are we done yet? Day 4 &5

I promise. Last post about our vacation. Even I am getting tired of posting about it! :)

So the 4th day was literally the best of the whole vacation. The conference was over, I got through to the Moss's (about the whole wrong day thing), no cell phones were ringing, no social engagements...it was just us. We were free to do what we wanted, and we did!

We slept in, no 7am breakfasts, and decided to go and get our tickets to the Polynesian Culture Center (or PCC). There is an office called ITT where we can get discounted tickets for military.

So we headed out to the base, that is near Pearl Harbor. We drove by the Arizona memorial and Pearl Harbor but we decided not to go. We had already packed in a lot and so if we ever go back, we will hit those two places.

Anyway, we got our tickets ( $17 discount on both, woohoo!) and than went inside their exchange and commissary. Holy cow! Their NEX was 3 stories and their commissary was ginormous. It made me very, very jealous! We picked up lunch and than started our drive out to the PCC. We stopped at a little rest stop on the water too eat lunch. Very peaceful.

I had heard two things about the PCC 1)it's very expensive 2) but it's worth the money. And I would have to say amen to both. However, it feels a lot better paying that money, when you know it is going to help pay someone's tuition instead of just going to some big company.

Anyway, we bought tickets that came with the night show, IMAX and a luau. First we went to all the different villages.I learned to weave with bannana leaves. The kids do this at school all the time but I had never tried it. We stopped and watched shows and watched a parade floating down the river. Each country that is represented their had dancers. Very neat to watch.

We took a tour and went over to BYU-Hawaii campus. I wanted to hit the bookstore and we found some great books and other fun stuff. We missed our tram back but a nice man let us in the back gate instead of making us walk all the way around. It helps to not look very intimidating!

It was almost time for our luau. Yummy food. I think Harm would have been upset to see the pig so it was probably good she wasn't there! We were sitting next to two elderly couples and they thought we were newlyweds. hah! We got our pictures taken and than did a little shopping before the night show.

If you have never seen a BYU dance production, well you are just missing out. It was very neat to watch. They didn't allow flash photography so that didn't make it easy. Instead I found myself recording a lot of it. I will put some of our fav videos on later.

After it was all done, I wanted to go and see the temple. Obviously it would be closed, but I just wanted to see it. We haven't been/seen a temple since we were in San Diego over a year ago. I went and snapped some pictures and than we were on our way back to the hotel.

Ben is tough and so he made us pack that night. OK he did most of the packing but he is good about fitting things in. It is a good thing we did it though because we didn't wake up until 9 the next day. We had planned to check out by 10.Oops.

We returned some stuff to Old Navy and headed to the airport. Our flight was delayed by an hour but no other problems. It's a long flight but without kids it seems much shorter. :)

I was sad about leaving Hawaii but ready to see the kids. So that is it. That was our trip in a not so small nutshell!