Hawaii 2.0

See "Early Anniversary" post before this one

We were unsure if we wanted to stop at the Dole plantation so we pulled into the parking lot to get a look. We drove right through the 10 million cars and people and hit the road heading north! 

Come on people they are just pineapples!

After Pearl Harbor we started to make our way up to the North Shore, unfortunately we were really hungry and grumpy so we stopped and ate at McDonald's on the way...lame...could have gotten some lunch from a food truck had we waited 45 minutes!

 We went through a little trouble parking and walking and walking to find the famous Matsumoto shaved ice store, waited in line for a good 30 minutes and it was TOTALLY worth it, it really is all it's hyped up to be. They are either really generous with their syrup or the true shaved ice holds the flavor better because it really was the best snow cone I've had....of course the ice cream and sweet and condensed milk helped too! 

So good in fact, there is no picture! Every time we went past the store the line went out the store along the sidewalk and into a park area, we used the time in line to talk with a senior missionary couple that was serving there in Hawaii from Idaho.

 The old surf town, Haleiwa, was actually pretty cool. 

Finally we made our way to "Shark's cove" area where the snorkeling is supposed to be awesome. Granted, it was pretty stormy, but the snorkeling here is pretty lame compared to the Caribbean...maybe it's just a spoiled factor from our Honeymoon snorkeling experience which was unbeatable apparently!

After checking out a few more North Shore beaches we made our way to the Temple, just to see where it was along with the PCC as we would be back the next morning to really check them out. I couldn't believe how hidden the Temple is. We actually drove past it and then looked back up the long road and saw it...well we were pretty sure that was it, but it has an underwhelming factor to be honest. The storm was picking up by now so we just saw things from the car and headed back to our condo.

Well that night was apparently somewhat EPIC 

(just what we were going for right? well not exactly in this form). The winds blew and blew and the rains poured and poured, the power went on and off several times. The next morning we woke up to head to the Temple and PCC and it was pouring rain. We learned from our condo owner that it was one of the worst storms they've had in several years. We hoped the weather would be better farther north so we headed up there and luckily it did improve, but was still bad enough the internet lines were down at the temple so we had to wait in the lobby for quite a while before the computer started working to verify our recommends. One cool thing was there was a marriage about to take place so we saw the wedding party doing their pictures (under the porch of the Temple). I Finally got to see a South Pacificer in one of those cool black skirts...woo hoo...not a total bust! We were amazed at how small the Temple was inside, it truly is amazing to live in Utah where we have so many Temples and so much space to accommodate everyone.

One cool thing about rain is it leaves a rainbow, the church owns a HUGE piece of land where the Temple, a couple of churches, BYU-H and the PCC sit. There's tons of space for more, in fact as you can see by the orange cone, the entire area of the Temple grounds was under construction while were there. The water features were all off and we couldn't walk any closer than this except from the side straight into the Temple doors.
Did I mention it felt like the entire island was under construction?

awkward photo

After a short visit to the Temple we made our way over to the PCC.

 Finally I got to see the people I was thinking would be all over Hawaii...

nope they are South Pacific Islanders...clearly two different places. 

 We tried our luck at fire making...we could do it if we had to.

 We ate at the Luau, finally I got my fill of Kalua pork, so so good!

 The purple roll and the purple potatoe salad were actually really good they're 

made from a really dense potato like vegetable. Not pictured: the two plates of chicken (that apparently contained quite a bit of garlic) that Josh ate. At about 2:30am he was sure he had "garlic poisoning" and had to make a trip to the gas station for pepto and tums.