Big Island 2007

The day after Tiffany and Jeff's wedding the whole DeVore family flew over to the Big Island of Hawaii. Tiffany and Jeff kept going to Kauai for their honeymoon and meet up with us on the last day. We had a great time. Our hotel/condo was great, we shared with Nathan, Kiersten and Henry. It's been a few months now and we still miss waking up to Henry crawling on the wood floor slapping his hands on the floor as he goes along. Our condos are owned by Hilton so we went over to the Hilton hotel just down the road. It is the biggest hotel I have ever seen! Check out the picture of us paddle boating with the huge stairs behind us and you'll get an idea of how big it is. There are 3 different pools to swim in as well as a lagoon with turtles and fish swimming along with you. Besides the hotel we went to a few beaches, which are hard to come by because most of the coast is lava rock! Not too nice to swim in. We did make it down to a black sand beach which was pretty cool. The most fun was had at a rope swing we happened to come by on our way to the volcano. Ja and the boys had a blast, Kiersten and I did try it even though I was scared about hitting the rocks underneath. Fortunately everyone survived. We did make it to the volcano but it was getting dark and cold! Who knew it could be cold in Hawaii. We drove by a warm steam vent and then drove home. It was a very fun day. Everyone had a blast and we are very grateful we were able to go.

Here are pictures of the black sand beach we walked down to, a view from the hotel and Nathan jumping off the rope swing.

Pearl Harbor

Devin, Ja and I had a 10-hour layover in Oahu the day before we returned to Utah. We decided to go over to Pearl Harbor and take a look around. The harbor is so peaceful now, it was hard to imagine the total chaos that happened on December 7, 1941. We got to see the U.S.S. Arizona which was bombed and sunk to the bottom of the harbor. The picture has all the names of the people that died that day on the U.S.S. Arizona. It was really sad to see letters from wives and girlfriends written to the soliders saying, "We can't wait to see you in a few months," or "Can't wait to hear back from you." Those families weren't able to say goodbye. In the middle of this we ran into some friends, the Wests, from Utah, we had no idea they would be there. That was fun. Devin, Ja and I then went on the U.S.S. Missouri battleship. That was pretty cool to see in what small quarters the Navy has to live in. We did get a picture of the huge canons. It's hard to imagine how loud those would be when firing. And to think when Japan was bombing the harbor there were multiple bombs and canons shooting. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the ship but it was pretty cool. Tiny rooms, tiny beds, tiny storage, tiny offices. Part of the ship was like a little musem with artifacts from soldiers. All in all it was a fun layover. If you ever get a chance to see Pearl Harbor it's a trip worth taking.

These are the huge canons. Notice how little the people are in the background.