Hawaii: The Polynesian Cultural Center

First of all, this was the view from my bedroom window:

Yeah, completely awesome. More pictures of the beach later, I promise.

Early on in our trip, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center (hereafter to be referred to as the PCC, not because I'm so totally in the in-crowd that I feel I should call it that, but just because I'm too lazy to keep typing it all out).  We broke that up into two parts-- our first day there, we did the luau and watched the hula show, including a backstage tour.  And then we went back later to visit all the villages and actually learn about the various cultures.  Both were fantastic, but the highlight was definitely the hula show.  (No photography allowed, so you'll have to do a google search if you want pictures of that).  I grew up watching my Mom and sisters take hula classes, so I already have a pretty solid appreciation for the dance.  But really, even without that background, how could you NOT appreciate a good Tahitian dance or a really spectacular fire dance?  (And neither of those videos really do it justice, just so you know.)

Yeah.  It was totally awesome.  Definitely include a day there if you ever go to Hawaii.  DEFinitely.

Maya and Bentley use Kamryn as a pillow on the way there (it's quite a drive!)

The whole gang, sporting the awesome t-shirts that Jeni made for us!

Bentley and Maya try to make fire.  Then the guy running things came by and had a nice little flame burning in about 5 seconds.  It was impressive.

Sitting with our pretty leis and all ready to EAT!

Showing off the roasted pig.  I was relieved to see that it bore no resemblance to a pig any more, since that would have been difficult to explain to the kids.  (Although maybe it wouldn't have been a big deal, since it was Bentley who commented, "Mmm.  Good pig!" halfway through the meal!)

Ryder's favorite food?  The chocolate cake, of course!

From the backstage tour-- I liked this.  It made me wish I was one of the dancers.  And Polynesian!

Pretty sunset

All right, so this deserves a bit of an explanation: poor Jason had food poisoning that whole day.  So he wasn't enjoying himself too much, and took every opportunity to lay down and rest.  On this occasion, Ryder decided to join him.  And Craig snapped a picture!

So that was our first day at the PCC!  And naturally, we have more pictures from the second day.  But I think this is enough for now!



By the way, sorry this whole "blogging about Hawaii" thing is taking me so long.  I went through all my pictures and wrote down which ones would go on the blog and was all gung-ho about the whole thing, and then I finally uploaded all the pictures from Craig's camera.  And then I got overwhelmed and put it out of my mind for a week (as I tend to do whenever I get overwhelmed!  It's a great coping mechanism-- you should totally try it some time!).  I'm back to trying again, now, so more soon, I promise!