Independence Day

Our 4th of July Weekend was nice. We went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation...

We took a walk through the gardens there--it was beautiful! Keep an eye on my photography blog to see more pictures from our tour of the garden. (I'll probably be posting them next month sometime--this month is "Flower Month" - all pictures from the flowers around my neighborhood!)

My mom and Mike and Alex all took a ride on the Pineapple Express (a train at the plantation) and I didn't want to pay extra for it, so I just walked around the gift shops and got a pineapple float--I wish I would have taken a picture of it! Anyway, there's a pearl shop there where you can pick your oyster and they open it up and dig out the pearl and then they pierce it and mount it to a necklace or ring or whatever you want. Well they had this drawing thing and I won a pearl!! This is my oyster:

 The lady opened it up for me...

 ...and fished out the pearl...

...and this is what I ended up with!! Not bad!! According to the ladies at the pearl shop, this color pearl means "Love & Beauty"

It was really hot and Gabriel was NOT happy...

So we went for a drive around the north side of the island and parked our little tushies in the sand at Kaena Point for a little bit...

The next nigh (the 4th) we went up to Camp Smith, which I though of as my Hawaiian Squaw Peak, and watched the fireworks shows by Ala Moana, Hickam, and Pearl Harbor. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get any fireworks of our own or at least some sparklers or something. My mom assured me that, in the long run, Gabriel wouldn't care OR remember....but I WILL!!! Oh well...

 These next few are of Gabe waving. It's SOOOO cute! He just started doing it on the 4th.

 GOT IT!!

So that was our 4th of July weekend 2010!! I hope you had as much fun as we did!!