Hawaii, part one

I'm sitting in the living room on my computer. Jolie is reading Nancy Drew, volume 20-something. Jeslyn is reading, "I know an old lady Who Swallowed a Pie," to Grandma Jan. Jennifer is getting ready to make dinner. This scene COULD take place in our house, but it actually is in our 7th-floor condo at Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club on Oahu. I've heard pros and cons about timeshare ownership, but the greatest thing for me is that they allow 3-generation vacations, all living in the same place. This is the second time the kids have been here with us, and we've also been to Kauai, Hilton Head, and Lake Tahoe with them.
Flew in late Saturday night, and Sunday was mostly acclimating. Ko Olina has added another tower, with a new pool, and the new pool caters much more to kids, with a lavatube water slide and waterfalls to swim through. So the girls spent much of Sunday afternoon and evening there.
Monday we make our annual trek to the Dole Plantation and the North Shore. Dole plantation is not a highlight for me, but Jan found some bargains at the quilt shop and Jen and Jolie made it through the maze in 37 minutes. I drowned my sorrow in a bad cheeseburger, fries, and some pineapple macadamia nut cheesecake. (I'm gaining a pound a day so far). Then we went into Haleiwa to stop at Giovanni's Shrimp Shack. For those of you who know it, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, imagine first a "roach coach", except it's parked in the same place and never moves. It is covered with graffiti, as everyone who visits there tries to find room to add their name in marking pen. The menu is small, 3 types of broiled shrimp--lemon butter, scampi and "hot". There is even a warning that the "hot" is really "hot" and no refunds will be given if it's too hot for you. For $13 you get 12 of these. They also have a garlic hot dog, and canned soft drinks. So I got a hot dog, since it had been at least a half hour since my burger and cheesecake. It was really good. Jeff had me try some of his "hot" and I ate 3. My mouth burned about an hour for each one. But I'd go again in a heartbeat.
Then off to the North Shore, stopping first just past Sunset Beach, where about 30 green sea turtles come in to sun themselves each afternoon. There are lifeguards--or perhaps volunteers--who stand guard over the turtles, making sure no one disturbs the ones who make it up on the sand to sleep and sun themselves. We learned last year that during this sleep, the turtles heartbeat slows to something like 2 beats per hour. If they are disturbed during this time, when they go back out to sea they are too tired to make it to their underwater hiding places and fall asleep on the surface, making them easy prey for the sharks waiting for such an opportunity.
We then went on past Waimea to another relatively uncrowded beach, and the water got deep fairly quickly. This provided a new opportunity for Jolie and Jeslyn. The beach at Huntington is relatively shallow, so they never get far enough out to actually swim in the water because they can't get past the pounding surf. Here, there was a small shorebreak, but they spent much time in the deeper water, swimming to mommy, daddy and grampa. They then went in and got their first practice body surfing in the small shorebreak, and that was a great thing for me to watch as they had so much fun and their fear of the water and the surf is nearly gone.
Back to Ko Olina where I cooked tacos for dinner and the kids went back to the pool.
Today we left gramma--too much sun yesterday--in the condo and drove across the island to Kailua. Jeff has friends there, and one owns and is remodeling a house on a private beach. There's a storm supposed to hit in a couple of days, so the surf was much bigger than the previous day. This beach is much like Huntington--very shallow for a long way out--but the waves are more suited to body boarding. We were able to go out a hundred yards or so and ride all the way to the sand. Jolie and Jeslyn also made strides on their body boards. Both had one big wipeout. Jolie got right back up and tried it again. Jeslyn blamed hers on daddy and vowed never to speak to him again. Back home for another 3 hours in the pool.
So, it's a great time in a great place. Most of my friends are jealous, and for those that aren't it's not for my lack of trying to make them jealous--see previous post! But the paradise-like setting is not really the main attraction. For this blessed grampa, the settings provide benchmarks for my grandchildren's lives. Four years ago on Kauai, neither of the girls would venture into the ocean, and would not leave the side of the 2-foot-deep "baby pool." Then at Hilton Head, much of the same. Two years ago at Tahoe, they went into the water with their "noodles" and let daddy flip them, as long as he was there to pick them up, since they were still not close to being water safe. Last year at Ko Olina, they used their noodles to paddle to deep water, again as long as daddy or grampa was close by. This year they swam in the ocean, body surfed, bodyboarded, went down the waterslide, and may wind up even snorkeling. And we still have another 5 days to go. Then they fly home to get ready for school, and Jan and I are off to Maui. Both of us are trying to figure out how to combat boredom next week. When it comes right down to it, most of life's perks lose much of their attraction without friends and family with whom to share.