Surfs Up!

Dad headed to the airport after our drive to the black and green sand beaches only to have a flight from hell.  They lost two of the four engines about 45 minutes after take-off and had to make an emergency landing in Honolulu.  They put him up at a plush resort in Waikiki, but, who wants to hang out by yourself in Hawaii!!  It's even worse than that, but, the short version is he did finally make it home, although, it was more than 24 hours later than planned!

But, while he was fighting with the airlines, the boys were out at their surfing lessons! ;O)  We had the pleasure of meeting the owners of the surf company, who have become great friends with Shawn and Trevor over the past few years, at the wedding.  After meeting Owen, Isha told us that he was more than capable of riding his own board during his private lesson with her.  Typically, with kids Owen's age, she puts them on her board until they get a feel for it.  We were a little hesitant considering he's so new to the water, but, man did he take to it right off the bat!!  Poor kid didn't last the whole two hours, he complained after just a little more than an hour of being sick to his stomach...he got a little motion sickness laying on his board out there waiting for waves.  But, he did awesome and is ready to try again.  I have a little timeline below of how it worked...Isha would tow him out by her toes and when a wave came along that was right, she would shove his board to give him some speed and the rest was up to him!  We were SO proud of him!!!  Honestly, his dad was out for the full two hours, but, I think Owen caught twice as many waves!! ;O)

Dave and Will both got the hang of it pretty quick too and both seemed to enjoy it.  They were further out than Owen past  a reef barrier, so, it was trickier to get a good shot of them.  Plus, the surf had been out for days prior to the lessons and the locals were desperate to get out and surf apparently.  The water was really crowded.  It was amazing how many more people were there than any of the days prior, I was blown away.

Afterwards, the kids spent some time blowing bubbles outside the condo, they play so cute together, we feel very fortunate!

Although we never got any rain and it was pretty hot while we were there, we only got to see the sun set a few times and even then, the actual sunset was obscured by clouds.  So, I took advantage of the rare occasion and got some shots of a nice one!

Liv is such a copycat, she cracks us up.  There's never a moment she isn't by our sides "helping".  This particular night, she was taking pictures too with her dad's phone!  Her hair was in these big beautiful curls the entire time we were in Hawaii, you can really see it in this picture! 

A Wedding, A Jump, and A Couple Beaches!

Shawn's wedding was on April Fool's Day and she asked that we not post pictures before she got the professional ones back.  Since I was in it, I don't have too many pictures, so, it's not hard to honor that request!  I did take a few of the family though and thought I'd share them at least.  Some of these were done with the iphones, so, thats why the quality issues.

This one was actually taken at the rehearsal dinner, but, its the only good one I got of the two Will's!  They were up and running the whole night of the wedding doing video camera work.

This may be the ONLY shot we've got of Liv with her halo on that we made such a huge effort to get, she's so uncooperative when she makes up her mind!!

It was such a miserably muggy day with absolutely no air movement, the kids both took their wedding clothes off immediately afterwards.

This poor guy got washed up on the rocks with one big wave, while we were having dinner, and had to work his way back to the water...pretty cool though!

 Owen was running around playing so much, this is the only real photo I got of just him.  Hopefully, the camera man did better and got a good shot with him in his wedding outfit.

Dad left the following night, so, we made the most of it by taking off south and checking out a couple beaches as well as South Point.  Little did we know, we never made it to the real South Point...Dave got sidetracked with this jumping spot.  The wind was blowing so hard, it knocked me off balance a couple times and as you can see, there's no railing on that cliff...to make it worse, the rock up above actually juts out farther than the cliff below it.  It was nerve wracking just to stand there!

But, Dave decided he wanted to take a shot at the 40' drop...he's mad at me for my camera work, but, the other people there had GoPros on those flexible stands that they could hang over the cliff.  There was no way I could position to see the water with my camera...plus, I didn't expect him to go when he did!!

Afterwards we backtracked a bit and then headed down the road to the Green Sand Beach.  This was a dream day for Dave...we rented a Jeep and the "road" to the beach was only navigable in something comparable.  It was worse than anything Dave had ever taken me on and he enjoyed it WAY too much.  Of course, it didn't help that my Dad was in the passenger seat egging him on either!!  After arriving, you still have to climb down a steep wall and then there it is...with the wind whipping, we didn't stay long...and it was so NOT worth the drive out there!!!  But, we can say we've been there and did that...

By the time we got back on the real road, we were all starving.  Just a little bit south of us was the town of Punalu'u and we stopped at this Bake Shop for a pretty amazing dinner.  They had a greasy spoon type menu, but, all of the buns were fresh made Hawaiian Sweet Rolls....SO GOOD!!  They are also supposed to have really good donuts in the bakery part, but, I had a bite of Dave's and wasn't overly impressed.

Most of the seating was in the outside pavilions in their garden, I think that was the best part!  We took a few pics while we waited for our food.

As we were finally and thankfully heading back home Dave pointed out that we were just minutes from the famous Punalu'u Black Sand Beach.  Well, it wasn't like I hoped to come back again, so, we took advantage of our proximity and drove further south.  Thankfully, this beach has a paved parking lot just feet away from the beach!!!

The coolest part were the turtles.  Dave thinks I'm ridiculous, but, they had about a 10 foot span of the beach lined up both sides with rocks and there's all kinds of signs along there about keeping your distance.  Every single one of the turtles both on the beach and coming in from the ocean were in the middle of those rocks.  How do they know to stay in that small area?  Dave says that they put the rocks where the turtles beach...but, seriously, it's a big beach...how do they aim that well!!!

Happy Easter!

So, for what I believe is the third time so far this year...we have the stomach flu blowing through our house!!! Olivia came home sick Thursday night and just when we were starting to think we all avoided it, Owen woke up in the middle of the night sick last night.  Not how you want to spend Easter day for sure.  Anyway, we are all laying low, especially Owen, but, we did do some egg hunting this morning.  Poor Owen looks like he's been through it though!!  I haven't done any formal pictures yet this year, but, I'm hoping to soon.  Actually, I haven't even done birthday pictures of the two of them yet!

This is Liv's "CHEEEEEEESE" face...I do not like it!!!  She was more about the chocolate than finding the eggs this year even though Owen was super competitive.  The best part though is when he came back with his big bowl full, she went through it and picked out the ones she liked and put them in her basket...she's no dummy I tell you what! ;O)

Turtles!!!

Just seemed like these photos deserved a post of their own.  You aren't supposed to get within 20 feet of the turtles I believe, but, what do you do when they pursue you!!  Dave was happily taking pictures of a turtle in the distance on our last day in Kona, when this turtle came right up to him.  As you can see in the last picture, Dave finally stood up partly to show how close the turtle got and partly because he wasn't sure what the turtle was planning to do...don't they bite?

These fish seem a little too unconcerned swimming up against a turtle...don't turtles eat fish?  I may have to do some research, I don't seem to know much! Ha!

This is where Dave stood up and then thought to take a picture to show proximity.  Those are his swim trunks at the bottom of the screen...fortunately, it's REALLY shallow here! ;O)