Hello, Honolulu!

I bet you are all jealous that I was lucky enough to spend two weeks visiting beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii. Oh, it was nice see 80 degree weather again after a long winter in Oklahoma! I'd been so homesick! I stayed with our old neighbours at Hickam Air Force Base and got to say good bye to our old house, which is being torn down soon. (They are finally going to build new base housing in its place. No more rats!) K's best friend Olsa was very happy to see me and paid me lots of attention. I've never had my clothes changed so often! I helped her with her homework everyday after school. We did lots of sightseeing while I was there, too.

We visited the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor (which is right next door to Hickam AFB). This has to be one of the saddest places in the world. The memorial is built over the remains of the sunken battleship USS Arizona, which is the final resting place for over 1,000 of the 1,177 sailors killed on when their ship was bombed by the Japanese Navy. Over half of the Americans killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor went down with the Arizona. Many, many survivors of that day come back to pay their respects; when we lived in Hawaii the girls’ dad always volunteered to work as a military escort for them at the anniversary service each year.

I also got to be an honorary Girl Scout for the day and go on a field trip with the troop to see the Battleship Missouri. The “Mighty Mo,” which is now a museum at Pearl Harbor, is a Navy battleship that fought in World War II, the Korean War and the Persian Gulf War. She is most famous, though, for being the ship that hosted all the allied and Japanese leaders when the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II. I got to see the exact spot it happened!

We also went out to Ford Island (which is in the middle of Pearl Harbor - you go over a bridge to get there) to visit the new Pacific Aviation Museum. I got to have my picture taken at Luke Field in front of the abandoned control tower. Ford Island is where a lot of the location shots were filmed for the movie Pearl Harbor; you can see Luke Tower in the movie, too! Lots of new buildings are going up over there now: nice new housing, temporary lodging facilities (which is a fancy name for military hotel) and the new museum. The museum even has flight simulators where you can “fly” a plane!

My favourite visit, though, was to Nimitz Elementary School to visit all the girls’ old friends and teachers. Mrs. O, the world’s best Kindergarten teacher (who taught K and her sister when we lived in Hawaii), was so happy to see me! I took a picture with her for the girls; they really miss her (especially that smile). I made lots of new friends, too, in Olsa’s classroom.

I was very sad when my two weeks in Hawaii was over, but I was excited to be on my way to California. Right now I am Twentynine Palms in southern California. Wait until you see my pictures!