Hawaii for Spring Break, Day 5

It's Sunday.  When I was making plans for our trip, I didn't really count today as a day of activity, because it's Sunday, and we try to keep the Sabbath Day holy.  It was also conference, and we wanted to watch and listen to the great messages.  The kids were fairly disappointed that we had no treats when the prophets spoke, but we promised them we would do that again in six months.  It turned out that the travel coordinating people responsible for Brent's flight didn't actually make a reservation for him on last night's flight, so we got to visit with him a bit longer. Yeah!

Brandt is peering out the elevator door to see when others following us will get to the elevator.

He "hid" out of view and jumped out yelling, "Boo!" to try and scare Blythe.

It didn't really work.

Brenda had some excellent suggestions of Sunday appropriate activities in Honolulu, so after conference, which for us ended at 12:00, and a bit of lunch, we went to stroll around the Queen Lili'okulani Botanical Garden.  Sounds lovely, doesn't it?  It wasn't so much.  It was a beautiful park, but not really a botanical garden.  There was very little planted, even fewer things labeled, and no real sense that it was a "garden."  It was a park.  However, there is a nice stream running through it, and we did get out and wander around--briefly--and took some pictures.

As you can see, Blythe couldn't be bothered to get dressed this morning.

Or this afternoon.

Or at all today.

 

Look how cooperative Brandt is being.

From the botanical garden, we drove up to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, informally known as the Punchbowl Cemetery because it's in the Punchbowl Crater.  The cemetery initially served as a final resting place for those in the armed forces killed in the Pacific Theater whose remains were transfered to Hawaii.  It was then opened up to any service man and direct family member who wished to be buried there.  It is a beautiful spot, with a large memorial to those killed in action, with those who received the Medal of Honor for extraordinary service in action represented with a gold star.  All those who had a star by their name were killed in action.  There are also very interesting tile maps showing significant Pacific battles from World War II to Korea.  It was nice to wander around and think about the great sacrifice of so many to ensure our freedom.

Along each side of the monument are the names of 28,788 military personnel who are missing in action or were lost or buried at sea in the Pacific from World War II to the Vietnam War.  The dedication stone at the base of the staircase says, "In these gardens are recorded the names of Americans who gave their lives in the service of their country and whose earthly resting place is known only to God."

At the top of the stairs in a statue of Lady Columbia who is meant to represent all grieving mothers.  The inscription below her, taken from Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, reads, "The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."  I think that's beautiful and so, so sad, like the cemetery itself.

I liked this quote.

A sample of the maps all along the memorial.

Each had lots of detail.

 

The view from the edge of the crater.  

I think that peak in the picture below is Diamond Head. 

We returned to Brenda's house and played some games, then in the evening went for a stroll along the marina.  We had hoped to see some sting rays which sometimes come up to the wall and eat moss off the rocks.  We didn't see any rays, but we did see lots and lots of black crabs, and some jelly fish that were bobbing along the top of the water.  They looked like large bubbles that never popped.  It was such a beautiful evening, like every evening we've had in Hawaii.  We had hoped we might get a big Hawaii rain storm, but it remained clear with only a bit of a breeze.  Perfect Sunday strolling weather.