the big day, take two

time for our vow renewal...i spent all morning beautifying, which is sad, given that i really didn't do too much special because the tradewinds here would have blown a big hair production around anyway...

we drove the hour to the public park/beach where we met with rev. mark and our fantastic photographer, deanna. we were sceptical, because the beach was covered with this:

but then the rev. mark led us down a small sandy path to an absolutely beautiful section of beach where the 'big claw' was nowhere to be seen. he sang the hawaiian wedding song as we processed to a small patch of grass to renew our vows. and why renew our vows? because when we spoke these same words ten years ago, we hadn't been married...and can you really know what you mean when you speak those vows on your wedding day? but now we know, and the vows hold much more meaning. and while nothing can replace the magic that was our wedding day, i do have to say, that standing on that beach, saying our same vows again, was still an impressive moment.

our photographer was fantastic and we can't wait to see our pictures, which we're supposed to get before we leave. then i can share, because i wasn't snapping away :)

we then headed on a long drive along the far coast of the island to spend the rest of our day at the polynesian cultural center and luau for dinner. this 'theme park' of sorts has 'villages' from the pacific island groups, with demonstrations, etc. from those islands. it was HOT. and we were tired. but it was still an enjoyable afternoon. we watched the canoe pagent, in which each island group showed native dances on the canoes that traveled up and down the river in the center of the park. we also enjoyed our first shave ice - cherry and guava flavored!

we stopped in samoa for a bit to watch the demonstration there, where one of the men climbed the coconut tree. holy smokes. see him at the top?

we stopped in the easter island area to take a picture for the sake of the kids as one of the 'easter island guys' makes some appearances in "Night at the Museum" (a movie), which they love.

then we were off to our luau dinner - we actually bought the picture they took of us because it was a good one! and we took this one inside:

we dined on more traditional hawaiian fare; yes, jason tried the poi, i did not (i did eat the purple dinner roll, though!) we were treated to more traditional dances and then had some time to shop in their marketplace before heading to their night show. while it was impressive, and enjoyable, we were so tired that we opted to leave at intermission. i know we missed the fire and knives, but we had a nearly one hour drive back to our resort and it was late and it had been a long day.