Making it to the Gathering Place

That's right we are on The Gathering Place, also known as Oahu.  It was a long flight, in which Grant didn't want to nap and we had no window to entertain the boys.  But they did pretty well considering and the boys loved watching Moana previews on repeat for most of the flight.  And in case you're ever wondering if you can gate check double strollers and get through security, the answer is yes.  It was a life saver in the airport, especially because we took a car seat with us for Grant.  But let's move on from the boring stuff and talk about this amazing place.  I drove around for the first week in awe at the beautiful scenery here.  I guess I knew about the beaches and such, but no one tells you how amazing and unique the mountains are here (although you see them in several movies).  The flowering trees, palm trees, fruit trees and tropical plants are pretty amazing as well.
Also, the people are so nice.  On our first day Jake forgot to close the gas cap on our car when he filled up.  A nice guy got out of his car at a red light walked over to us and closed it for us.  Now that is a true neighbor.
The only stressful part of our first week here was the house hunting.  We made it hard on ourselves by having a dog and trying to rent off post.  No easy task here, especially if your dog is more than 20 lbs.  And our cute pooch is double that.  Anyway the houses we found we either way too small or plenty big just very run down or just didn't work out.  Luckily after a lengthier search, a few prayers, and deciding to wait it out in the hotel longer we found a great house to rent.
In the meantime we also had some holiday weekends to go out and experience some amazing places.  We went to the Dole plantation and took the train ride and went through the gardens.  But if you go, its a must to try the pineapple whip (like a pineapple sorbet).  So good that having fresh pineapple as a topping only makes it better.

Our train

A reservoir on the plantation

Pineapple plants!  Who knew it takes a year and a half to even get the first pineapple to fully grow and then another year for each pineapple?!

We found a pink pineapple in their exotic pineapple plants section

Papaya!

Bananas (did I mention that apple bananas are delicious?)

We also ventured up to the North shore and experinced some HUGE waves.  One took us by surprise while we were walking along the beach which soaked Jake and I from the waist down (and we thought we were in the safe zone, rookies lol).  The boys proceeded to cry, because right now they are not great beach babies, because they are scared of most waves, even the little ones.  I expect that to change over time.  Unfortunately I took no pictures of this beautiful area.  But we'll go again.


The next day we ventured to a calmer more child friendly lagoon, Ko Olina Beach.  The boys were still wary of the little waves that made it past the lagoon breakers, but overall they relaxed and we had fun.

A little more resortish at this beach, but more kid friendly waves

Excuse the farmer's tan we are new to this beach life.

And we saw our first monk seal here

We also ate out frequently, due to the lack of kitchen in our hotel.  We are in for a treat here, there is a lot of Asian food here and Hawaiian food is all new to us too!  We are going to love rice even more after living here.  One night we did try a little Italian place for dinner and were spoiled with live entertainment.  Pace loved it and got into dancing.