 1 We arrived in Honolulu on Mother's Day weekend. Our first activity was to take Nancy, Emily, and Andy to the Hawaii Pet Expo at the Blaisdell Center. |
 2 Max has Andy show his best side forward |
 3 Andy tries on a backpack |
 4 Emily found a squishy rubber toy that kept her occupied for hours |
 5 Emily meets a friend, but does not want to give up the toy |
 6 On Tuesday, we drove up north to Mary's vetiver farm |
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 9 Rows of vetiver with drip irrigation hoses |
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 12 Deb loads the vetiver slips into the planter |
 13 Woody, Deb, Mary, and Max prepare the planter |
 14 Vetiver slips |
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 16 Woody gets the John Deere into gear |
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 18 Max checks out the seating position for a planting run |
 19 Deb explains to Max how this is all supposed to work. |
 20 Yep, it's just like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory! |
 21 The slips have to be loaded individually by hand into the planter as the big wheel rotates |
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 23 The result- the slips are planted at regular intervals along the row |
 24 After using the planter, it's time to tamp down the soil by hand and adjust the drip tubing |
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 26 The covered area where the slips are prepped |
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 28 The slips are grown in pvc piping with overhead misters before they are pulled apart and separated for planting |
 29 After a morning of hard work (so much for vacation!) we headed to Romy's shrimp stand for lunch |
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 32 Mmm... the shrimp were good! |
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 34 After lunch we headed to the North Shore to Haleiwa to get shave ice at Aoki's |
 35 Across the street from Aoki's is the Liliuokalani Church |
 36 We headed back to Honolulu past the Dole Plantation where Deb needed to stop in to check on her product displays |
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 38 Hawaiian flavored Hello Kitty candies |
 39 The Dole Plantation has a tacky outdoor area for photo-ops |
 40 Deb is Ms. Pineapple |
 41 ... and Mary is Ms. Hula Girl |
 42 Next day, Deb's shop in downtown |
 43 The Japanese "gentlemen's club" upstairs from Deb's shop |
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 45 After a couple of days with Deb and Mary, we checked into the Marriott Ihilani Resort at Ko Olina for 3 days |
 46 Ko Olina is a series of artifical lagoons |
 47 View from the room |
 48 Dinner at Azul, the premier restaurant at the Ihilani Resort |
 49 Once a day feeding time for the stingrays |
 50 Most places have Koi ponds, the Ihilani has stingrays |
 51 They keep baby hammerhead sharks in another series of ponds! |
 52 The baby hammerheads do "tricks" for their food |
 53 Riding to the airport Hawaiian style for our flight to Kauai |
