Good food and Good fun

Adam's 14th birthday was on May 3rd. Adam has inherited refined tastebuds from his parents :-), and he always spends quite awhile trying to decide what meals to have on his birthday. He only gets to pick the meals three times a year (once on his birthday and twice on his special months), so his meal choosing is a serious, time-consuming business.

He finally decided on Eggs Benedict for breakfast and Chimichangas for an early dinner. (We have to forego lunch in lieu of early dinners on birthday days because usually the meals are so filling (ie. fattening), we can't fit in three meals.)

Actually, Adam's birthday was on fast Sunday, so he announced to us all, well in advance, that his birthday was actually on Saturday. He ended up getting two special meals because, on his real birthday, we had pizza Sunday evening after church and then his "cake" which was a Flourless Walnut Chocolate Torte. Yum!!



The plan was to have Adam receive his patriarchal blessing on Sunday since he was fasting. It seemed like a special way to celebrate a fast sunday birthday, but it turns out that the only patriarch in Maui only gives blessings on Mondays. So, although Adam did receive his patriarchal blessing, (and he fasted again without complaining, so we know he is truly growing up :-), it was not until two weeks later.

Adam has wanted to go to Hana ever since we moved here. We bought a used 15 passenger van a couple weeks before his birthday, so his birthday outing took place on Monday, the day after his birthday. We pulled all the kids out of school (except Caroline who did not go with us), and took the Road to Hana to the Seven Sacred Pools, which are neither seven nor sacred and therefore also known as Oheo Gulch. People drive the Road to Hana, not to see Hana, but for the road which consists of more than 600 hairpin curves and beautiful vistas and waterfalls.


How about this lovely waterfall?
Or these triple falls? And this is one of the beautiful vistas near the lava caves and the black sand beach. The brave kids (Adam, Jairin and Miri) and Rob actually swam in the pool in the lava cave which was icy water.

Everyone else waited to swim until Oheo Gulch which is actually beyond Hana. The water was freezing cold coming straight down from the mountain, but even the three little girls refused to be left out. They swam and swam and cried when it was time to go. In fact, Joelle said, "I want to move here." When I told her that we already lived here, she said, "No, I want to move right here 'cause I like to swim."

Aria and the Little Mirimaid.

Lana and Daddy.

The funniest memory was the big kids trying to get out of a pool that they had jumped into. Several months earlier, they had swum in this very pool, but they didn't realize the water level was lower this time. Jairin, Adam and Miri jumped in. After several minutes, Kamri was able to pull Miri out, but she could not pull Jairin out, and could hardly budge Adam. Jairin even tried to climb out by climbing on top of Adam while Kamri pulled, but nothing worked. Rob eventually had to come and rescue the boys.

The highlight for the big kids was cliff jumping. Adam, Kamri, Jairin and Miri all jumped off a cliff several feet up. Even Rob jumped off, but he didn't enjoy it; he said it hurt. Jairin is always the daredevil and the first to jump, but they all jumped several times.