1 We started our trip up to the North Shore with some snorkeling. Mary was able to snorkel for the first time and spotted some fish despite our big fish (Sam) "herding" them around as he dove. In this shot, Sam and I are out for a swim, and saw saddle wrasse in middle with trumpetfish to left (four feet long and fast! couldn't catch him in my frame!). I think the lower fish (below saddle wrasse) is a brown surgeonfish due to the lavender fins. Also, I think I saw a juvenile orangeband surgeonfish, which was very surprisingly completely yellow and looked almost like a tang. I was confused until I looked it up at home.
2 A Christmas wrasse. This is a cleaner fish.
3 A Hawaiian lizardfish - very cool how they can completely hide in the sand then scoot out, forming a cloud of sand.
4 I think this is a whiteband surgeonfish schooling with a bunch of convict tang.
5
6 Then on to Waimea Bay. Figured conditions were perfect for a jump, and there's no better time than with a couple youngsters visiting. My cousin Mike and his wife Mary were game for the parking lot waiting game, then when we bagged a spot I figured it was a sign that were gonna do it. Here I am taking the plunge! I was super nervous as I am not too keen on falling from heights, but the actual event was not nearly as big a deal as it felt at the time, high on the rocks. You wait for a swell to come in then jump right behind it to get max water depth.
7 Ben is pointing to "Da rock! Jump da rock!" Apparently I had quite a cheering section - Sam kept going "Jump Mom! Just GO!" I wasn't up there long sizing things up - I really wanted to get back to my cuties in the sand, so I jumped after about a minute of speculation. On the way down I actually had time to think, which was a little scary. Very encouraging to have my cuz in the water waiting for me and a Hawaiian grandpa who was coaching his 9 yr old granddaughter (guessing on age but in any case she was much younger than me so no way was I not gonna jump).
8 That's Mary leaping! Yay Mary! (She's in the foreground stepping out.)
9 And Mike looks like he's at attention even in the air! Go Mike!
10 Awww! Good times!
11 Love you guys!
12 Ah- margarita afterwards :)
13 Mike and Mary preparing a great meal - chicken ala Mood (bacon and cheese stuffed into chicken - yum!). Sam dubbed it "cheese horse fountain" - as in, it's got tons of cheese coming out like a fountain and it's as big as a horse! Thanks guys!
14 Doctoring the cheese horse fountain up with bbq sauce.
15 And sitting down to dinner! Sorry Dave had to be in Guam, but we froze some prepped chicken ala Mood for you!
16 Tallying up Pennies for Peace using the awesome container Aunt Debby sent us. Getting close to $40 in pennies already!
17 Kaniakapupu ruins at dusk - a quickie little hike before Mike and Mary caught a space-a flight to California.
18 Love the bamboo forest.
19 And out to a waterfall...
20 Biking along the Maunawili Ditch trail (Ben and I are trailing behind by stroller and foot, trying to keep up with Sam!).
21 Funny face time!
22 Love you two!
23 Can you find the other islands? Check the faint mounds on the horizon, just to the left of the stick poking up. That's Maui, then to the right Moloka'i (I think!).
24 Out for a jog to Farmer's Market, the evening after a 4 mile bike/trail run! This kid is nuts! But finally his quads felt a little sore :) He has not noticed any soreness on any of our adventures yet. Hard to believe with all his hiking and climbing!
25 Thanks for the new clothes Aunt Kate! Lizard likes them, too :)
26 Here he is!
27 Some interesting clouds at Kaneohe Bay. Turned into a beautiful day.
28 The clouds moved on and the boys enjoyed boogie boarding in calm water with their friends, Jonah and Rinnah (not pictured).
29 Out for a snorkel with Dave and Ben in the kayak and Sammy alongside me. These are some cute butterflyfish, and some studying up I found that the darker yellow one pictured here is relatively scarce on O'ahu.
30 From top to bottom, convict tang, oval butterflyfish (more often found on Kauai) and then ornate butterflyfish.
31 Hi guys! The sun popped out briefly to capture these moments.
32 Here's a movie of the butterflyfish hanging out in their coral home.
33 After studying and comparing this guy to the books, Dave and I concur he's sailfin tang.
34 Sam found a good jumping rock :)
35 My escorts! Thanks for watching over us in the big ocean!
36 Sam has a whole range of funny faces he likes to try on, especially when countering an admonishment. It is SO hard to keep a straight face, and many times I don't :) Funny guy!
37 Here's another one.
38 And styling his hair after snorkeling.
39 yes, indeed!
40 One of Dave's great salads...
41 And salmon for dinner!
42 Serving it all up in style. I have it pretty good!
43 Sammy caught a green lizard! He's been watching this guy for days.
44 And was thrilled with his capture!
45 Very long tail!
46 Relaxing with his lizard friend :)
47
48 Dave says this is what the lizard saw just as Sam pounced :)
49 Out on a funny hike on a pig trail, which ended up being fun despite not going anywhere special :)
50 My little piggies following the trail.
51 And finding a vine to "rappel" down was pretty cool! Cool enough to take Daddy back to "pig trail playground" later the next week :)
52 "Just like Uncle Tom!"
53 We found a pristine trash bag to stow the trash we'd collected at the "trailhead".
54 These neat guys showed us another trail up to "King's Chair" (very steep and slippery - can't believe we went all the way up totally spontaneously, following our great guides!). Then they did some bike tricks for us.
55 I know this nice guy's mom - but I didn't realize that until we saw her coming out the door! Small island!
56 One of the guys even grabbed ice pops for the boys!
57 Oooooh! Trail mix and an ice pop! What could be better?
58 Thank you very much guys! (See the rock nearly at the top of this little summit? That's where we were.)
59 The next day we went for a jog in Lanikai then cooled off in the water. Nice!
60 Dave has this picture on his new Blackberry as his wallpaper.
61 Look at mah faaaace!
62 Just liked all the colors here - slippahs, shorts, trees and blossoms all seemed to coordinate.
63 Lost in thought for a minute. Also liked how Sam's shirt coordinated with the blossoms.
64 At the Bishop Museum later in the week - guess this was a good week for da boyz! Learning about erosion, which later helped explain how that tragedy happened in the Arkansas campground which was situated in a canyon where the water rose very quickly.
65 Controlling an ROV with the joystick - Sam was able to drive it into this cave (to right of aquarium) just like the ROVs on his BBC documentaries. Pretty cool!
66 Swimming on Friday at a new cove Kathy told us about! That's Sam way out there with a friend's husband, exploring and looking for turtles.
67 Ah ha! Found one! Thanks to Kathy for watching Ben while Sam and I sneaked out!
68 Little raccoon butterfly fish, bluespine surgeonfish and moorish idol from L to R.
69 Bird wrasse.
70 Humuhumu (reef triggerfish) and brown surgeonfish together.
71 Hello honu friend!
72 Kids were feeding it lettuce so of course it came right over for a nibble!
73 Hi Kathy! She is moving to WA but we are lucky enough to most likely move there in May/June next year so we'll be roaming around again together.
74 Ben with Caleigh.
75 Little fishers!
76 Dave found this neat shell - one we hadn't found before - and it had a hermit crab in it (so we tossed it back into the tide pool).
77 A low tide day at North Beach, so we scoured the lava shelf while waiting for the water to rise and bring fish in.
78 Back to pig trail playground to show Daddy!
79 Good rappelling practice :)
80 Hmmm...this could lead to only one thing.
81 This! Both were negative.
82 Thanks to Molly, I'm getting to do backyard CrossFit workouts!
83 Smoochie to you! The next few are cell phone shots.
84 Out on beach cleanup with base conservation. Thanks for organizing, Liisa!
85 Funny boys :)
86 Pig trail smiles!
87 Daddy taking pictures of fishies now!
88 Grown-up bird wrasse.
89 Raccoon butterflyfish.
90 Humuhumu! Lots of 'em here! These fish (most of them) were the size of a football or bigger.
91 Young parrotfish feeding on coral.
92 Daddy snorkeling as the storm figures out where it wants to go. We are looking up the Waienae coast from this vantage point.
93
94 Dad and Sam heading out for a last swim.
95 And Ben getting very skilled on his boogie board.
96 Out for a swim after a busy morning taking care of the GTI's clutch!
97 Sam swimming...
98 And getting hugs from mom :)
99 Attempting a new trick: handstands.
100 On the way home - this series of pictures makes me laugh!
101 Ben holding a little yellow ball - we seem to keep collecting these small balls - trash-turned-toy.
102 Look at my face!
103 And this one!
104 And THIS one!
105 Daddy relaxing at night...finally. Father's Day eve.
106 Sam diving down 5 ft to fetch a lizard Ben thew in for him (not a real one!).
107 Crazy faces - under water now!
108 This guy loves to jump! He gives it all he's got and makes a HUGE splash.
109 Sam-shark sneaking up on Dad-and-Ben time. Ben is stomping on Dave. Man we miss him when he's gone. Both of these boys are really getting too big to mess around much with mommy!
110 Sam just jumped over them. You can see how much he's been jumping - there's a pool on the concrete!
111 Now we're at the beach cottage for just a one-night getaway. It was going to be grown-ups only if we'd been able to get away while Mom was still here to stay with the boys, but Dave kept traveling to Guam and even New Hampshire so I had to move it four times. This is the one night we go, so we all went! They were bouncing and bouncing with excitement :)
112 Sharing a little snorkel time with mommy while Dad and Sam are out following a humuhumu.
113 Our beach cottage was right on the cove. Love the three palms :) It's a relatively humble cottage but so refreshing.
114 Packed up some beers, snacks, and salmon that Dave had already cooked nicely for dinner.
115 The truck is 8 years old now, and still going strong. Dave's GTI (well, it used to be mine until his commute became longer) has a bad clutch which is being fixed as I type. Go truck, go! No repairs, ok?
116 Beers at rest.
117 Sun on its way down.
118 Dinner time!
119 You know where he got this face! He's building a new "cottage Lego set" - a cheap Long's one :)
120 And Ben is having fun...playing hide-and-seek where he shouldn't be!
121 Peek!
122 Dinner! Hungry guys.
123 I think this is morning now...I was a little groggy, too. I got up multiple times due to thumps in the night. Wasn't sure if someone had rolled off the bed or walked out of the cottage! Ben slept on a new cot right next to Sam and was fine all night, no rolling. Sam got up to chase turtle down, who had fallen onto Ben's cot. So I guess I did hear some heavy Sam-feet stomping around after all!
124 Beautiul over there in the morning.
125 Liked seeing our palms on the water. The little ripples flickered in the waking sun.
126 Dave cooking - and if you hear music, it's Beethoven's 4th on my iPod.
127 After-egg-scramble naps! They pretended to be asleep until I mentioned going on an egg-scramble-ramble around the coves.
128 So off we went on a walk.
129 And found a bunker or two. Dave set this shot up - thanks babe for a great vacation! Enjoy Guam ;0
130 Two boys eating popsicles after the funniest night we've had in a long time. Ben ran all the way home from Farmer's Market in slippers! With me and Sam trailing right behind with stroller, trying to keep up while dodging fire hydrants (which Ben had to stop and sing loudly into thinking the thing sticking out was a microphone), chickens scooting away, found an egg nestled in grass two houses past the chickens (was it Chuck the Chicken Duck's egg?), dogs wooooffing loudly...it was crazy! But we laughed all the way home as families peered out at us every now and then from their kitchens or porches :) That Ben ran more than a mile - truly. He loves to run!