We love to do funny faces on the trail ever since we took a super hilarious picture on Green Mt in Washington last year.

Today started out a bit dreary, so we played a board game and spruced up the house while I took care of some work correspondence. Then we headed out to go on a hike – Sam really wanted to be out in nature (vs Sea Life Park) and I did, too. Ben’s vote was Sea Life Park, but he had fun anyway. 🙂 The boys had a really great time on the trail despite the heat – we all broke a big sweat but the breezes were great. Lots of people on the trail – must be in some guide book now – who enjoyed seeing Ben in particular hiking on his own. He likes to carry my hiking pole, and brandishes it like a cattle prod. I invite people to pass us, but they usually defer or scuttle right by. No wonder! A little jab from Ben is great encouragement 🙂 Kidding – mostly! So he barreled all the way to the top in only a half hour – about the same pace as leisurely adults. I was really amazed. We enjoyed snacks and came back down, with Ben refusing (absolutely resolute in this) to hold hands or allow me to hold his harness. We fought all the way down about it. He wanted to “hike wike SAM!” which means hands free, on his own terms. Poor guy – so determined but yet this was not the trail for that. Click above for some really funny pictures of “freshening up” after the trail…

Here's my friend Andrea, out with us for an adventure!

Andrea! You are soooo much fun! Your picture is up here on my blog so my family will know who you are when your name creeps up in future posts of our adventures. It was super handy to have a smart cookie like you hop into the truck and fix our CD playing problem while I ran to the bathroom again before our adventure. Then, as we started the trail run/bike/stroller push and I got a SECOND flat it was nice to have a buddy help hold that dumb little valve tight into the pump to try pushing some air into the tire :0

We took Andrea (whose kids are on the mainland with their grandparents for a few weeks) on one of our adventures as pit bull bait and general pit crew. We took her to a trail run we love, but one for which we really feel having another grown-up around would be wise. Literally minutes after we started on the trail, the front tire of the stroller blew out again! I had just swapped it out that morning before Andrea jumped into the truck and figured out why the boys’ favorite CD wasn’t playing. I checked the wall before putting a new tube in…nothing. I have no idea why it blew out again! Darn! Not wanting to take the time to put a new tube in only to have it blow again, I decided to push the stroller with a flat tire in the front thinking how bad could it really be? Bad. Bad bad idea. That is a workout and a half! It doesn’t bounce over roots and rocks well (you smash into them vs over them). And it is slow and heavy. Plus I had water and snacks and rain jackets down below and Big Ben in his seat. Sam did great on the trail ride – he enjoyed having a booster engine (Andrea) any time he petered out just before the top of the hill. And Andrea is so cute that she didn’t even sweat, she laughed the whole time and chatted along as if we were strolling through Waikiki. Meanwhile I’m dying but trying to talk! Finally I gave her the stroller toward the end. My shoulders were pretty beat later as I hunkered over my computer to edit the book which is nearing the final stages of production.

Ben says “Did Wondi wun? Did she wun on da twail?” What’s next, Rondi? 🙂

Sam planned a rock concert and pool party with his friends for today. We had a great time with our buddies!

Sam came up with the idea to host a “band” (“Mom, we’re going to have a band on Saturday. It’s going to start at 9:30 in the morning (turned out to be 11 after his uke lesson) and we’re going to bring out all our instruments and drums in the wagon and invite our friends for a concert. There will be 11 songs from The Band’s The Last Waltz.” And so it did…he selected the food and snacks and the schedule. What a great job he did, and how fortunate are we that our friends were able to come and join us. Click the above photo for pictures.

The tribe marching up Old Pali Rd to the Lookout - 8 kids and 3 moms!

What a fun hike we had today with old pals and new. We got to see our friends Kristi and her kids (Joel, Rebekah and Caleb) who we met on a space-a trip last fall and have stayed in touch with since. And she brought along Sarah and her two kids, Ellen and Joey. We also had a young guy named Crispin with us who is friends with Kristi’s crew. They all did great hiking through some slick mud then up the Old Pali Rd and its tricky ladder contraption, and finally through stiff wind to the Lookout. We posed for a picture in the “snack cave” – a spot where people would sit for a spell on their way down the Old Pali before the tunnels were built. Then we high-tailed it to less windy ground for more snacks. Just as we were getting comfortable, a rock bounced down the cliff and landed about 10 ft from us! So we moved on again to a spot way down the Old Pali and almost back to the trailhead where we could eat in peace, try to start a fire rubbing sticks together, and tell jokes that Miss Alli would never get (what’s lighter than air that you can’t catch – I guessed a “fart” but now I don’t remember the real answer, Joel!). This is such a great group of kids. Sam told me a couple times “Mom, they’re all homeschooled, like me!” They are so mature, self confident, intelligent and just plain nice people. I’m so thankful that Kristi offered to lend a hand with Ben in the terminal 10 months ago and that we’ve been blessed to remain friends since. Man, they’re making me rethink the Kindergarten decision again!  Aloha, friends! Well done, kids. You did a great job today. I bet you’re sleeping well already ;0

Sam jumping off the high dive - I think this is the second of 17 or more jumps. He came up with a huge smile after his first jump and said "I LUUUUUV the high dive!"

Now I know for sure he’s is Dave’s son – he loves the high dive! And he just saw a diving board for the first time yesterday! He does gather a lot of data by asking questions before undertaking a big adventure, a true mommy trait. We were at our friends’ pool where the kids are allowed to use the high dive if they pass the swim test, so Sam decided to give it a go as soon as he saw Anneliese jump off. Sam says “Now I have a license to jump off Waimea Rock when Daddy is there with me!” What a guy!

Thanks so much for introducing us to your pool, Anneliese and Caleigh! Now we have another fun place to go when Daddy is in Guam ;0 Can you see the climbing wall next to the pool? What a great idea – if you fall off you just land in the water. I loved it. I did the high dive again, too, and Ben jumped off the low dive (with a little help). It will be some time before he’s in love with it like Sam :0

Sam passed his swim test today so he was able to take his first jump off a diving board, too! Video avail. by clicking on photo.

Proud of Sam would be a major understatement! Team Krug threw a few fistpumps in the air as we left the pool today… From being completely comfortable in the ocean yet nervous in a pool, Sam has developed into a very natural monk seal 😉 With Dad as his constant and gentle guiding hand, he has never had a swim lesson. He’s developed some natural strokes based on what we see our ocean friends do (such as “turtle”) and he’s picked up the crawl fairly recently. He’s so comfortable under water that it takes a lot of  exhorting to get him to do anything along the surface :0 So it was with some trepidation that I’ve contemplated taking him over for the swim test at the base pool…for several reasons: 1) he’s never seen a pool this big (50 m is monstrous), 2) I wasn’t sure he’d stick with the task at hand (25 m swim and 2 minute tread). But with his friends all in their second or third years of swim lessons, and some of them passing the swim test so they can do the water slide and diving board, etc., it was time to get with the program and let Sam take a stab at it.

So, after church today we went to check out the pool, talk to the lifeguards, and assess the scope of the test. Then we went to the playground, had lunch, and came back well prepared (and hot enough to want to jump in!).  A lifeguard was free to do the test so away we went. He did the 25 m swim great – was a little nervous and not breathing calmly like normal, and forgot to kick for much of the length. Then he did the 2 min tread, which I was most nervous about as he loves to swim under the water. I can’t get him to keep his head up long enough to say anything to him! But he did it! Man was I proud! After all that he got a wrist band to show that he passed and we got to jump in the water. Ben was very happy about that – he was fussing in my ear during Sam’s entire test wanting to jump in, too. Oy. After a bit they opened the diving board. This was the next big deal of the day. His friends taking swim lessons have been around these but we have been jumping off lava shelves and stuff, so the diving board sticking way out over the water was something to be reckoned with. (He’d never even seen one before, so yesterday I showed him one on YouTube as a sneak preview.) Sam asked a bunch of questions, was nervous, walked down the board, said he didn’t want to do, came back. Did that several times. We talked, had a team huddle, decided to jump off the side of the pool a couple times, and then he decided to just do it. It was time (Ben was really getting mad now, having been in the pool then had to get out to go to the big kid area with Sam but not able to get back in over there.) Once he jumped, he loved it, as I knew he would. I well remember my first diving board experience and it was awful – killed a love of the water until I was over 30 and decided I just needed to teach myself to swim again and then got SCUBA certified. (In my case I remember the Y pool, indoors, loud, chlorine smell, white caps on the water it seemed so forboding, and a large lady named Ursula yelling from the pool to JUMP!)

My most sincere hope is that Sam has fond memories of his first days in a big pool and continues his love of the water. I am really floored by his composure and maturity handling the swim test, then overcoming nervousness about the board. There were no other kids even in the deep end (which gets to 18 ft!) when he was on the board thinking about jumping. Oh, and there were 25 Canadian frogmen doing helicopter pilot drownproofing in this vast pool. And there’s a huge contraption for lowering a makeshift helicopter into the deep end to help pilots figure out how to get out of a crashed helicopter. So you’ve got all this intense military stuff going on in the pool – a tad intimidating I thought. On our way out we talked to one of the “frogmen” – they were probably helicopter pilots but thinking about frogmen was super cool – anway I asked them if they were nervous before their test and they were like “Heck yeah! I don’t much like getting belted into a contraption then spun upside down!” Sam noted that even big guys do things that make them nervous, too. And he was a great coach when mom decided to jump the high dive!!!!

I put together clips of his day, including a movie of his first jump. Enjoy 🙂

Enjoying a hike with our buddies before they move. (Click for more.)

I’ve had such a couple funny nights with the boys that tonight I managed to lose my phone again! This is twice in two weeks!!! We were out biking around in the park when Dave called from Guam, I talked to him for a bit, and somehow the phone disappeared after I hung up. Oy! I wish I had a locator or some way to trace it. I guess there are ways to do that but you have to subscribe to them before you lose it. I keep calling the phone but I guess it hasn’t been picked up yet. Anyone have any ideas? It’s a cheap $40 phone thankfully. On the bright side, we had a really fun hike this morning with our buddies…pictures and notes to be found through the photo above.

Last night on our way home from Farmer’s Market, Ben wanted to walk, then it turned into a jog and he never stopped, except to check out the scooting chickens, the dogs woofing, a kid on a skateboard who lost the board into a drainage thing when he tried to jump it up on the curb (which Sam found hilarious!), the random egg nestled into grass on the side of the road (was it Chuck-the-Chicken-Duck’s egg? will it hatch?)…our street has many interesting things to see and enjoy if you have the right frame of mind. As we made our way home dodging signposts, sharp mailboxes which have settled into the ground askew, and fire hydrants (which Ben wanted to sing into, LOUDLY), families would peer out kitchen windows or smile off their front porches. I felt like the crazy-parade rolling through town and was thankful we’re all good runners in case someone didn’t find us quite so funny! So Ben jogged all the way home, over a mile, and Sam got a good 2-mile jog in since he jogged over with me on the way there. It’s amazing how much fun the most random escapades can end up being. The mental images of our family that I have still crack me up. Tonight as we sat at Kalapawai having dessert (after I’d realized I had lost my phone!) Sam was making farting noises into his popsicle and Ben was screeching in laughter at that while I had tears rolling down my cheeks and could help but laugh with them. Thankfully their laughs are infectious and people seem to enjoy us having a good time. I did apologize last night as we rolled by a restaurant rather loudly – a younger lady and another couple was having wine out in the outdoor area and we had lost total situational awareness and were high-fiving each other rather exuberantly. So I said “I’m sorry! We were just so thrilled to get across the street!” (It may sound overwrought but here’s what we had going on – 4 lanes of traffic with me carrying Ben like a 40lb football as he yelled that he wanted to “RUN!” while pushing the stroller and minding Sam’s whereabouts, all while keeping Ben’s slippers still on him! I was sure that he had kicked them off as he often does and they’d be stranded out in traffic as he wanted to keep running…whew. The lady with the wine was like “Oh no! It’s fine – love the sound of children!” I am thankful for them, and for like-minded folks. Mind you, we don’t always run wild, but the last couple days have been pretty funny…wish I could change my phone’s voicemail greeting to the subject of this post!

After road-tripping around the Ewa plain again today taking care of car-repair errands, we sneaked out to the beach tonight for a quick swim. Sam is practicing hand-stands here 🙂

Dave’s clutch has blown on the GTI so we took it to the dealer for diagnostics. Their estimate was $2500, so we quickly called around and found a place to do it for $1216. Wow! It is an authorized VW and Audi repair shop called Wrench Werks in Waikiki. So this morning was pretty busy going back over to the dealer across the island, then caravaning down to Waikiki to take the car to the cheaper shop. We had fun, though, thinking of it as a family road trip all over Ewa plain. At the dealer Dave and I were tempted by how sweet the new GTI looks…even tartan seats (if they had the Skene tartan on there I’d be buying it on the spot!). The guy who showed us a couple cars (just to kill time while waiting for Dave) was pointing out the entertainment package assuming any mom in her right mind would want one for sure. Tonight as we drove home from the beach the boys were so funny – made me realize how much you miss if you occupy them with stuff other than interactions between each other, their environment (i.e. looking out the window and observing stuff) and the parents. As I told the guy at the dealership, “I am the entertainment package!” He enjoyed that one 🙂 Truthfully we all take turns entertaining each other – Sam with his uke and hilarious faces of late, Ben imitating the faces, and then the typical skirmishes over territory in the backseat. There’s no shortage of fun 🙂

Ben holding a new trash toy 🙂

Trying out a face he enjoys!

Funny daddy! Sam is leaning over for a good look!