Jurassic World

We had the rare opportunity to have two of our children visiting at the same time! Chloe and Levi were here through Wednesday morning, and even visited our seminary class prior to their flight back to Utah. Dan's son Korey is here for what he calls a "nerd conference" for military technology folks, and he will leave tomorrow. He stayed at a hotel in Waikiki during the week, and with us for the weekend. We appreciate having a second bedroom and bath in our apartment, which allows our kids stay with us, it's a great blessing to our family.

The last three missionary zone conferences have also been when we've had family staying with us, so it presents a bit of a dilemma for us. We're expected to support the missionaries and feed them lunch, but family takes priority. When Claudia and Alden were here we didn't attend, when Keilah and Anthony were here we went for the first hour and left early, and this time Elder Mundell was there the entire day but Sister Mundell went to the beach with Chloe and Levi. Our assignment was ready-to-eat fruit for lunch, so Korey helped his Dad buy a wide variety of fruit the day before. We're hoping the next zone conference will be scheduled on a day when we're both able to attend!

Makap'u Point Lighthouse

Korey wanted to do other things than go to the beach during his time off, so we did some different things together. Dan and Korey planned to hike Diamond Head crater one afternoon, but we didn't realize you had to make reservations first, so they went with plan B - a hike up Makapuu Point trail to a fantastic overlook where you can see Molokai in the distance and a lighthouse on the cliffside below. It was a beautiful day and great exercise! We also went to a performance of the play "Newsies!" at Windward Community College. We had low expectations, figuring it would be on the par of high school or community theater productions, but we were blown away by how energetic and talented the entire cast was. It was a lot of fun, so unexpected! 

A sold-out performance of Newsies! at Windward Community College

A highlight of the weekend was putting on our "tourist hats" and exploring Kualoa Ranch together on the windward side of Oahu. Kualoa is famous for its natural beauty and having dozens of movies and TV shows filmed there, the most famous of which are "Jurassic World" and "Lost" among many others. We took a bus to the locations where some of the scenes were shot, then we took a catamaran out into the bay. Our favorite adventure was driving an all-terrain vehicle all over the entire ranch and seeing everything. We also took some amazing pictures, some cheesy ones as well, so this week's blog includes an extra dose of photos, we hope you like them. 



We were chased by giant dinosaurs at Kualoa Ranch!


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