Check out the photos from our week with family and friends – there are 230 of them, so grab a cuppa and enjoy 🙂
(A slideshow will play them for you – click on the first picture to blow it up to full size, then look for the arrow at the top right of the page, above the photos. Double-click this button to change the speed.)
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Video: Thanksgiving adventures – hiking and fishing
We have had a wonderful Thanksgiving week with lots of adventures. I have bruises on both arms and hips from surfing, Jen has a scrape from boogy-boarding, Steve has a bruised (broken?) nose from surfing, and Doug is well-rested and unhurt (getting 7 hrs of sleep a night is great for him!) but we did manage to wear even him out…we’re all wiped out from the fun! It’s like summer camp here – early morning roustings for adventures, followed by lots of good meals and good rest at night. It’s tough having good weather every day – no rest for the weary! It has been wonderful to have family here with us for an extended stay. I’m so thankful Doug was able to be here for 5 whole days. He really had fun getting to know Sammy and was wonderful playing with him.
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We decided to check out the Officers’ Club on the Kaneohe Marine Corps base by our home today for brunch. We were floored by the view of the golf course and ocean, mountains and islands. I think we even saw Maui in the distance.
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We picked up Sam’s NanaG and PopPop at the airport last night. Sammy has really enjoyed reacquainting himself with them. Bill underwent an extreme makeover – aloha edition. We decided not to post the “before” picture of him in his favorite cutoff denim shorts and biker t-shirt with no sleeves. We’ll just go straight to the after shot 🙂 He looks fantastic after a bit of sun, some new board shorts and a great shirt. He also got some new “slippers” at the Exchange, so he’s all set now. We’re looking forward to exploring the island with them, and especially looking forward to our next arrivals…Steve and Jen and my brother.
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Video: Sam tries to say “Bear”
Sam and I had a great time at the Kailua Beach tide pools for lunch today. I posted a whole bunch of new pictures – go to “Album” above and follow the link to the November album (2006-11). Enjoy the movie of Sam saying “bay-oo” as well!
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You’ve read about the truck lights staying on and the battery dying…well, the buzzer alert isn’t working so you aren’t warned you’re about to leave your lights on. We’re still not sure what that’s about. Last night we managed to leave the inside lights on the GTI, but mom and Pete caught it before we managed to kill another battery.
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We went hiking with our intrepid adventure buddies (Nate, Laurie and daughter Cate). We decided to find a waterfall mentioned to us by a fellow hiker. The distance estimates, however, were a little off. One guy we ran into was like, “Ummm, I’m not very good with times. It might have been five minutes?” Or it could have been 15, 20… You get the idea! We had a great time and Laurie gets a medal of honor for hiking with a spiral fracture in her pinky toe. She was a real trooper. (She didn’t break her toe on the hike – it was a freak accident…) The kids did great – it was a long time in the pack for them (about 3 hrs total) because it was really pretty slippery going most of the way.
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Video: Awesome ukulele performance!
I can’t even begin to describe today’s events. I’ll just bottomline it – I called mom at about 3pm today saying “I found your car, and he’ll be there in a few minutes to show it to you!” Mom will be here for 4 months to escape the winter blues in rainy Washington; Pete joined us yesterday as well. We’ve been having a good time getting them settled into their beach cottage. So next on the list was finding a car they could use for 4 months.
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We had a great weekend! Yesterday we camped out on Kaneohe Bay and kayaked out to a cool island, aptly named “Turtle Island,” and today started out with a 10K (6.2 mile) race early this morning. Gorgeous sunrise! Sam was a great running buddy 🙂 Check out all the pictures in the Album link above. Now I’m helping Dave organize the garage while Mom plays with Sam. (Can’t you tell???) Enjoy the pictures and the rest of your weekend (although it’s only a few hours before bedtime for most of you I guess).
Silliness strikes while out on a run…and Gramma is here to document it!
Sammy and I went running while mom biked alongside. It was great to have a photojournalist capture some of the zany things we do while out and about. Now Dave is happy he works all day so he isn’t roped into such shenanigans. Sammy just cracked up when I pretended to trip and fall down a hill, then once I was down I figured it’d be fun to logroll the rest of the way. He just roared with laughter, so I grabbed him and we rolled together. It really makes you dizzy, though. I went pretty fast downhill…maybe next time I’ll go a bit slower and see if the world spins a little slower as well!
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Dave has been encouraging me to get some new clothes for some time now. I finally went shopping with my beautiful friend, Angel, yesterday while Mom watched Sam. We’d been looking forward to this outing for months! We took before and after pictures just for fun. We started out at the thrift store and ended up at Dawn’s, a cool clothes store that has really reasonable prices. Another highlight of the day was getting mom out on my beach cruiser for a trip to the farmers’ market. Too bad it started pouring as soon as we left, but we persisted and got some good produce. Mom did very well on the bike despite a bit of nervousness 🙂
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Since mom is here I can finally take care of some personal matters…so today I started with my toenail (see previous post on “responsible journalism” for the gory details if you wish), followed by my teeth. Here is Dr. Mew proudly displaying the remains of my toenail. It was painless, thankfully. I told him to go find four large Marines to hold me down, but it proved unnecessary. Then I went to the dentist where I froze to death getting my teeth cleaned. It must have been 58 degrees in there, and since I’m used to 82 in the shade this was very very cold! I asked if I could keep the lead blanket on after they were done x-raying me 🙂 Fun day…