This afternoon Luke was playing outside with the neighbor girls from up the street, when he came running and begged me to come see what they were doing.

This is what they had to show me.

When you're seven, this is amazing.  Obviously.

 We had some time today before our flight, so we went on a submarine ride with Jeff and Karen.

Seen through our port hole.  It was so cool!

Then we walked around this park covered in trees that look like above-ground roots.

Good-bye, HI.  I'm glad I finally met you.

 Today, we joined one of Brad's coworkers Jeff and his wife Karen on an ATV adventure.

We make this look gooooood.

Basically, we ATV-ed up a mountain, and at the top they had these water-slides into a natural pool.  And when I say natural pool, I mean freezing cold water from mountain run-off.  So, Brad did the actual sliding and I took the requisite photos.  

 Everybody wins!

Today, Brad went golfing, so I dinked around on my own, shopping and just wandering aimlessly.  It was more than a little bit awesome.

I found these guys living on the deck of our hotel.  I did not come to Hawaii expecting to see penguins.

The highlight of the day for me (and for Brad, too--his golf game was pretty much ruined by high winds) was walking the beach in this sunset.  It was nearly deserted except for some brave surfers who were taking advantage of the waves created by the wind, and after walking for about 45 minutes or so we found a delightful grill for dinner where we ate a romantic seafood dinner.  Hawaii rocks.

My view a good part of today.

When I could force myself to stand up, this is how it looked without the balcony railing in the way.

MercedesBenz sent us on this trip as their reps for the golf tournament, so we have two events we have to attend in the four days we'll be here.  The first was this luau tonight, which was moved inside at the last minute because of rain and wind.  But, we still got to see all the pounding and wiggling that goes on in a hula show.

Business trips are really very trying.

Brad's company is sponsoring a golf tournament in Maui, so we flew to Hawaii for an all-expense-paid "business trip".  We'll be here until Wednesday night, attending the occasional dinner but otherwise just hanging out and having fun.

Brad works so hard.

This year Adam was very excited, because as a seventh grader, he is eligible to play sports for his middle school.  He's been dying to make the basketball team, and for the last month or so, he has been getting up early with Brad, Jess, and Pep and going with them to early-morning seminary so he could practice basketball in the church gym from six to seven every morning.

This week was the tryouts, and he's been staying after school the last couple of days to try out.  Every evening, he'd give me a run-down on what he'd done well, what he wished he'd done better, and he was so excited today because they were going to tell them who made the team.  He told me this morning that if he wasn't on the school bus this afternoon, it was because he'd made the team and he'd be asked to stay after for practice.  I sent him off to school with a high-five and lots of positive energy that I would see him LATER tonight, after he'd made the team.

Well, he was on the school bus.  After all his hard work, he didn't make the team.

It must have been a very long ride home for him on that darn bus.  As soon as he walked through the front door, his eyes filled with tears and he had the break-down he'd probably been wanting to have for the last hour.  My heart just broke for him--his disappointment filled the whole house.  I hugged him and talked to him and hugged him some more, but there was nothing I could really do to make him feel better.  He just wanted to sit in the den with the doors closed and cry.  And I couldn't really blame him.

I called Brad at work and we came up with the only consolation we could think of--dinner at the local Chinese Buffet.  It's Adam's favorite.

So, we went and Adam drowned his sorrows in plate after plate of Chinese noodles and Kung Pao chicken.  Grandma Larson was there too, so he got lots of good sympathy.

Sigh.  Sometimes being a mom rips your heart out.