Memories of our years in Hawaii

After 14 years, Peter and I went back to Hawaii earlier this month and stayed for four days in a cabin at Bellows Beach. It brought back so many happy memories of our three years in Hawaii with our boys. Days at Bellows Beach were some of our favorite things to do. I remembered the boys jumping the waves, riding their boogie boards, building sand castles, drawing in the sand, and once, burying their dad in it.

We remembered taking them to get their ice cream treats at Dave's Ice Cream Parlor in Waimanalo near Bellows Beach, and the ritual stop at Bueno Nalo, a little Mexican restaurant on the beach in Waimanalo. It no longer exists, or we would have gone there. We did treat ourselves to Dave's Ice Cream.

There wasn't anything we did while we were there that didn't remind me of those days, of our sons, and most especially of Leif, who was last there when he was in middle school, sometime in the late 1980s. Sometimes they made me smile and be grateful for every one of those days. Sometimes they made me sad that he is gone and will never be with us again.

This photo was taken the day we arrived in Honolulu in July 1983. We flew in from Japan and were greeted by members of Peter's new office at Camp Smith, who brought us the traditional leis. We were exhausted after the long trip and basically being up all night and dressed for the chilly plane ride, not the summer heat of Hawaii. Peter A. was 14 and Leif was 8 years old. We were fortunate to live there for three years, until the summer of 1986.