Thursday, July 30, 2009

Hawaii

Hi everyone. We're back from our wonderful vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii. We had a GREAT time there with Aaron's parents. We visited a ton of places and saw a bunch of different beaches, historical sites, coffee farm, Volcano's National Park and so much more. But more than that, we had some time to ourselves, without the kids, and now are refreshed and recharged!
Here are some pictures from our trip.

Aaron with a statue of a Marlin. There was a huge Billfish tournament (something like a marlin I guess) while we were there and there were a ton of fishing boats and lots of giant fish!

Here is the black sand beach we went to. I'd never seen a black sand beach before. It's really neat! The black sand is lava that has basically been all ground up really fine, although it is more coarse than regular white sand.


This giant sea turtle was resting on the beach.


This is up at the crater at Kilauea in Volcano's National Park. We couldn't get any closer this time because that steam coming up out of the crater is sulfer gas. Didn't really smell that great!

On our way out of the park we stopped here. This looks like a rainforest, and really felt like it, but it is the enterance to a HUGE lava tube. We walked through it which was really cool.
We drove down to the coast to try to see the lava flow, but mostly what we saw was this...hardened lava from the previous eruption. Lava is everywhere!!!!

This is as close as we were able to get to the lava flow. The smoke in the picture is actually the steam from where the lava flow is entering the ocean. If we would have been there at night we could have seen the red/orange glow from the flow which would have been awesome...but...we were there in the daytime and didn't see anything. Bummer.

These are lava trees. It was made when the lava was flowing and flowed up and around a tree that stood standing. The tree actually dies or disentegrates or burns up or whatever it does, but it leaves this tree looking thing made of lava, with no actual tree inside. There's a hole in the side of this one you can see the lady sticking her head in.

Aaron's parents call this Secret Beach. It has a proper name, but it is pretty secret. All the beaches in Hawaii have to have public access, so to get to this one, you have to go through the security gate in this multi-million dollar neighborhood. (I guess the Dell's - from Dell computers - live down there somewhere). They only let a certain number of cars through a day and it is the MOST gorgeous beach I have ever seen. Perfectly manicured, perfect sand, perfect palm trees. Perfect. It doesn't get any better than this.

A lagoon looking swimming area at Secret Beach.

A sea turtle sunning on the rocks at Secret Beach. We saw a bunch of them on the rocks and on the beach itself. So cool!

Ahhhhh!

Another view of the water.

Monday, July 20, 2009

A great multitude of things...

I just realized that I had 100 pictures on the camera that needed to be downloaded from the last several weeks. Here are the highlights. We're off to Hawaii tomorrow, so see ya next week!

Soccer team. Wednesday is the last day. Game of kids vs. parents.

Playing with Grandpa.


Our friends from Georgia came out for a visit and stayed with us last night. Kate and Maggie are best buddies.

Reading Curious George with Grandpa. Notice Maggie's finger.


Ice cream time.


The other day the 6 or so kids that happened to be outside playing decided it would be fun to sweep the dirt front yard of the new house under construction. Why they decided this would be a good idea, I don't know. I do know that they swept for over an hour!!!


"Reading" in the car.

Double whammy piggy back on Daddy!

Crazy hair at the Woodbury Coin Carnival. Basically it was super cheezy preschool games like bean bag toss and throw a frisbee through a hoop. They LOVED it. Everyone got a prize for everything...suckers, tattoos. They were in heaven. The definite favorite was the crazy hair though!

Mags trying to knock over trolls.

A birds nest Maggie and Daddy found in the tree by the park with baby birds in it!

The kids found this poor fuzzy caterpillar on the driveway last week. It was harrassed to no end until I finally rescued it and took it to live in the garden.


Sunday morning paper reading.

More makeup.

Dancing with Poppy.

Lincoln logs with Grammy.

The cousins and Grammy.

Triplet cousins!

Mommy bought some kids makeup for the girls to play with and it was the best $5.99 I've ever spent. They spent the whole morning making themselves look beautiful!

Maya went a little crazy with the lipstick!

Clara getting the eyeshadow just right!

Maggie painting her toenails.

Maya painting her own fingernails.

More beautifying.

Outside watching the Cove fireworks display on the 4th of July.

Maya wasn't so sure of the loud noises, but Grammy kept her safe.

Maggie's got a sparkler!!!

Trip to the Children's Museum with Megan and Lily.

Playing shopping in the market.

Taking the food they bought and making something to eat in the restaurant

Maggie turned into a turtle!

Meeting the "real" Clifford!!!!