Hawaiian Thanksgiving, Day 8

The big day had finally arrived. Thanksgiving was here!  Food had been preparing since the day before, and it still had a few hours to go in the morning, so we strapped a kayak to the roof the van and cruised over to Kaneohe Bay for some sea kayaking. One of George's coworkers (his boss maybe?) at the clinic has a place there with a nice launching spot, and also another kayak that they were kind enough to let us use.





Kaneohe Bay

Mom was a little nervous about the whole thing, probably after watching us tip over a bunch of times trying to get in at Bellows Beach in March, so she got put on the wider, more stable kayak with Lucy and me. As we were loading up in the shallows, and there weren't really any breaking waves, it was easy to get in and start paddling out.  George and Dad took Austin and Elise with them in a longer, slightly more narrow kayak.

As Mom was pretty nervous, I just told her to sit tight and I'd handle the paddling.  Lucy was having a good time up in front, getting splashed occasionally.  George and Dad cruised out a little farther given that they had two paddlers instead of just one. Eventually they turned around and came back toward us.  We were about ready to turn around, and they offered to come help us make sure we didn't tip over as we turned around (probably the most likely time to tip over is when you're perpendicular to the waves).  We managed to get turned around just fine, just taking it easy, but as they were attempting to come back and help us, somehow they tipped over their kayak, dumping all four of them out in the ocean.  The little kids were obviously shaken up, but as everyone had their life jackets on, no one was in any serious danger. They got the kids back up on the kayak, and then swam it back to a shallow spot where they could also get in and eventually made it back to where we had launched from.  The kids were still a little traumatized, but after a few minutes of hanging out on the shore in the sun, they were back to their happy selves.


Fully recovered :)

Kimi showed up around that time, and her George went for a little paddle out and back, and then we headed back to the house.

Our Thanksgiving feast was delicious.  We had two kinds of turkey, one cooked conventionally, and one cooked underground in a Hawaiian imu oven.  I could never remember which was which by the time I sat down at the table, but they were both really good.  We had good rolls, and mashed potatoes and gravy, but I think my favorite dish was Kimi's sweet potatoes. They pretty much tasted like candy. Really good stuff.  We ate until we were all stuffed and then took a few hours off before eventually getting back together for dessert. Kimi had made 3 different kinds of pie/cheesecake/goodness.  I didn't try them all, but the ones I had were also really great. It was Austin's birthday a few days later, so we celebrated that night opening presents and singing happy birthday, while we ate our dessert.

I didn't really take too many photos of the Thanksgiving festivities, but Kimi got some great ones from the day, that you can see here.

Sadly this was our last night together, and over the course of the day we were slowly working on getting packed up as well.  Eventually the time came for us to say our farewells and the Hawaii Tripps came out and sat on their front wall and waved goodbye to us.  Until next time...Aloha!