Tuesday was one of our longest days of the trip, but it was also one of the best! We started the morning off by doing some more snorkeling. The kids did so well the day before that we decided to go again. We found a place called Turtle Bay that seemed pretty sheltered from the ocean waves. It was a gorgeous sandy beach with clear blue water. We grabbed a spot under a shade tree and dropped our stuff there for the morning. Then all of us headed out into the water. Hawaiian water is great because it is warm enough to swim, even at the end of February. Turtle Bay wasn't as sheltered as Shark's Cove, but it did offer a lot more variety of sea creatures to look at. There were tons of fish, anemones, and the boys even saw an eel. Poor Hyrum got stung by something the first time he went in the water. It hurt for a bit, but he got over it pretty quickly and was cruising around the bay before long. After an hour or two, we decided to get cleaned up and head back to the hotel.
On the way back, we stopped at a Brazilian food truck for lunch. We got some delicious Brazilian street food to try. We ate coxinhas and pastel filled with chicken, cheese, and more. The kids loved them, especially Christian who is still talking about them.
After lunch, we got ready to head over to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which was right next to our hotel. It was so close that we could look down into the park from the window. The Polynesian Cultural Center is huge and amazing! My friend who served her mission there described it as Hawaii's Disneyland. It is divided up into different islands to explore with lots of hands-on activities.
We started in Samoa by weaving some fish out of palm fronds. Those fish turned out to be pretty special and had to come home with us, even though they were pretty awkward to pack. Then we headed to Samoa where we watched an amazing drum show that was hysterical. The main drummer was so entertaining, and the three men they picked from the audience to help were super enthusiastic and made it really fun. Also in Tonga we learned to throw spears like natives.
The next island was Tahiti. They were performing a traditional marriage ceremony. The boys got bored of that really quickly (Haha! not surprising for my unaffectionate children), so we left and let them do some pole fishing at the dock, tasted some delicious coconut bread, and threw spears at coconuts. They enjoyed the spear-throwing most of all. It was the same technique they learned in Tonga, but this time there were actual targets to aim for. Christian hit one of the targets perfectly. He wanted a picture with it and talked about it the rest of the day.
It was a hot day and we were getting tired, so we took a canoe ride down the canal. The person steering the canoe was hysterical. He had everyone laughing with his jokes and sarcasm, but we also learned a lot and got to see all the islands from a different perspective.
Next we stopped to take a picture by a beautiful waterfall. Jonathon and I have a picture in front of the same waterfall from when we were first married, so we wanted to recreate it. Next, we went to Aoterroa (another name for New Zealand). Hyrum, Jonathon, and I played a rhythm game with sticks. The older boys thought they were too cool to do the game and sing the songs. When we finished up, I noticed our backpack with all the money, id's, and phones was missing. We quickly went back and searched the last few places that we had been. I thought for sure that I must have set it down when we were taking the waterfall picture, but it wasn't there. We finally asked one of the workers if there was a lost and found where we might look for the backpack. To our delight, she said that they had just heard over the radio that someone had turned in a backpack and it was being held for us at the front information booth. Thank goodness for honest people who do the right thing. It literally had everything important in it, so losing it would have been a nightmare. Everyone was so nice and helped us find it and get it back.
After that little detour, we were all tired and hungry. We had only seen 4 of the 6 islands, but we knew we shouldn't push the boys too hard to the point that they were grumpy. We decided to head over to the buffet to get our dinner. It was a huge building with a beautiful mural painted around the entire place. It also smelled amazing and had so may delicious looking foods. When we entered the building, we were greeted and given a yummy coconut drink. Then we got to go get whatever kind of food we wanted. There were salads, rice, bread, pasta, seafood, chicken, beef, vegetables, desserts and even a "kid-friendly" area with things like chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese.
Everyone found something they liked! Andrew really enjoyed the purple rolls made from taro root, Christian tried every single chicken dish and said the spicy chicken was his favorite, and Hyrum loved all the desserts, including two different kinds of ice cream. We took another throw back photo with our fish at the meal. So cute!
Since the hotel was so close, we decided to go back and rest for a while before the night show. The night show didn't start until 7:30 (which was 10:30 pm our time), so we were getting pretty tired, especially Hyrum. We lucked out and had amazing seats, only 4 rows from the stage. The entire performance was really incredible. It told the story of a Polynesian boy growing from birth to adulthood while experiencing all of the islands that the center highlights. The music and dancing was phenomenal! There were three things that we thought were the most impressive... the hip shaking dancers from Tahiti, the fire dancers (a comedic performance where they actually sat on fire), and the fire twirlers that spun fire torches so incredible fast. It was such a great atmosphere, and we felt very immersed in the different cultures. Poor Hyrum only lasted about 15 minutes before he was asleep. I held him on my lap for a while, and then he rested on my shoulder. He missed most of the performance, but the rest of us really enjoyed it.
It was a long day, but so filled with learning and fun!
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