Hawaii: Dolphins

You may not know this about me, but ever since I went to Sea World in San Diego at the age of 6, I've been absolutely obsessed with whales and dolphins. And I don't use the word obsessed lightly here to mean, "I kind of like them." I mean really and truly and yes, literally, obsessed. I wrote letters to Sea World asking them how to be a trainer and they dutifully sent packets of information about whales back to me. I read every book in the school library about whales. I kept notebooks of newspaper clippings involving whales (remember the three grey whales trapped in the ice? yeah, so do I). And I probably collected over a hundred different whale figurines made out of glass, wax, ceramic, and even ash from Mt. St. Helens.

And even knowing all this, when Craig helped me go through boxes of my things from home, he was still surprised at how much whale paraphernalia I'd managed to collect as a kid. Or how, when he reads books about whales to the kids, I already know all the information in them. (Like how tall a male killer whale's dorsal fin is? 6 feet. Which is pretty huge, if you think about it!)

Anyway. All this is just to give you some idea of how excited I was to swim with dolphins in Hawaii! I actually got to do it twice-- the whole group (minus the babies) got to go at Sea Life Park, and that was pretty cool. But you weren't allowed near the area with a camera, so the pictures my mother-in-law snapped of it are from very far away. (We did buy the ones they sold us, so I'll try to scan those for you later-- they turned out great but I'm not sure if our scanner can do them justice!) And then Jeni and I went again at a hotel where they had a program called Dolphin Quest. And while it was a bit pricey, it was far and away my favorite thing that we did in Hawaii.

BECAUSE IT WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER.

I had a grin plastered across my face the entire hour. The only problem with it was that it set me back to wondering and scheming how I can ever be a whale trainer... Maybe once all the kids are in school and we move to Hawaii... Yeah... That might work.

Anyway, here are my favorite pictures.  If you want to see the rest of them, just say the word the next time you're at my house.  I'll have them out for you to see before you can even blink!

We actually got to be in the water swimming around with the various dolphins.  Here I am tossing a fish into Lono's mouth

I was doing my best to swim decently.  I think that dolphin barely flicked his tail to keep up with me!

I like how Jeni and I are on either side of the dolphin in this shot-- nice camera work, Mr. Photographer!

Jeni and Liko get to be good friends

One squid, down the hatch!

Craig was totally okay with this.  Really!

At least, I think he was.

I'm pretty sure at this point I was actually cooing, "Who's my good boy?  You're my good boy!"  What a dork!

I really like this picture of Jeni!

Giving some tummy rubs to Nai Noa

Like I said, a bit pricey.  But oh, so worth it.  This really was a dream come true for me.

Hawaii: the Beach

Obviously, we spent a lot of time at the beach. Well, beaches. It turns out there are a lot of them in Oahu! We didn't usually manage to take too many pictures, since we were afraid of ruining our cameras by getting sand and/or water in them. So be glad, because even with that limitation, this is still going to be a lot of photos in this post!  Here are some of the ones we did manage to snap, starting with Kailua:

Craig made me a mermaid tail.  Just call me Ariel!

The Smith men

This might be my absolute favorite picture from the entire vacation: Ryder is ready to surf!  On his boogie board.  (Especially considering that I took this using an iPhone that was wrapped in saran wrap and it was too bright to tell what I was pointing it at!  Bonus points for that, right?)

Bentley surprised me by how brave he was

And apparently when this picture was taken I was surprising Craig by how far I ended up going out into the water-- he said all he could see was my pink hat and it kept freaking him out.

Kendra at Waikiki at sunset

Okay, so this isn't a beach.  It's a beautiful viewpoint.  It's also really, really windy.  Which is why I look completely weird.  Oh, well.

Using Craig's sunglasses as a filter, you get some pretty awesome shots!  Waikiki.

I love the soft lighting in this picture of Laie Point.  It makes me think of the paintings by J.M.W. Turner

And I love Bentley's smile here.  And the fact that his eyes match his shirt!

Sunset at Laie Point, near the PCC

Apparently this super cool rock formation happened within the last decade or two when an enormous wave punched that hole in the rock.  It's fun to see recent geological developments!

Again using Craig's sunglasses as a light filter

Someone asked what the significance of the word "Ohana" on our shirts was-- it means "family" in Hawaiian!

The beach was always a lot of fun.  It was also exhausting.  Ryder kept trying to run out into the water when we weren't looking, and I was always worried a huge wave might come along and drag the other two kids out into the water, so I had to maintain Constant Vigilance the entire time we were there.  But it really is amazing how much fun there is to be had at the beach, especially for kids!  It never got old.

Woe is Us

One of the best things about being married to a teacher is the fact that Craig has a lot more time than your average working Dad to be home with us.  But that's not to say that he doesn't occasionally put in long days.  Like today, when he left the house around 8am and is not expected home until after 9pm.  Between him being gone and the need to hit Target and Costco with all three kids, I knew it would be a long day for me.  But I wasn't counting on today being the day that Ryder would develop a bad case of diarrhea.  Not that you need the nitty gritty details, but the fact is that he has pooped ten times so far.  And even though I just tucked him into bed, I'll be awfully surprised if he doesn't need at least a couple more diaper changes before the night is through.

I don't even mind changing all those diapers.  What makes this truly awful is the fact that Ryder's got a horrible diaper rash from it all, so each episode is accompanied with my normally sweet sweet little baby kicking, screaming, and arching his back in pain.  And then, when we're finally all done, he has to kneel on me (because sitting is too painful) and sob against my chest for a few minutes.  It's annoying and heart-wrenching, all at the same time.

All this to say, I sure miss Craig today.

And I'm sure glad I made him change Ryder at least once before he left this morning!

Hawaii by Helicopter

We took a helicopter tour of Oahu.  It was really cool, but unfortunately I don't seem to have the stomach for stuff like this.  As easy as it would be to blame the pregnancy for this, I think the truth is that it's just me-- the last time I threw up was also motion sickness (that time on a plane) and I wasn't pregnant then.  Curse my weak stomach!

Fortunately, I had the foresight to give my camera to Craig before we got on the helicopter.  So even though I had to be concentrating on happy thoughts, Craig still got some great pictures.  Enjoy!

Bentley being led to his seat.  I thought he was very brave about the whole thing!

Kendra and I heading out, as well

I liked this lighthouse.  My friend Janine loved lighthouses, so I wanted a picture of it for her.

The house we were staying at is in this shot.  If you click on it to enlarge it, it's the second house from the left and you can barely make out the pool in the courtyard.  Four doors down (right) from us is where the Obamas stay when they vacation in Hawaii!

This waterfall is only visible by helicopter.  It falls like 1100 feet or something crazy like that-- it was very impressive.

Looking down on the Laie temple!

Bentley, sitting up front next to the pilot, spent the entire trip concentrating very hard.  I'm not sure why or what exactly was going on in that head of his, but he took the whole thing very seriously.

The maze at the Dole Plantation.  This is where I finally gave up and started puking, so I'm glad Craig got a good shot of this!

If you aren't prone to motion sickness, this is a really great way to get a feel for the entire island.  If you are prone to motion sickness, you should try wearing those little wristbands that push on your pressure points-- they actually help a lot!  I just wish I would have remembered to wear them that day!

The whole gang plus our pilot!  And, for me, feeling much better with my feet back on solid ground!

Hawaii: Turtle Beach

For Craig's birthday, he decided to go scuba diving with his brother.  Since I'm (a) not scuba certified and (b) pregnant, I got to stay home with the kids.  But then I decided that by golly I was in Hawaii and I wasn't just going to sit around twiddling my thumbs until Craig came home!  So I piled all my kids into the van, convinced my sister-in-law and mother-in-law to do the same, and we all headed to Turtle Beach.  I'll admit that this was not an easy place to go with little kids: the sand was super shifty and hot, making it very hard to walk in, and once you got to the water there were slippery, seaweed covered rocks everywhere.  So I spent most of our time carrying Ryder and holding Kendra's hand.  And trying to take pictures without dropping my camera in the water.  After about an hour of this we were all exhausted and headed back home.

But. we saw sea turtles!  So it was totally worth it.

You have to look closely, but there are two turtles in this picture-- see them???

This kid totally got in my way, but I still like how you can see the turtle's fins pointing up towards the surface

A pretty clear shot, if I may say so myself!

This one was just coming out of the water.  And then Bentley began crying because the sand was burning his feet, so I ran off to save him and didn't get any pictures of turtles sitting on the sand.  Ah, well!

 And then later that evening, once the scuba divers had returned, we had a big ol' family dinner:

Good times all around (although we learned at this dinner, after much crying, that Ryder's flipflops were too small for his feet-- poor kid!).


I'm just gonna say it: sea turtles are so cool.  It's impossible to not just fall in love with them.

Hawaii: Kayaking in Kaneohe Bay

One morning, Craig and I ditched our kids with the rest of the family, rented a kayak, and headed out to Kaneohe Bay for an adventure. It was AWESOME. Perfect weather (of course), perfect water (of course), perfect time to spend with my Craig. We loved it.

Kaneohe Bay looks like any other bay, until you paddle out about 40 minutes and hit this huge, incredibly shallow sand bar.  At first, we were worried that we were headed in the wrong direction.  Then we noticed all the people who were apparently standing in the water and realized that we had nothing to worry about.

Check out how shallow this is:

I was trying to hold the boat steady while Craig took my picture.  I'm so good at being awkward!

Gorgeous.  Simply gorgeous.

There was an island you could explore out past the sand reef, and we thought about paddling all the way out to it, but I was worried that by the time we got back, I'd be too tired to help lift the kayak back onto the mini-van, so we headed back after the sand bar.  But that alone made for a pretty dang awesome day!

It wasn't until a week later that my Dad mentioned that Kaneohe Bay is a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks.  If I had known that, I would have tried to go snorkeling!