Da Chocks Family Blog: My Hawaii is different from their Hawaii

What an active Saturday!

We woke up without much planned. We decided to head over to Diamond Head, or Leahi, to hike up to the top of the crater.

Now , I remember doing this when I was younger, we did it for fun. Couple few things changed: first, the fee to get in. There's a part of me that totally gets it and thinks it's a great idea to charge people at least a $1 apiece to go on the hike. There's also a part of me that has a hard time with the whole change thing. There's a concrete path for heaven's sake! Sheesh. And at the top there's that loop, you don't have to go back down through the 100 steps (Lydia counted 99, I told her to round up to 100). It's very nice, yes, but I guess some of the fun of the thing for me growing up was the feel that this wasn't really a manicured kind of hike. Oh well. I wanted to point out where my good friend Sam and I vandalized a wall but I had to be a good example to James and Lydia. I think the kids had fun, I think Lydia did great she only did a piggyback on the way down way at the bottom. Not bad for a 4 y/o.

"Lydia, look at the camera!"

"No I don't want to, I'm tired."

"Lydia, just close your eyes and imagine Icee!"

"Dad, I won't go over the edge, I promise." You can't see it but James is (gasp!) outside the fence and off the trail! He is inches away from the edge WITHOUT THE FENCE!

After that, since we were near my old stomping grounds we went into Kaimuki town and stopped at the Crack Seed store. First time I went in there with Rebecca and all 5 kids. Was fun to see the looks on their faces when they saw and smelled all the jars full of yumminess.

And of course we got Icee. With a Li Hing Mui. Yum.

Then, after that we visited Punchbowl Crater, National Cemetery of the Pacific. We paid our respects to Grandpa Chock whose urn is there.

We headed home, pretty exhausted but hoping we could hang our with our friends the Haverly family. See, they're pretty cool and they have kids around the same age as us. We hope to not overstay our welcome with them, but love to hang out with them because they're so cool. Well, they offered to bring extra surfboards to teach the kids how to surf. Awesome!

And then my cousin Ginai wanted to hang out too. More awesome! Then my cousin and one of my favorite families in the world could meet. So we went to Chun's and the kids all had a shot at surfing. Even Lydia got the chance to stand up on a surfboard in the water. It was in the shallow water and folks were helping her. But still.

I got to learn to holoholo. I was told you shouldn't say "fishing" because then you don't catch any. It's not fishing, it's "holoholo."

Such a fun day. I'm so, so proud of my kids for trying something new. I've already told them multiple times that my goal is for them to be better at "Hawaiian things" than me. That includes surfing.