Laughing video's

We have had some great spring weather.  It puts the kids in a good mood, and I love to be able send them outside and burn off some energy. Check out the two videos. They just make me laugh.

Book Reports

Did you know kids did book reports in First grade, I sure didn't.  Princess completed her first book report and was very proud to show off her poster.

Next trip

After coming back from Hawaii we had one full day at home before the 14 hour drive to go spend the kids spring break with my family.  The kids LOVE spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, plus all of their cousins.  We had a great time just haning out and playing, we took the girls to the American Girl store, and we took everyone to the Museum of science.

 Of course I was having a lot of fun and didn't take many pictures at all, but we had a great trip, until it was time to go home and I got sick, then it wasn't so much fun, but the rest of the trip was great. 

Top of Honolulu

Our last morning on Oahu, we were planning on climbing Diamond Head crater, but the parking lot was full and that means the trail was crowded.  It is not much fun climbing a crowded trail, so instead we drove up into Tantalus and took pictures at Roundtop. It has a great view of the island, from Diamond Head

to Ewa Beach.

Pineapples

The Dole pineapple plantation is now a major tourist destination, but pineapples play a major role in the history of Hawaii, many immigrants moved to Hawaii to work in the fields. A pineapple plant produces only 2 pineapples in the 33 month lifespan of the plant. 

Dole operates most of the pineapple growing in other places now.  However some are still grown in the beautiful red dirt of Hawaii. Just beware, the dirt stains your clothes.

The best reason to go to the Dole tourist destination is to feed the fish, they are crazy and fun to watch.

Military

The military has a very strong presense in Hawaii, and there is a lot of history associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor.  This is the Arizona Memorial (taken at night from Ford Island) and during the day from the same location.

This is the USS Utah, also in Pearl Harbor.

trees

OK, I did take some pictures that were a little bit odd. I love the cool trees, and the plants that don't grow on the East coast. The cool palm trees and the cool banyan trees. I love the way that the ocean washes away the sand and shows the roots to see how cool the root systems can be. This is one tree at Bellows beach that I loved.

This is the top and bottom of a palm tree on the North Shore. They were really cool.

This tree is so cool it has completely overtaken the building and grown around it.

This on was outside our hotel and it just made me smile every time I walked out the door of the hotel. It had some great shade and I spent some great time reading under these trees.

Hanauma Bay

One great snorkeling spot is Hanauma Bay. We managed to spend one morning enjoying the snorkeling for a while. I don't have a waterproof camera, so I don't have pictures, by you can see lots of good fish pictures online. This is the view from the top of the crater. It is absolutely beautiful, even if the water was a little bit cold.

Rainbow

Hawaii is the land of rainbows and I didn't realize how long it had been since I had seen a rainbow until I started seeing them every day again. (it helped that it rained a lot during our trip.) This was taken from our hotel lanai on Ford Island.

This one was taken at lunch as I was driving on Ford Island, I love that it goes all across the sky, it was actually a double rainbow, but that didn't show up on the picture. It doesn't fit together perfectly, but you get the idea. I already miss the rainbows.

Pictures

A friend of mine has a daughter doing a report for school on the State of Hawaii. She knew I was going and asked if I would take some pictures for her daughter to use in her report. Of course I said yes, and I didn't realize how fun that would be.

Having to stop and take pictures of things that I normally may not have made me stop and think about all the reasons we loved living there. It made me think about why tourists love going there and why I love the people and the culture of Hawaii. I thought I would share some of the pictures I took. These are not the "typical" tourist pictures, and I am not an expert on Hawaii, but it is a place that I love and now I get to share some of the reasons why.

Hawaii is part of the United States, but it has a culture and people that are very unique. Hawaii has it's own language that is rarely spoken. There are only 12 letters, 5 vowels, plus H, W, K, L, M, N, and P. A lot of local people use pidgin, which is a mixture of Hawaiian, English and even some extras. The Hawaiian words are hard to pronounce, but once you learn it is a lot easier. Besides, where else is a word like Aiea a real place?

The beach is part of the reason that most of the people go to Hawaii, however, I am not really a beach person, I like it for a little while, but don't really like sitting in the hot sun for hours, and I get bored easily. I usually bring a book and sit in the shade. They are beautiful so of course I needed a few pictures of the beach. I will post more pictures and stuff tomorrow.

Oahu

I finally got to join Daddy on one of his trips to Hawaii. He has been 3 times this year and I arranged some creative child care swaps so that the kids would be happy and loved. I took off for a week to join him and we had a fantastic time. Daddy still had to work for part of the time, but that was fine. I got to spend some time shopping, reading and hanging out with old friends.


Princess was born there, so we have a lot of memories of the early years of our marriage and parenthood in in Hawaii. One of our favorite parts of the trip was seeing a lot of friends whom we haven't seen in many years. Of course I didn't take any good pictures, we were too busy laughing talking and eating. I miss the great friends we have there, but I am hoping to make it back again sometime soon.

a while

I know I haven't updated in a while, we have been doing some more traveling and then the weather has been wonderful, so we have been spending as much time as possilble playing outside. But here is a clue as to some of the posts to come.

Nice day

We had another nice day, the kids spent the afternoon playing outside and riding bikes. At least the big kids rode bikes. This big kid rode a two wheeler without training wheels for the first time. The little girls were digging in the dirt again, their favorite activity.

Reading

For homework this week, the Kindergartener needed a book read to him every night and Princess is supposed to read a book by herself every night. Since I was busy, I figured a way to make it work. Have Princess read the story. I love it when I don't have to be involved in everything. By the way, he is wearing his coat because after they finished homework they were allowed to go out and play in the dirt again. He was a little bit excited to dig in the dirt again.

Girls

The little girls have had some fun time playing with dolls this week. This was taken before they started bickering over who got to hold one handle of the stoller and who got to hold two. It is a favorite toy of the week.