Dave surprised me on Saturday by telling me he took Monday off – so we took off early on a family adventure! We explored a remote beach at the North Shore – one that is accessed by a 1.25 mi drive on a very eroded dirt road – 4WD only. The gulches were so big the Xterra almost disappeared in them. Dave did a great job navigating. Let’s just say I’m not eager to drive out there again. Perhaps in an old beater Jeep. Sammy did great and enjoyed talking about how we were all bobble-itos bouncing around in the truck (a reference to a favorite book – Skippy Jon Jones in the Doghouse). Our bobbling heads are a bit stiff from all the bouncing, actually. Gail and Bill would really like the shells here, and some sea glass, too. We snorkeled a bit then took off for Shark’s Cove to check out the snorkeling there. It was really unreal. I would say it is better than Hanauma Bay. I took a lot of video underwater while Sam played in the tide pools. Then we switched off and Dave had a great time checking out all the fish. He even saw one with a really long nose – not sure of the name now, but we pored over books last night and named most of the ones we spotted. The picture above is a parrotfish, I think. It’s huge! We also saw a goatfish and a Christmas wrasse. I will post pictures later today. The video is too big to post. If you request a DVD, I’ll send it to you 🙂 I’m sure my new friend Dana can correct me if I get any of the names wrong 🙂 The snorkeling was really awesome. We had such a good time! Thanks for a great weekend, Dave 🙂 (He subscribes to my blog feed 😉 )

On Saturday we enjoyed our local tide pools with friends Brendan, Leo and daughters Bridget and Greta. Auntie Angel and Sheena came to see us, too! The next day we went to the zoo and Sammy enjoyed seeing real elephants, hippos, and especially zebras. He took home a baby zebra from the zoo store and fed it grass from a little bowl and insisted that baby zebra eat at the table, not out in the garden. Nice weekend – an extra day leaves a lot of room for adventure. We hope to do that more often 🙂