Final weekend....

We head home in just a few days so we are packing in as much as we can and trying to pack a little lol!  I figure I can pack/clean over the next few nights lol!

We finally made it to Marukame Udon!  We liked it so much we went twice this week lol!  It was super speedy counter service and delicious!


Yummy!

Keeping on the food theme of the week we made it to our last Thursday night farmers market.  It’s getting dark later and the market is getting more crowded but holy delicious.  I have yet to eat anywhere but Pig and The Lady, a Vietnamese restaurant in Waikiki that comes to the market each week.  My biggest concern this week was which of my favorite dishes to have. I couldn’t decide so I got all three!  


Laotian Chicken Banh Mi with Pho dipping sauce, papaya salad and Hanoi style beef pho!  

We did more than just eat this week I swear!  Friday we went on our last field trip.  The military homeschoolers of Oahu hosted a field trip to Hokule’a which was in Pearl Harbor.  They had 5 stations each running 20 min. Our first stop was to learn about the Rhinoceros Coconut Beetle.  It’s an invasive beetle from SE Asia that is doing a lot of damage on Oahu. We learned how they are catching them, what the beetles do and how we can help.  


So gross!  

Our 2nd station was to learn about how the ancient Hawaiians used Pearl Harbor, known by them as Pu’uloa.  We learned and sang a song in Hawaiian about the area.  



Our third station was learning about the Hawaiian star compass which is one of the ways used to navigate Hokule’a.  



Our fourth station was to go aboard Hokule’a.  And our last station was with the head archaeologist for the US Navy assigned to Pearl Harbor to learn about the ancient fish ponds and the effort to restore the remaining 3.  There were at one time over 20.  It was fun to see Hokule’a one last time.  

Friday night we were off to the symphony!  Maria’s dear friend Makana is an amazing slack key guitarist here in Hawaii and played with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra Friday night.  Maria and Brandi organized a group of friends and got us all tickets. It was truly amazing.  Makana is incredibly talented! 




The boys snuck ahead of the line with Maria for a quick pic!

This morning to continue our cultural tour we headed to the Honolulu Museum of Art!  It was a quick stop on our way to tour Shangri La, Doris Duke’s home in Hawaii.  It was beautiful, so glad we were able to go. They only offer tours on Saturdays and it books quickly. She collected Islamic art and built the house from the ground up in that style. 


Gardens


There were so many examples of painted glass 


The courtyard in the middle of her home with beautiful ocean views. 


The dining room. 


The sea wall was built to house their boat. 


Her backyard 


The courtyard from another angle. 


Am amazing piece. 

This afternoon we chased the sun!  Lanikai was cloudy and rainy so we went back through the mountains and found the sun!  We checked out a new beach on Hickham Air Force base.  Nice calm water and did I mention sun!   And a beautiful sunset to boot!  I experienced my first retreat on the island.  Just before sunset a bugle blows signaling that retreat will start shortly.  Within 5 min the bugle played again and everyone on the beach stood at attention.  We couldn’t see the flag being lowered but we all faced where the music was coming from. It was beautiful with the sun setting in the background.  



Just a few more days!   We are excited to get home but definitely going to miss it here!  






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