Aloha Tower ferry ride

This afternoon we rode on the catamaran ferry to the Aloha Tower Marketplace. It was the bumpiest, waviest wild ride we've had in a while. What fun! The weather was perfect and the views always gorgeous. Once at the marketplace, we checked out some sites and went to the Maritime museum for a little bit. We had pizza, wings and calamari at Don Ho's Island Grill and watched the most beautiful sunset. It was a very enjoyable afternoon, but sure did make us miss Jason a ton! This is one of our favorite family treats and the round-trip ferry ride is only $8 total; you can't beat those prices anywhere in Hawaii!

kbay day-message to dad

Some friends of ours invited us on their boat outing in Kaneohe bay today. The weather was typical Hawaii in the winter, chilly when you're wet, rainy/sunny, windy; but we still had a great time laughing and hanging out. The moms stayed in the boat and the kids did some swimming and snorkeling. I was able to get them to hold still for just a minute to send a short little hello to their dads in Iraq. We're heading out on the ferry tomorrow afternoon, hopefully to see a few whales and grab a hot cocoa at the Aloha Marketplace. Trying to stay busy on Christmas break and finally have some fun after dealing with sickness and crazy events!

Christmas morning

Our morning started out with a little comedy and a big mess. We were out of toilet paper in the bathroom downstairs, so I asked Hunter to bring a roll down from upstairs. In his excitement to have Christmas morning, he left the toilet paper on the floor in the bathroom instead of putting it on the holder. It took Mack all of 10 seconds to find it and destroy it. There was TP everywhere! Needless to say, this was our last roll of TP in the house, so hopefully paper towels won't run out before the store opens tomorrow!

This was our first, and hopefully last, Christmas without Jason at home and we are without family nearby. We went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church and played board games at home last night. We tried to link up with Jason to do the webcam and a speaker phone call this morning, but there were technical difficulties and he didn't get to join us. It was really frustrating and nobody felt like it was Christmas without Dad at home.

We surprised the kids with a Wii this year. They have been saving their money and even trying to sell their PS2 and all the games to get a new system. I caught their surprised reaction this morning and it will be one that makes us laugh for years. They were truly shocked and pleasantly surprised.

We were able to speak to Jason by IM later in the morning, midnight for him. It's funny the things we take for granted and find that the smallest gifts of communication with him mean more than anything that we could fit under a tree.

May God bless you and yours abundantly in the coming year! Live every day to its fullest and appreciate every moment you have with loved ones. We love you all. Merry Christmas!

Jason is safe

Well, no pictures this week. Jason is safely in Iraq. He is trying to get settled in and they are really busy, so I haven't talked to him too much. He is definitely living better than he did during the last deployment, thankfully. Maybe he will be able to post some pictures by Christmas.

The kids and I are doing alright. We are in a routine, but everybody is grumpy. It's been raining a lot and we have been so busy. A lot of it is my own doing- I am the family readiness leader for the company Jason is in, so I have a lot of time spent organizing and meeting with the ladies so we can support the families. I have a terrific group of about 25 ladies who help me take care of the rest, so that is a HUGE blessing.

Thank you for thinking of us and praying for our family. Hopefully we will be smiling in the next pictures :-)

Deployment Day

Jason left for Iraq yesterday. I had been thinking that since this was our third deployment, that it might me a little easier to say goodbye. I was wrong. After Jason finished packing, we spent the day playing Monopoly and a little xbox. It was time to drop him off at the company area and neither of the kids wanted to go. We were all crying. I don't think they could bear driving off and leaving him there. I dropped him off, said my own goodbyes through the tears and drove the 2 miles back home.

When I got home Hunter was sitting in the chair with his face buried in Jason's pillow, just sobbing. I grabbed him up and we took Ashley to swim practice-her choice. She needed a 2 hour swim to get all those feelings out and said she felt much better by the end of practice. Hunter and I meanwhile drowned our sorrows in hot chocolate at the top of a beautiful mountain pass in the pouring rain. When we first got there all we could see was the clouds and tips of the mountains. Just as we were finishing the cocoa, it stopped raining and a ray of sunlight cut through the clouds and shined down on the ocean. The mountains were so green and the fog of the clouds was hovering around us. It was so beautiful. I really felt like God was letting me know that through this storm there is always hope and He will be there to comfort and care for us.

I haven't heard from Jason yet, but no news is good news. We do have one thing going for us from past experience and that is we know what routine to get into. We aren't fumbling around trying to figure out how to deal with life. Everyone seems to be doing alright today. We have cried out all the tears and are picking ourselves up by the boot straps and focusing on Jason's return. Hunter told me today "only 364 days to go Mom!"

Paintball Saturday

We spent the day at Bellows Beach. There is a beautiful beach, camping and paintball recreation area at this Air Force station. This was our first time doing the paintball and guess what???They are hooked! Ashley, Hunter and Jason got all geared up and headed into the gaming area. Someone had to stay out and take pictures and resupply the troops. I, of course, volunteered quickly. Combat is not my thing at all. They played a game of capture the flag and Ashley was just feet away from scoring 1000 free paintballs, when she took a hit. Too bad Ashley, what bravery! Ashley was good for the first game, but after three hits, she decided it was enough for the day and went to the beach with me and some good friends who live on that side of the island.

Hunter and Jason stayed for a few more hours and had a blast! They both took some painful hits, but I guess that comes with the territory. The bruises are monstrous today. Everyone is looking forward to coming back, but with a little more protection.

to hear the video

In order to hear the video, you have to manually turn down the volume of the music player at the bottom of the blog :-)

Jason and Hunter have been going to the skeet range about once a week for the last few months. Tonight was a historic night for Hunter. He shot 20 out of 25 clay pigeons, a new record high. The video is the last 10 shots. He actually beat Dad tonight! You get a little glimpse of what I will be doing twice a month for the next year.....wish me luck.

Kaneohe Bay

Today we met some friends down at Kaneohe Bay and took the boat out for some afternoon fun. We tried to do some diving, but the water was really murky, so we stuck to snorkeling and hanging out on the 4 mile long sand bar that sits in the middle of the bay. It was a beautiful day full of family fun. We did run across a turtle covered in barnacles. I think he needs to get a little more exercise!

Advanced Open Water Class

One of the things Jason and I wanted to do before he left was take an advanced open water diver class. That's what we did this weekend. The kids were pretty happy because they both got to go on sleepovers with friends. Basically you do five adventure dives to include a night dive, deep dive and practicing navigation and photography. All of our dives were from a boat and the current was pretty strong at one of the locations, which made for an interesting entry to the site. We traded in our old camera, which flooded on the last dive we did, and opted for one with the strobe. You can see how much better the pictures are.

These were some of the best dives we have done. The night dive was really cool. Everyone had chem lights on them and flashlights. It looked like something from outer space. Super cool!!! I was really nervous in the beginning, but it wasn't scary at all. We saw some octupus and some creatures that only come out at night.

Sunday's dive brought us within 5 feet of a nice little white tipped reef shark hanging around a sunken plane. It's hard to guess size and distance underwater, but we think he was about 5 feet long. Jason had gotten closer to him than I did and actually face to face, I know you're surprised. I was wondering if we would be practicing rescue diver techniques that day too! He tried to take some closer pictures, but when he pushed the button, the card was full and wouldn't take anymore pictures. Talk about mad! He spent the next minute deleting pictures, but the shark had left by then.

We are now qualified to dive to 100 ft. We will be doing some night dives with the kids, hopefully this week. Right now the surf on the North Shore is projected to be 16-20 ft, so we have to see how that effects the rest of the island water.

Halloween

We had planned to have a Harvest party at our house this year, but with living on such a small post and the kids living so close to their friends, we decided it might be fun to go trick-or-treating. The kids dressed up- Hunter was a Roman Gladiator and Ashley was a twin to her friend Lindsey. We took Mack and walked the streets on post collecting candy with our gang. The kids were tired after about an hour, I actually think they were tired of carrying their loot.

We headed over to our community center where they have a private movie theater that residents can use. We met with about 15 of their friends and watched "The Forbidden Kingdom" (Jackie Chan and Jet Li). We had quite a karate display when the movie was over. After getting everyone safely to their parents, we went home. Ashley and Hunter sorted, counted, compared and traded candy for about an hour. I'm certain there was a fair amount of tasting going on too. Jason took all they didn't like- the dark chocolates and lemon heads. They both went to bed around 11:00 pm on a sugar high!

Kaena Point

This drizzly morning we decided to meet up with some friends and take my Jeep to Kaena Point to get it a little dirty. It was so slick out there today that we couldn't even walk the Jeep up the big rock. My tires looked like big chocolate donuts and we had mud everywhere including on us. How much more fun can you have???

We drove down to the end of the muddy trail road, parked and hiked in the last 1/2 mile to the point. This is one of my favorite places on the island. You are literally on the northwest corner of Oahu and can see both the Leeward and North Shore sides of the island. We got a special treat today too- a monk seal was sunning himself on the rocks in the shallows. He even lifted his head to give us a wink. How COOL!

Ashley decided it was a little too early for fun, so she and Mack stayed home and worked on some homework, at least that's what she said. When we came home they were snuggled up in a blanket.

Mack is 12 weeks old!

Well, our little Mack is 12 weeks old tomorrow. She is definitely growing leaps and bounds. She is keeping us all busy and we are really getting to see her personality. It's much like Ashley's- she likes to sleep alot, works when it benefits her, picks on Hunter, can come through a room like a tornado in about five minutes flat and is definitely a Daddy's girl.

Click on the picture to get a better view! The underwater world is amazing.

Diving date

Jason and I had our diving date today. We took a two tank boat dive off the Waianae coast. Our first dive was to the Mahi Shipwreck and dove to 90 feet. This was the deepest dive we have made yet and frankly was a little scary at first. When we jumped off the boat and looked below I could see nothing but big blue ocean with no bottom. Talk about feeling small! We got down to the shipwreck and saw some cool fish, an eel, and some eagle manta rays. We only stayed down for about 20 min because of the depth, it would have been cool to stay longer. The color is gone because of the depth. We'll try shining a dive light in our pictures next time. (The eel sticking his head out of the steel tube is from this one)

Our second dive was in the Makaha Caverns. It is a favorite diving spot here on the island for many and I can see why. It was really interesting. It is basically an area full of lava tubes, which are like short tunnels that you can swim through. The tops are encrusted with coral and the fish are everywhere. We were able to see several turtles, an octopus (my first sighting of one!!), trumpet fish, a few eels, a frog fish (which looks nothing like a frog), unicorn fish, and even a white tipped reef shark. Our deepest depth was about 50 feet, so we were able to stay down about 45 min. We will definitely dive there again and hopefully next time with the kids. They were both disappointed they couldn't go. (The turtles and eel in the coral are from this dive)

I highly recommend date diving!

Ashley's Birthday

We had Ashley's 14th birthday party on Monday at the pool on Schofield. She had a lot of fun and many of her friends were able to attend. Hunter's favorite place is falling from the high dive (it's 20 ft down), but Ashley likes things a little closer to the water :-)

We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and had lots of junk food to eat. All was well until it was time for cake...once the cake was cut, the smearing began. Almost all of the kids had frosting in their hair or on their bodies. One little one snuck under the table to stay out of the food fight. The fun and games were over when the lifeguards made them scrub the bathroom floor to get all the frosting off.
The pictures show what fall in Hawaii is like- a little rainy. We have to get the rain to keep everything lush. The temperature is in the 80's though.

What a fun afternoon! Family, friends, food and swimming.

Scuba diving 10/15/08

Today was our last day of diving and we are now Open Water Dive certified!!! The dive master said we did a great job. Everyone was able to make it out of the surf without crawling ashore- a BIG plus from our last dive. We had a lot of fun and saw a ton of cool fish, to include a sea turtle and some baricuda. A cute little butterfly fish kept nibbling (really trying to give us a little underwater manicure) on our fingers while we were finishing our skills.

The deepest we went was about 30 ft. Hunter can't go below that until he is 12 (which is in 2 months). He can't wait.

Today was the only day this week that Mother Ocean wasn't going to pound us in the surf, so we had to take advantage. It is Ashley's birthday and we kept her out of school to go diving- I'm not sure if that will be excused or not?? She was pretty thrilled to be hanging out with us at the bottom of the ocean rather than sitting in a stuffy classroom.

We can now go out on our own and Jason and I will be doing an adventure boat dive within the next two weeks- most of our dates involve a movie or food, so this should be fun. It's the perfect date for men- not much conversation and no sharing of feelings- ha ha! We will try to get better with the picture taking. The colors of the fish and coral at this depth are pretty amazing, but you can't see that too well in the pictures. We are loving life in Hawaii!!!