Phillips family time

With Eric's parents and Grandma here for the blessing the rest of the Phillips gang, Uncle Todd, Aunt Camille, and cousins Joci, Brin, and Amelia, came out to Hawaii for some fun in the sun. Eric took the week off to play along, while Emry and I stayed home to recover.

Pearce, Amelia, Brin, and Joci.

Connor, Joci, Pearce, Amelia and Brin.

Watching the dolphins at the Oriental Hotel.

At the beach in Waikiki. Connor, Sean and Pearce.

Emry and I met the everyone for dinner.

Eric and Connor.

Pearce and Tutu Jane.

Papa David and Pearce.

Last stop was to see Santa Claus at the Ala Moana Mall.

Grandmama and Papa with owie come to visit

My parents came to visit so naturally we hit the beach. A lot. Thankfully, my dad has almost fully recovered from the motorcycle accident that mangled his ribs and shoulder blade. His arm still does not fully rotate but it's made his golf game improve (he's been forced to tame down his swing). After my Dad came out of many surgeries, he showed Pearce the Xray of his shoulder and ribs that had 20 screws holding it all together and from then on Pearce has called my Dad, "Papa with an owie." To this day, Pearce always asks to see Papa's Xray.

Papa, Pearce and Grandmama at White planes beach 10 minutes from our house

Papa, Connor and Eric at Waimea Bay. They swam out to this small rock islet to swim with the dolphins, who usually make their morning rounds at the mouth of the bay, but were unlucky that day.

Papa snorkling with the sea turtles

Eric took some video of Connor and Papa snorkeling

Amber & Sam Visit

Amber and Sam Mortensen, Eric's childhood friend, came to Hawaii to visit us a few weeks before Christmas. They expressed interest in a hike, so we chose Sacred Falls, which we've never done but always wanted to. Sacred Falls is located a few miles south of Laie on Oahu's Northeast Shore. It has been closed for almost 10 years because of a rock slide that killed several. If caught, hikers are fined several hundred bucks. We decided to risk it, but significantly decreased that risk by soliciting the help of Heber, who does this hike in his sleep every few months.

Almost at the Falls. Left: Heber, Olga, Wendi, Pearce, and Eric. It's a short hike, but only in terms of physical distance. The trail is overgrown, and we had Pearce and his small 3-yr-old legs to contend with. And Sam, Amber and Rachel had just got off the plane. Literally. We picked them up and this was our first stop.

Pearce, Eric and Wendi. The walls are vertical on either side, especially the nearer to the falls. If there had been a rock slide, there really is no place to run. It's easy to understand why they've closed it. And I must say, we were a bit underwhelmed by the beauty of the falls. It's not that the falls aren't beautiful, but just that as a hiker, you can only see the final 100 ft or this 1100-ft fall. A helicopter is the preferred way, I suppose.

Rachel and Pearce with the Nordstrom Santa. Nordstoms "invited" us to their Christmas seasonal event. So, Amber, Rachel, Pearce and I had breakfast with Santa at the Nordstroms cafe. Pearce informed me later that he wasn't the real Santa, but a helper Santa. I asked him how he figured that out. He explained, it was because of his fake beard.

Next we went over to the posh Mandarin Oriental hotel to see the dolphins.

Their holiday decor was amazing. This is how I would like to decorate my house for the holidays.

Feeding the dolphins. This has always been one of our favorite free activities in Honolulu. You have the option to pay $300 to sit in the water and have the dolphins touch you three or four times. Or, pay $0 and watch it all from five feet away.

Rachel and Pearce look for stingrays.



Overall, it was a great day with the kids. And a great time with Sam, Amber and Rachel. Except for Sam teaching Pearce several new "naughty" words and phrases. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures. But Amber did. Here's a link to her version of this trip.

Phong & Nan Visit

Eric's mission companion, Ben Chadwick (aka Phong ), and his wife Nan visited us two weeks ago, sans their two daughters, who stayed in Utah with Phong's parents. Eric and Phong were companions for an astounding 11 months of their mission, including two months in the MTC. Even when they weren't companions, they were still only five minutes away from each other, serving in the same branch of Vietnamese the entire time. Needless to say, they have a very unique and thick bond. Both admit that a lot of who they are today was a result of their mission time together.

We hadn't seen Phong since our wedding, and Nan even longer, so the visit was almost like making a re-acquaintance--especially for me. Early on, we discovered that they are also foodies, resulting in a week-long quest for Hawaii's tastiest treats. On Eric's 31st birthday, we went to Ninnikuya, a Japanese garlic restaurant. That means every dish is themed around garlic, including their ice cream. When we first moved to Hawaii, this was arguably our favorite restaurant. But after a few lackluster visits, we put it behind several other joints. Eric, however, wanted to give it another shot.Thank goodness, he did. Ninnikuya is officially back in the running for our top spot. Their spinach-bacon salad is the best I've ever had, and Eric liked his seared ahi dish so much that he may have officially had an affair with it.

Eric and Phong enjoy the feast

Eric taught Phong to surf and we also saw Star Trek on Hawaii's new IMAX (it gave me chills). But probably the funnest thing we did was our kayaking excursion in Kailua Bay out to the Mokes islands. This gave us an opportunity to try out our new underwater case for our canon. It also gave us a chance to test how well Pearce handled a long kayak excursion. We were planning to take him this weekend on a much longer excursion to Kauai to paddle the Na Pali coast. It's 16 miles long and would have taken us three nights/four days. National Geographic named it one of the most adventurous trips in the world. Turns out, though, the swells never went down enough, plus Eric got real sick. So we're going to try again in July. Pray it works out so you're not reading our obit instead of our blog.

Pearce and Nan wait while the guys get the kayaks ready.

Phong and Nan ready to get going.

Nan, Phong, Pearce and Eric. I'm in my own inflatable kayak taking the pictures.


A gorgeous day. Eric and PP inside the inflatable kayak that I got for him for his 30th birthday last year.

Paddling hard.

Taking a picture of myself.

Almost to the Mokes.


Everyone else had the same idea, I guess.

Our destination.

Pearce checks out the animals found around the Island Sanctuary.



Pearce disturbing someones rock tower.



Eric takes a nap in the sand.

Phong gets ready to snorkel. Where's the sun?

Pearce asleep on the paddle back.

We love playing, and sharing our Island with friends. Unfortunately it had to come to an end. Thanks for coming Phong and Nan!