Thursday and Friday Catch Up Time

There are 5 couples/families that are making this trip to participate in the Honolulu Marathon on Sunday, (Bonnie and myself), (Alan and Stacey and Taylor), (Angel and Phil), (Christy and Matt), (Steve and Debbie). Of this group Bonnie, Debbie, and Matt will not be bib carriers in the marathon. Alan, Angel, and maybe Christy will be walking the marathon; the rest of us will be running.

Yes Bonnie did go with me on this trip. No there is no way that I could have gone out the front door with her. She will be part of our cheering squad, our photographer, and supporter, and she will be watching Taylor while Alan and Stacey are participating in the marathon on Sunday.

We've made it to the Houston Airport (Taylor, Angel, Stacey, Phil, Steve and Bonnie), the others are up near me when I took the pic.

Here's our running mascot Taylor, he is now 7 years old and is a delight to be around. He is a barrel of energy and so willing to do just about anything. When we boarded the jet to Honolulu when they announced our seating group they announced his name as well and that got him very excited.

It was almost an 8 hour trip from Houston to Honolulu. We spent the time sleeping, doing Soduku, eating, and looking out the window....I thought this pic was interesting with the sun dancing off the wing of the plane.

As we made our approach into Honolulu I happened to look down and saw this submarine leaving the area, apparently coming out of Pearl Harbor. I thought that was an interesting thing to see.

"We've arrived in wonderful Honolulu!!!!!!!!!

At this point we had all received our lei's. Angel's right cheek, Debbie, Steve, Matt, Christy, Phil and Bonnie's left cheek. Not sure where Stacey and Taylor were for this pic. Alan joined us later Thursday evening.

Friday we visited the Arizona Memorial, this was December 7, the 66st annivisary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the distance here you can see the Arizona Memorial, sitting atop the sunken remains of the battleship Arizona and the tomb of so many of her young sailors. The battleship Missouri is anchored just south of the Arizona. The Missouri is where Japaneses surrender was signed in 1945.

This is one of the Pearl Harbor survivors. He was on our tour and was visiting the memorial for his third and what he feels like his last time. He had visited a friend aboard the Arizona in the engine room about an hour before the bombing started. He had been discharged already but his discharge papers were ripped up and he served for 4 more years. Bonnie got autographs of several other survivors from the bombing at the museum before we took the boat ride out to the memorial.

The watery grave of over 1,000 of the Arizona sailors. Even today the other survivors of the Arizona can be cremated by the Navy and interred in the ship with their shipmates by Navy divers. One new interment was to be made Friday night after all the ceremonies of the day.

Close up of the battleship Missouri.

Here's some of the Edmond Family Center for Autism gang (Matt, Christy, Randy, Bonnie, Stacey, Taylor, and Alan) in front of one of the anchor's that were taken off of the battleship Arizona. The other anchor is on display at the Arizona State Capitol.

At the entrance of Honolulu Marathon Expo.

Friday night we ate at a place called Cheeseburger's in Waikiki. They had the best cheeseburgers I've eaten in a long time.

As for the weather, yes it's rained alot. The temperatures have ranged from 68 to 82 since we've been here. We keep hearing flash flood warnings for the area but have only seen the streets flooded in isolated areas once or twice. The rain never seems to last very long even when it gets really heavy.

Here it is early Saturday morning, Stacey, Bonnie, Christy, and I met downstairs for a 2 mile run. We had a time of 23:36, taking it very easy. Our pace was 11:47 and it was never a struggle even with the high humidity. My knee feels fine so I'm hoping for a great race tomorrow morning.

More later.