Well That Was Exciting!

I'm not sure if exciting would be the way to describe it had we really had a missile attack. As we were gathering everybody, Christopher said, "This is cool!" I said "cool" suggests that it's a good thing. I agree it's fascinating, but getting bombed isn't cool.

Good Morning! 

Dan and Dunc, Kristin and I were out walking first thing in the morning. We chose to go on the beach path so Dunc & Kristin could see it. Soon I received an Amber-type alert on my watch. I read it and stopped. This is weird. I showed it to everybody. It seemed impossible, but yet not something to ignore. We decided to turn around and head back to the condo. Everyone we passed were also looking at their phones and seeming to want to confirm with those we passed that yes, we received the same alert.
Technology is amazing that instantly everyone had the same information!

I told Dan we should start jogging because the kids were getting the same alert on their phones. I didn't want them to be alone or scared. When we got back, they hadn't seen their phones yet.

Dan told them to get shoes on so we could head to the lobby of the hotel. Presumably to get information and go to a central "safe" place.

We turned on the news but there were no reports, which was peculiar. We knew it could be a hack. But we also knew it wouldn't be surprising if North Korea did attempt to launch a missile. It was too likely to be ignored.

We put games in one bag and I had another bag with magazines and books and trail mix. We knelt down to say a quick prayer asking for peace amongst our nations leaders, military and that we would be able to discern what information to follow and to heed a plan for safety.

I was thinking of 9-11 where the people in the towers were told to stay put to not interfere with emergency personnel. Of course, staying put ended up not being a good idea. I have always wondered if, since I am a rule-folower, I would have stayed put heeding the direction of whoever was giving it. OR, since I know when some rules sound ridiculous, I would have started heading out of the buildings because I was following a prompting to get out.

So as I prayed, I knew our safety depended on promptings.

Than we headed to the hotel. We were very calm.

I imagined it would take several hours for a missile to hit Hawaii (assuming it was from North Korea). Dan knew it would only take 15 minutes.

At the main lobby, quite a few people were looking around a bit confused and talking about the alert. But a lot of people were still having breakfast. There was no organized effort to gather or instruct.

False Alarm

Dan thought we should head downstairs to a corridor with no windows. Unfortunately there isn't one. We asked an employee there who turned out to be super helpful. She said they had contacts with The National Guard as well as Oahu and neither had any information there was a missile. So she said right now we should go somewhere where we felt safe and we would be alerted if there was any more information. We asked her if these alerts were common whenever North Korea made a threat. She said not at all.

We decided to walk to a stairwell where we would wait for 15 minutes. However, by the time we got near there, Dan had received word from Chad that the news was confirming it was a mistake. So we headed back to our condo and watched the news.  What a start to our morning!

Then Kristin and I went back on our walk, Dan did his workout and Duncan took the boys down to the beach to play! And the day resumed like normal.

Although on our walk, I was clunked on the head by a closing parking gate! It was open, so I walked past it, and then was thunked on the head as it closed right on top of me! It didn't hurt too bad. Was mostly surprising! And quite funny. It was very confusing because there were no cars ahead of us that would have caused it to open (and therefore logically we would have expected it to close). And while we were standing there figuring out what just happened, the other one opened on its own accord. But note to self: don't walk by open parking gates!

Just a re-enactment!

Today was a hang out at the resort day, except for Duncan who drove around the North Shore to see the sights of Hawaii.

In the evening we drove up to Kaanapali and ate at Duke's with Dan's cousin who lives on the island, David. As it turns out, his wife went to Olympus High, grew up in my Stake and is an older sister to a friend from our old neighborhood! Small, Small world!