Whale Watching and Windward Sights

Mike took the Grandmas and the kiddos on a whale watching cruise last weekend.  I opted out--afraid of a reoccurrence of the nausea-- and just met them after for lunch.  They had a great time and followed a mother whale and her calf around for a long time and got to see lots of breeches and whale play!

Waikiki from the water

cool green boat on the right

awesome pic of Diamond Head

after lunch, Mike took Mom and Grandma around to the east side of the island to see the beautiful sights.  Grandma thought it was very pretty, but didn't like driving along the cliffs beside the water.  

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)

My 3 Valentines

Valentine's Day Weekend was spent with my 3 favorite girls and we had a great time.

Saturday we went whale watching on a boat off of Waikiki. It was a beautiful morning, and although no whales actually breached, they did surface, spout out water, and flip their humongous tails. This was a trip a year in the making since we had tried to go last year but didn't make it. This year we were determined to do it since everyone is leaving this summer.

On the boat with the girls

That night we went to dinner at church. The youth put together a wonderful meal for the church. They cooked, waited tables, decorated, played music and put together slideshows for us. They even gave each of us single ladies a rose. It was very sweet and fun--i hope they do it again next year so Mike can come too!