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!!!