Waimea Valley

Finally the blog marathon is almost over, I've almost caught up to the present day!  Last weekend we went to Waimea Valley on the north shore.  We had never been there before, it was a beautiful place.  It is a huge botanical gardens which has a path to a waterfall at the back of the park.  The waterfall has a pool at the bottom that you can swim in, they have a lifeguard and everything.  The water was a little chilly, so my kids wouldn't go in past their knees or so.  I figured they'd want to go swimming!  Oh well.  


It was a pretty nice place to visit.  The kids got tired on the walk out since it was mostly uphill.  But then when we got back to the entrance gate when we were done, Adam said 'How did we get back here so fast?'.  So I guess he didn't mind the walk back so much.

Random stuff

Just a few more random updates.  I finally am NOT the MOMS Club president anymore, so I've had a bit more free time to do crafts (and blog!).  I finally made Cole's fabric painting into a pillow - he had done this picture in a Families for R.E.A.L. preschool class back in winter, and it turned out cute.


We did a beach day last week and when we were at the Ko'Olina lagoons, we saw the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies!  It was pretty cool.  Someone said that Johnny Depp was not on the island yet for filming, so I guess no use in trying to swim out to the boat.  I love coming across random filming while living in Hawaii.  While we were at the beach I also tested out my new underwater camera.  It worked great, I got a little Samsung and am very happy with it so far.  I tried taking pics of the fireworks around the neighborhood with it too, the shots were interesting.  


Adam started some 'Sea Monkeys' (aka brine shrimp) last week, he looks like such a little scientist carefully measuring out their food.  I'm afraid the Sea Monkeys had a bit of an accident though, no survivors.  Adam was reaching for something across the counter last night and knocked the container over.  He was pretty upset about it, although the mourning was short, he was over it by this morning. :)

Dinos at the Mall

We went to see the dinosaurs at the mall a few days after we got back from vacation.  It was also the day after I went to the midnight showing of 'Eclipse', so I was a LITTLE tired but I figured I could handle following the kids around the mall so they could hunt down all the dinosaur exhibits.  It was pretty fun, and better yet its FREE (unless you stand in line and shell out the $4 to ride the mini train around the dinosaur exhibit - no thanks!).  Of course it did cost me lunch at the mall, but then again I was tired and didn't have to make lunch :)

Catching up

Wow, I looked at the blog and realized I'm almost a month behind.  I guess that's what happens when it's summer break and you go on vacation for a while.  

We headed to MN for a nice vacation, it sure was a change in temperature from what we were used to.  When we got to MN, first we drove through torrential rain to get to Silver Bay and then when we got up there it was 58 degrees and raining.  A little bit of a change from 80 and sunny every day!  It was actually nice to be cool for once though, I didn't mind getting a chance to wear my jeans, I almost never wear them here!

The boys had a good time at the playgrounds there, by the lake and doing a little walking on the trails.  We were there to celebrate my parent's 60th wedding anniversary (a little early since it is actually in November), so we had a nice dinner with all my siblings while we were there and we took some family pictures.

On the way back we spent the night at my sister Kathy's and I also had a chance to catch up with an old friend from undergrad who I hadn't seen in about 15 years.  It was a lot of fun to see him and meet his wife and family.  Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that undergrad was THAT long ago already.  I'm getting old!


Well I'll have to sift through more pictures and see what else I've fallen behind on blogging.