The Park

i found these pics today...i forgot we even did this, what a nice suprise! One day after a few days of rain, there was a nice afternoon and we met the Larson's at the park. 4 adults and 5 little toddlers....you can be sure we were ALL getting a workout!

Life with Daddy

Here's some other random times while daddy was home.

Holden was so excited to see Mike every morning. Look how he is holding onto Mike's arm. It was so sweet. One Saturday Momma and Daddy were doing stuff around the house, and the kiddos were helping us out. It was nice to have a "normal family day". It's rare to have those around here.

putting up our new gates

folding laundry..it always takes 3times as long with little ones crawling around!

shopping for new shades

TacoBell....mmm good!

Making the Best...

...of Daddy's last day with us. It rained a lot this week and everyday we tried to go the beach it just didn't work out. On Daddy's last day here it was beautiful, so we got up, jumped in the car, stopped at our fave McD's for some breakfast takeout and then headed straight for the beach.

a monk seal came out to play...they blocked off the area so you can't see him very well, but it's the grey blob about an inch to the left of Mike's head.

the close-up

as usual it was a great day with our favorite guy, too bad it had to end. Saying bye always stinks and it's even harder in a way now with the kids, still at least we are on the back end of this deployment and it will all be over soon.

Aquarium

On one of the rainy days, we drove around trying to find some sun, and when that didn't work, we went to the Waikiki Aquarium. Being that we are on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you would think that they would have an awesome aquarium, but its actually pretty small and would have been disappointing if I was going to actually see some fish. But, for baby entertainment, it was the perfect size. They loved watching the fish and by the time we made it through the building, they were done anyway.

One thing that really struck me at the aquarium was that my little ones were actually big enough to walk around, yes i said WALK, around the aquarium. Geez when did that happen?

Date Night #2

Last Wednesday Mike and I went on a whale-watching tour thanks to Groupon. I've been on one once before last deployment, but it was very different--different location, different type of boat, and different time of day. I wouldn't say one was better than the other, but i did get a bit sick on this trip. I haven't ever gotten sea sick before, but thankfully even though my stomach was very upset, I kept it together. This boat was very small and any sicknesses would have been observed by the other 20 people on the boat. That would have been embarrassing.

It was supposed to be a sunset cruise, and i guess technically it was, but the sunset was not its normal beautiful self this night. In general, it's been a rainy, cool, windy week. That could partly be to blame for my motion sickness in the boat.

The whale-sightings were pretty good. We actually saw a whale breach twice, which i did not get to see on the last tour i took, so that is cool. We also saw a whale "spyhop" which is a term used when a whale sticks its head straight up in the air until its eyes are out of the water so it can look around--kind of like a periscope in a submarine. Pretty Cool.

After whale watching, we went to one of Mike's favorite island restaurants, Kona Brewing Company and enjoyed some yummy pizza--that is after a gingeraid to calm down my stomach. *Ginger is a natural remedy for motion/sea sickness that seems to really work.

On the boat, ready to see some whales

first sighting! a humpback whale fluke (tail)
Mike looking out for whales

Diamond Head and a whale fluke way off in the distance, can you see it?

a baby whale breach

spyhopping (that's the whales head sticking up)