Aloha Visitors!!!

We were ready for visitors and our first ones were Jillyn and Randy.  Grandma had said she wanted a lei greeting at the airport so we made a candy lei for Randy (we knew he would rather have a sweet tasting one instead of a sweet smelling one) and we picked flowers from our church's plumeria trees the day before and strung our own lei for grandma.

The kids were so excited and they were so excited to be here.  We went straight to the swap meet, of which I took no pictures.  We spent a lot of money on souvenirs, and then headed for home.  It is fun to drive up the island with new people for the first time.  The temperature drops, the big buildings disappear and the stress starts to melt away- very much like driving up to Pine Valley.  I read somewhere, in regards to the freeways in Hawaii "let people pass, don't honk, just bask", even thought the traffic is horrendous, the view is tremendous!

We met Kyle at home, changed into our suits and headed for the beach.  Randy couldn't get in the water fast enough.  He is part porpoise I think, he is so at home in the ocean.  He got on his fins and snorkel and was gone.  Jillyn will post a lot of these pictures on her blog and I will steal some, but here are a few I got.

Randy found a sea slug at the bottom of the ocean and put it in his pocket and brought it up for the kids to see.  It peed on George right then.

He threw it to Kyle and Kyle thought it was a rock and freaked out a little when he came in contact with its slimy skin.

 That is Randy getting rolled by the waves.  That usually is unpleasant for most people but  Randy didn't seem to mind- I think he has gills hiding somewhere :)

 Grandma was there too, she got some great pictures, but she also got some great water time.  I was actually taking a picture of the local boys behind her playing frisbee with a little haka and par core thrown in.

 Evan started to play frisbee with the poly boys.  He was really just their gopher when the disk went the wrong way, but they were nice to him and it was fun to watch. He is basically the same color as them, he would have had them fooled if his hair was darker!

Kyle and George went up and jumped from the high point on the rock.
The sun was going down so the pictures weren't detailed, but were good silhouettes.

They were a little more daring when they were jumping off the lower rock.

Randy brought a diving flashlight and Kyle was determined to stay for some night swimming which I have been against from the beginning, but out they went with Emily and George and Evan in tow.

They bugged this snowflake eel until they could get a good picture of him.  Kyle said he was changing colors as he was hiding in different spots from them.  Scary. But Kyle said it was more scared of them.....blah blah blah.

This was the result of the fun night so I guess it was worth it.  This one is a keeper.

Bishop Museum: not the father of the ward's museum, but the husband of a Princess

Bishop was the last name of the man who married that last living relative of King Kamehameha.  This is a picture of our kids picking his nose!! The land the museum was on was owned by the Bishop family and with a bit of their royal inheritance they made the museum.

I needed to practice driving the suburban to town, before Randy and Jillyn come, because Kyle would be at school.  This, unbeknownst to me was baptism by fire.  I had to take 4 different freeways to get to this museum, smack dab in the middle of everything.

This was like every kind of museum you can think of, all in one.  Our first stop was the planetarium.  We watched a show about the solar system and learned a very silly song about the phases of the moon.  We also learned about global warming....very informative ;)




 Then we rode some large geese.  All of the buildings in the background are part of the museum.

 Our favorite museum was the science discovery building. These were experiments with air, the wall was made of tiny metal disks that moved easily with the changing air pressure.

This was a very unslippery slide.  I think it was supposed to represent the flow of lava.


Matty was in a cave of glowing neon creatures,  and lava.
Then you go upstairs to see the top of a volcano spewing steam.  It was hot too, and then we figured out why.

 They were making actual lava in the basement!!  We got to see a show about how lava works and how the islands were formed and feel pieces of the different kinds of lava.

he poured lava out of a big cauldron.  It was about 4000 degrees and as soon as it hit the metal ramp on the floor it turned black and hardened.  After about 5 minutes it broke up into pieces.  She said even though it was black and looked dry, it was still hot enough to start a fire.

The next building was a huge 3 story that looked like a library.  It was dedicated to Hawaiian history.  It had hands on things for the kids and it had life size models of animals  hanging in the middle.




Those are my kids hanging out behind the shark.  The back side of the whale was it's insides.  It's skeletal system and innards...
cool.

 We also got a hula demonstration/lesson.  She taught us a sitting dance but also taught us the history and about the different instruments and then let the kids try.



The boys weren't interested in hula, so they stayed in the guitar museum we found.  This building had rotating displays and the one that was there right now was completely dedicated to guitars, and guitar history and all the different types of guitars.  This is G with the world record holder for biggest electric guitar in the world.

Of course they had a lot of ukuleles as well and a place to design your own ukes that was a hit.

I felt like I was a home school mom today, so proud of myself for sneaking some education into our vacation!

Shark's Cove Snorkeling

I can't believe how the days get away from me.  It seems I spend as much time blogging as I do having this awesome experiences.  I am sure it will slow down over the weeks....I think!

Kyle had to go to work on Monday and the kids were determined to go to Shark's Cove.  I am a little apprehensive to go to new places on my own, especially and specifically if they involve new ocean. The ocean seems to be different at every different beach we try.  This was not exception.
There are no sharks as the name implies.  It is supposed to look like shark's fins I suppose.  The funny part is that it has a Hawaiian name, but no one uses it, but it's American name isn't posted anywhere, so you just have to know that the outcropping of rocks just right of the fire station is Shark's Cove and the rocks that are a bit down the road left of the fire station (different beach, different Hawaiian name) is Three Tables....yes because it looks like Three Tables.   Maybe that is what the Hawaiian name means actually....I just thought of that.

So we went to Shark's Cove with our water socks and snorkels and Matty's little lifejacket!  As soon as we got there we started to see fish.  Quite a few little ones as we were wading through.  It was not deep anywhere until we got right out to that rocky ridge. The thing separating massive waves from us.  I sent Emily and George out first to explore and kept Evan and Matty close.  The rocks were slippery so we found a spot that was about 4 feet deep and Matty was perfectly happy there.  Evan was not perfectly happy.  He wanted to be out with the kids.  Finally I got George's attention. (He couldn't hear anything at this ocean because of the waves hitting the rocks and snorkeling.....so grateful he is such a strong swimmer).  As soon as Evan put his head under the water he started screaming George's name.  Muffled by the water and his snorkel I could still hear the word GGEEOOORRGGE coming from him, over and over again.  I was getting nervous and then I realized it was just because of the awesome fish he was seeing.  When they came back each time they had more amazing fish to tell me about.  I guess Emily could see the desire in my eyes, because she volunteered to sit with Matty so I could take a turn.  I was grateful and they were safe, so off I went.  It really was amazing.

They called this the noodle fish.  I thought it was an eel at first, and it and it's two friends were a little creepy, but they were just harmless long skinny fish....about 2 feet long!

A great big sea slug

This little beauty is called a saddle wrasse.

There were lots of these. They are about 18 inches long.

Our first Humuhumunukunukuapua'a sighting!  We were so excited to see the state fish, the kids have been practicing his name for weeks and finally we got to see some.  His friends with the stripes are called Convict Tangs...get it?

The awesome pictures I took in this ridiculously clear water got erased.  Luckily we have time to snorkel again, and have, and will.....but here is evidence (thanks to George's underwater camera) that I was there too!





Here are some pictures from our next snorkeling trip, our first of many to Three Tables.

HUMU!  They are really awesome.  That yellow line is florescent.

 This one is one of my favorites too. He is a Orangeband Surgeonfish. The names really aren't that impressive, except for Humu's who's English name is Wedge picassofish.

 Just an awesome cave for the fish to explore.

Emily took these pictures of the green sea turtles.  She said there were two adults and a baby.  She followed them around for a while.  Then one went missing, and all of the sudden it swam right underneath her!

There will be more snorkeling pictures to come!