Hawaii Surprise

My mom turned a certain age on January 15th. We all decided to give her a big surprise. I'll give you a hint.

My brother is a dentist in the navy and is stationed in Hawaii. Mom and Dad went out to visit him and his wife for my mom's birthday. We all (me, Dan, Anda, and my two sisters) flew out the day after they did and stayed in a guest cottage on base. On Saturday (my mom's birthday) we set up a pavilion on the beach with streamers, birthday cake, balloons, and a big banner. We hid behind the pavilion wall while Jacob, Lindsay, Mom, and Dad drove up with Mom blindfolded. We heard them say, "Surprise!" and she oohed and ahhed over how nice they were to set up a birthday picnic. Then we came out from behind the pavilion singing "Happy Birthday." She cried and may have had a brief seizure. It was the best reaction we could have possibly hoped for. I hope to have such a fun moment again at least once in my life.

Unfortunately, this was the only picture I took of that particular event.

But don't worry. Amy has video.

I do have the banner that I designed, though. I was pretty pleased with it.

And Jacob and Anda's little after party.

After that we all just had a great time together in the beautiful weather.

This was the view from our cottage porch.

It was such a pretty location, we decided to try to get some family pictures there. The ones from my camera were kind of dark, so I know they look pretty heavily edited. I think the ones from my dad's camera are better.

My brother took an all day boating class so that he could rent out one of the military's boats to spend a day with us at this awesome sand bar.

Anda hated just about everything beachy that we did. But Dan seemed to enjoy the view.

On the way back, we rode around the island used at the beginning of Gilligan's Island.

On another day, we headed north and went to Waimea Falls. It was an easy hike that my family had all done when we went in 2005, and we were happy to go again. It was even prettier than I remembered.

We had the best shrimp I have ever eaten for lunch. This van is covering up the swamp place where they came from--that's how fresh they were.

We left the kid with Nana one day and went to Hanauma Bay with my sisters to do some snorkeling. I had a tea party with not one but TWO sea turtles. It was a success.

On our last night, we went to a luau. It was all things fun and delicious.

Anda got to play with the Maori swinging balls, get a pretty flower bracelet, and watch a fun show. She was very concerned when the guy climbed up the coconut tree, but I didn't get a very good picture of her face.

Then we had more of the best food I've ever eaten. The one thing that tore me away from this trip was the fact that if I lived there I would weigh about four hundred pounds.

We got in some last minute beach going and boogie boarding on our last day before the planes left that night. Yes, that is Anda's Nana's super hot body out there.

We had the best time imaginable, and Anda loved seeing her Nana and Papa.

Happy birthday, Mom.

So my Word Press plug ins are just awful and my images won't link to their larger sizes. If you want to see bigger versions of these pictures and/or more pictures, you can go to my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamaray/sets/72157625913213510/