Parents' Visit to Kauai: Day 4

I picked my baby up from the hospital today. At first I thought his injuries were minor, but he ended up needed a transplant. However, the surgery went well and he made a near-full recovery! I even put him straight to work as soon as I brought him home.

In other words, it’s good to have my Mac back. The hard drive crashed, but luckily it was still covered by Applecare, so I didn’t have to pay anything for the part or for the service of having it fixed. My employer had bought me an external hard drive back in October, so I’ve been backing up all my files. The only thing I hadn’t yet saved externally was the batch of pictures I took while my parents were here… those were lost. But fortunately, I had already posted most of the good ones on my blog. My dad and I took all the same pictures the last couple days, so at least we have one set of copies. Whew. All of the pictures I post from my parents’ visit from here on out will be ones taken by my dad.

Quick update before I dive into a recap… the worship band played at the Saturday night service tonight, and afterwards I went to Shikinah’s and Ryan’s apartment to help Shikinah book the plane tickets, hotel rooms, and rental car for the HIM Conference in Honolulu. I’m SO excited. Like, giddy excited. Our group consists of me, Dillon, Shikinah, Ryan, Olivia, Amanda, and Robbie… the YWAMers are going separately, but we’ll meet up with them for shopping and city-exploring. AND… as if a weekend trip with friends isn’t awesome enough… Tony Campolo is one of the featured speakers at the conference! Amazing!

Ok, and now to recap day four of my parents’ visit to Kauai, which was a busy day. I picked them up at 8:00 a.m. and we went straight to the Princeville airport for a tour with Sunshine Helicopters. None of us had been in a helicopter before, and it was a good first experience. After we checked in, we sat in the small lounge area waiting to depart and met the other two ladies (Kathy and Karen) who were on our tour and just happened to be from Canton, Ohio. Small world. We chatted with them until it was time to leave (turns out they and my parents have some mutual friends), and then we all boarded the chopper: my parents in the front, me in the back right window.

The first fifteen minutes or so I felt a little airsick, but once I stopped trying to focus on the views through the lens of my camera, I was fine. The scenery was incredible… jagged, triangular cliffs of myriad green shades. Sometime I’ll get ahold of some more of my dad’s pictures and share them, but for now all I have is this one he snapped of me before the chopper took off:

After we landed and returned our gear, we were solicited to buy a photograph the company had taken of us standing outside the helicopter before it took off. We declined, but this was after we had made small talk with the receptionist, who was impressed that I had moved to Kauai all on my own, so as we were leaving, she said, “Hold on honey, I’m going to print a picture for you, no charge.” It’s a really good picture of all of us, so I’m glad she was feeling generous… but I got the impression that she only did it because she thought I was much younger than twenty-four and needed something to look at when I get homesick. Ha. Here’s a picture Dad took of the picture:

As soon as we got back to the resort, we changed our clothes and then left for the south shore. We stopped at Spouting Horn to take some pictures (and buy a couple souvenirs), and then we went to Port Allen to check in for our reservation on a dinner sail with Captain Andy’s. First we ate lunch at Port Allen Sunset Grille & Bar, then we took off on the boat. It was a great afternoon… saw some whales spouting and a few breaching… sailed along the Na Pali coast and (Dad) got some great pictures… and I didn’t get seasick this time! The trip back to the port was cold and damp, but it was worth it to be out on the water watching the sun go down. Gorgeous. I’ll end with a few pictures of my parents and I on the boat. Aloha!