach, we just HAD to stop by Matsumoto’s to get some shaved ice. This isn’t like the grainy snow-cones that you get at the county fair. This is ice that is shaved so thin it almost melts as soon as it hits your tongue. The last time Becky and I were here was 10 years ago. I’ve been waiting 10 years for my Motsumoto’s fix. Good stuff!

Once we got to the beach, we went in and got tossed around by the surf a bit. We then went to another beach where the waves were too big for swimmers, but just right for surfing. We set some sand chairs down and watch the surfers for awhile. We had a good time relaxing and taking it easy.