Three Beaches...One Day

What a day...first we started off at the Valley of the Temples (more details in the following blog). Then Zac and I wanted to take the kids to the first beach he and I went to when we were out here two years ago looking for our house. It is a beautiful bay, very secluded but quite the drive from our house. Well we finally got there and took one look at the clouds coming over and the brown water and we turned around and left. (To explain the muddy water...sometimes when it rains the bays around here get pretty messy.) So we went back to a beach park we had passed along the way. It had this great view of China Man's hat - pictured to the left - We had our lunch at a picnic table then got the kids all dresse in their swim gear. Just as the kids ran into the water Zac noticed a small small sign posted a ways down the beach. It read, "No swimming, contaminated water." So you can only guess that we yanked the kids out as fast as possible. They were pretty dissapointed so we headed off to yet another beach - we have a lot here as we do live on an island...so we found ourselves at the beautiful Kailua Beach, had a great afternoon and even managed to get a bit of sun on Zac...he has been a bit sun deprived the last few months.

Can you see how happy they are to finally get to play in the water?

Andrew and Zac dug this great cave in the hill of sand...Anne turned it into a dog kennel.

Finally happy faces...

What no playgrounds!? I will just make a slide out of the sand then!

Valley of the Temples

Zac has the week off so we have been playing tourist! These are some pictures from our visit to "The Valley of the Temples" Really this is a cemetary with a really neat replica of a famous Buddist Temple from Japan. It was built to celebrate the anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii. The kids were very facinated by the huge statue of Budda that was inside the temple. It was all very neat...just a side note. This entire temple was built without one metal nail! Can you believe it?
BuddaZac ringing the huge "Gong" The sound it made when it hit made me feel like I was at a monistary or something. It was really neat.
One of the smaller temples on the grounds

Budda. The kids loved this guy.

Zac ringing the "GONG" as the kids called it. It made a wonderful sound.

The kids at one of the gazebos on the grounds of the temple.

What! No Feet?

Andrew loves his red tricycle! He just recently fingured out how to use the petals. Up until he learned this is how he used to ride his bike down the driveway. He is quite the stunt-man.

A New Hair Do

Every so often Anne has the patience to let me try a new style. The other day was such a day. It turned out so cute that I wanted to share!

Of course Andrew can't be forgotten...he said "look mommy I reverent!"

Singing in the Rain

"Just singing and dancing in the rain..."

Ok so Anne has gotten a bit of my flair for the dramatics. It was raining a lot today...kind of unusual for our side of the island. Anyway the kids were loving it. Of course Anne gets the umbrella out and starts dancing around singing "I'm singing in the rain, just sining in the rain!" So I ran for the camera. Yes Dad this is one of those moments that I long for a video camera. Anyway it was such a great moment I had to share it.

What a jump!

On your marks...get set..
GO!


The big splash...

Anne is getting to be such a great swimmer...her latest thing is jumping off the side of the pool then swimming to the stairs. Just last week she had to stop for a rest or two but this week she didn't come up once. She is now just about swimming the length of the pool! I can't believe how great she does.

Andrew of course loves when Anne has swim lessons because this means he too can swim. He of course has no fear and swims around on the stairs putting his head in and out of the water. Today Anne's teacher even took him out swimming for a while - she said he was ready to start lessons of his own! Stay tooned for pictures of that!

Ice Skating in Hawaii?

Anne's pre-school had a field trip today to the ice rink. We had so much fun and discovered that Anne is quite the skater. She did have a few falls but always jumped right back up to try again. Unfortunatly Andrew wasn't quite so willing - he never even got the skates on...he did have fun watching from the bleachers though. Maybe next time.

Andrew watching from his perch on the bleachers.


Holding on for dear life!

Anne keeping herself balanced.

Family Home Evening

We had a great family home evening putting in some new plants in the front yard. Who knew putting in flowers could be so messy?

The Fire Station

While in Washington Grandpa Howie set up a visit to the Lacey Fire Station for the kids. He explained to the secretary that "his grandson had never seen a red fire truck because in Hawaii they only have yellow" They were so nice to have one of the firemen show us around the fire station. You should have seen the look on Andrew's face. All the fire trucks were lined up from smallest to largest and as we went through them Andrew's screams of delight got higher and higher. He was crazy with happiness. Do we see a future fireman?

A dream come true to sit in the driver's seat of the fire engine!

"Mommy! Look BIG FIRE TRUCK!"

Snow!!!

Anne loved eating the snow...I was just glad she wasn't eating off the ground!

Our last day in Washington it snowed. What a wonderful going away present for us! Andrew was a bit hesitant about the clothes he had to put on in order to go out but soon understood why.