Cole and Nora's Pictures

While I was able to spend a lot of time with Mack and Sydney trying to get pictures, it didn't work out for me to spend the same amount of time with Cole and Nora.  I still got some pictures of them, though.  Here's one of each of them. 

Waimea Valley and the North Shore

Wednesday was my last excursion with Anna and kids before I left.  Mom came over for a few days on Tuesday, so she was there, too.  We headed up to the North Shore and stopped at Waimea Valley.  It's kind of like a botanical garden with a path winding up the valley to a waterfall that you can swim in.  The weather wasn't the best--it rained on and off, but it was still nice.

As we entered the park we saw a little pig which turned out to be a wild one that had been adopted by one of the park employees. It was a so cute.  Apparently it's going to grow to be huge, though.

I didn't take many pictures going up the trail because of the rain. At the top of the trail is this waterfall.  You're allowed to swim in the pool below.  I decided not to--it still wasn't very sunny, even though the rain had stopped--but Cole, Sydney, and Mack did.

Here's the brave threesome and some other people beneath the waterfall.

I took more pictures on the way back down.  The tropical flowers there were just amazing. 

These last two flowers are banana flowers.  Very weird looking. 

We all enjoyed seeing these Hawaiian moorhens.  Apparently they're an endangered species.  There was a little family of them there. 

It was fun to watch the chicks try to get across the pond. 

After Waimea we headed on down the road to a shrimp truck.  Shrimp trucks are plentiful on the North Shore.  They're these rather dingy looking trucks where you can get shrimp covered in garlic and butter--yum!  We made quick stops to look at a few things on our way home.  Below is an arch off the coast on the North Shore. 

This is Chinaman's Hat--another unique island. 

Sydney's Photo Shoot

Last week I also did more work on taking photos of the kids.  Here's a few of Sydney's pictures.  This is the same area as Mack's pictures.

Ko Olina

Last week we spent some time at a resort over on the south-west side of the island.  Ko Olina is quite a fancy place, but they have four lagoons that anybody can swim in.  So we just went for the day.  I walked around to see all the lagoons. 

This was "our lagoon."

Nice place to spend a few days?  I can only imagine it's pretty expensive.

...and my "artsy" shot for the post. 

The Other Side of Life in Hawaii

My month in Hawaii is almost over.  I realize that from what I've posted you may have gotten the impression that all I've done here is play every day.  That's not the reality, though.  We get out and play, but I've been living in a family that has to do lots of normal, everyday stuff.  I try to help where I can.  Those things don't normally lend themselves to pictures, though.  Trips to the commissary (grocery store) don't make good pictures.  It's been good for me to experience life in a busy family with four kids.  I get opportunities to help with things that I didn't have back home--like reading to somebody or watching the baby.  I also do a little bit of my own school and try to keep up violin some.  So while those things don't really get on to my blog posts, they are happening. 

I Must Be Acclimating

When I checked my little weather gadget on my computer today, I was surprised at what it showed for today.  Right now it shows 68 degrees.  When I saw that, I had some thought of "I wonder if I'll need a sweater when I go out today."  Sure enough, when I opened the front door to go out and get some groceries, a coolish breeze was blowing.  I decided  to skip the sweater, but I did comment to Anna "It's chilly today!"  She agrees--this is like January and February weather for Hawaii, cloudy and "cool." 

Well, all that to say, I think I'm adjusting to Hawaii weather.  At home we would call 68 a nice, warm day.  Here its chilly.  80 is the perfect temperature! 

Out and About with Mack

Tuesday I went out with Mack to take pictures.  We went to different places on base to snap shots.  We ended up wandering around on the beach.  It was fun and I think some of the pictures turned out pretty well.

"Painting Your Nails" Takes on an Added Meaning

Until this week, I'd never done a pedicure before.  Anna tells me that in Hawaii they buy cheap shoes and spend more money on their nails.  Makes sense.  So we went to this nice place and got our pedicures, complete with extra nail art.  I don't think I've seen this before, but they paint little pictures on your toes with tiny brushes.  And they put little rhinestones on, too!

So maybe this is a little weird--but here's my toes.  I love the way they turned out.

Makapuu Lighthouse

Thursday I had the opportunity to go on a hike with a new friend from church.  We hiked around the Makapuu Lighthouse area.  The view from the lighthouse viewpoint was just amazing. 

This is the view looking north.

The Makapuu Lighthouse.  We couldn't go inside; we only looked at it from above (and later from below). 

Heidi graciously took a picture for me. As you can tell, it was really windy up there.

 Afterwards we hiked down the cliff to the rocky tidal pools below.  I know this picture looking up the cliff makes it look really dramatic, but it was pretty steep.  

At the base of the cliff there's a rocky shelf with tidal pools.  The waves crash up against the rocks, sometimes shooting up very high.   

The water in the tidal pools was so clear!

Heidi knew of this neat place where there's a log sticking out into the water that you can jump off.  After getting hot on our hike, a good swim was the perfect thing.  The whole day was a ton of fun.

Diamond Head

Monday we all went to Diamond Head, the famous crater next to Honolulu, and hiked to the viewpoint at the top.  It's a very popular place, so it was different from Northwest hikes where you only see a few people the whole time.  We were surrounded by other hikers.  The crater used to be a military site, and I think part of it still is.  At the base of the crater where we parked we saw these neat old empty military buildings.  Some of us wished we could have gone inside the fence and explored them.

The beginning of the trail inside the crater

A fairly impressive view, but the best was yet to come

After climbing up the inside rim and going through a kind of multi-story bunker in the crater wall, you crawl through an opening in the wall onto a trail that takes you to a lookout at the top. The crowd was pretty thick at the top, but I think it was worth it.

Honolulu

Looking back into the crater

After Diamond Head we drove to the Halona Blowhole and watched it blow repeatedly as the waves came in. 

 

Easter Weekend

On Saturday we had a Passover dinner for 16 people.  We would have had it on Passover, the Monday before, but it didn't work out, so we postponed it.  We joked that it was a "semi-kosher" Passover.  Making everything "Passover kosher" would have been a lot of work.  This was my second Passover dinner and the first time I had helped host one.  It's a pretty neat thing to do.  It makes the history of the Israelite's deliverance from Egypt more tangible, and also reminds us of Christ's Last Supper.  There are certain dishes in Passover which represent different elements of the Passover story.  In addition to those special dishes, we had a normal meal.  I wished that I had gotten more pictures, but here's one of the table for Passover before everyone came.

   

On Easter morning we went to the beach before church to take some pictures 

Anna and kids

Yours truly

We also saw a rainbow on our way to church.

More pics from out and about

This week we took a quick trip over to Ford Island and saw the U.S.S. Utah, one of the ships sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

An old air traffic control tower on Ford Island.

The view from the Pali Lookout on our way to the other side of the island.

On Good Friday we stopped by the beach on the other side of the island before going to church. Anna has asked me to take pictures of the kids, so we took advantage of having on nice church clothes to snap some shots.

Sydney

Mack

Cole

Nora