Mixed Nuts: Vacation Day 5

Quotes

"There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark." - Helen Keller
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck
You may never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.- Unknown
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow' ~Helen Keller
Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."- Dr. Seuss
"Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it."
"God doesn't give children with disabilities to strong people: He gives them to ordinary, everyday people, then He helps the parents to grow stronger through the journey. Raising a child with special needs doesn't TAKE a special family, it MAKES a special family."Author Unknown
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go – Abraham Lincoln
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~ Benjamin Franklin
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle - Albert Einstein
The journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step
Sometimes in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives you a fairy tale
Where there is great love, there are always miracles - Willa Cather
The Difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer
Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.
Be the change you want to see in the world
Don't tell God how big the storm is, tell the storm how big Your God is..........
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it
Fall down seven times - get up eight - unknown
Despite our differences, we sink or swim together
Life may not be the party we expected, but while we are here, we might as well dance
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." -Confucius

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Vacation Day 5

This day we decided to go to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and to Pearl Harbor. We started at a decent time because we had learned that the plantation gets busy in the afternoon. We also heard that they had just picked all the pineapples and cleared the field. BUT - they grow many other things, and the kids saw a train ride and didn't care. So we dealt.

Dole Plantation was started by James Dole who came to Hawaii in 1899 wanted to show Hawaii that they could take part in the booming times for farming that were going on at that time. He established the first plantation that would later be an empire. He wasn't the first person to grow pineapples in Hawaii, but he was the first to make it marketable on a large scale. He worked a way to can the pineapple so it could travel long distances. The first Dole cannery opened in 1901. At one time, Honolulu was the world's largest cannery. In 1922, Dole bought the Hawaiian island Lana'i and transformed it into the largest pineapple plantation in the world with 20,000 farmed acres. and it housed more than 1000 workers and their families. For nearly 70 years, Lana'i supplied more than 75% of the world's pineapple.

By the 1930's, Hawaii was processing over 200,000 tons of pineapple a year - it was Hawaii's second largest industry. Between Honolulu and Lana'i they employed 3000-4000 people.

After we finished at Dole (we had lunch there and ate pineapple ice cream which was really, really sweet), we drove to Pearl Harbor. We had our tickets for the tour already (your choice for this is to get them ahead of time by one month, or get to Pearl Harbor at 7am and wait in line and hope for tickets. I chose to do the first one). We walked around and looked in the museums until it was our turn. You have to get on a boat to get out to the Pearl Harbor Memorial.

I am sure I don't need to tell anyone what Pearl Harbor is, so we will skip that history lesson. Mat and I visited this site when we were here 17 years ago, and it was humbling. The kids were impressed with the fact that the ship is still where it sunk. I am glad we were able to take them.

Enjoy the pictures:

While we were at the Plantation we took a train ride around the plantation. We saw all kinds of things. Not pineapples.....but things.

Wait! What is this? A Pineapple! We did find a few. They grow on a stalk. And we learned that they are picked by hand.

We took Cainan's picture near a pineapple because for some reason, a few years ago, Finley started calling him Pineapple. And it stuck.

Our dole pineapple ice cream came in this cool cup. Which is a bank.

Two kids in a pineapple

They had a raised map that also had braille on it - it was awesome.

Ships in the distance

I liked this saying. It says "Few islanders went to bed that night.....outdoors there was silence..shortly before midnight, the moon began to rise, and a vivid lunar rainbow, the old Hawaiian omen for victory, arched over the dark sky"

Checking out a raised map of the Hawaiian islands

The Anchor from the USS Arizona.

Out on the USS Arizona. This is part of the ship below. Some people do not know that the people who sunk with this vessel were never recovered. This is where they still lie today.