Oahu Diving

The sea turtles off of Oahu were so mellow. They just hung out, didn't mind at us all. I swam with one for several minutes and touched it's shell. That was before I learned we were not supposed to touch them. The other turtles we have seen diving take off as soon as they see you. It was really fun to just watch these guys, and they seemed to watch back too.

 These last 3 pictures were all of frog fish. The first 2 are juveniles, the final an adult. They are pretty rare. There is no way we would have seen any but the tiny bright yellow ones without a guide to point them out. Our world really is an amazing place. Seeing a fish camouflaged so expertly was incredible.

 We saw lots and lots of eels. One of the men diving with us has great underwater photography equipment, all of these pictures are ones he posted on facebook. Our first dive we saw an enormous Green Moray, probably 5 ft long swimming. It was really beautiful. Usually you just see the eel's head poking out of a coral or rock. This is some sort of spotted eel, obviously. I can't remember it's name.

 White tipped reef shark that hangs out under a wreck we dove. It was about 6-7 ft long. super mellow, just swum around as we watched it. Wreck was a WWII landing craft purposely sunk to create an artificial reef.

 Both of these are nudibranchs. Very, very cool to Jason and I. But we are nerds. They are basically an aquatic snail without a shell. We also saw several bright purple ones that looked like a spinal cord. I guess our friend didn't get a picture of them.
There was not a lot of soft coral, but the ones we saw were amazing.

 People we dove with. Whenever he sees this picture Noah says that girl is immodest. True, but I remind him that women have boobs, and that is ok. :)

 Jason in the cockpit of a Corsair, WWII airplane. During a training run the pilot ran out of gas. He survived and is living happily on Maui.

 I love how this picture captures the deep blue of the water. It really was so incredibly beautiful. And calm and relaxing once I actually got down in it.

Hawaii

We had a great time in Hawaii. We went to the Temple in Laie, visited Pearl Harbor, dove several times, slept in every day we didn't dive, ate a ton of coconut macadamia nut fudge ice cream, learned as much history as we could, and just enjoyed being in such a beautiful, warm place. Hawaii is super interesting. I was surprised how culturally different it is. I guess I didn't pay attention when I went in college. 30% of it's residents are of Japanese descent. We ate a lot of Japanese food. Practice really does help with chop stick skills. Mine are pretty killer now. It rained quite a bit, we didn't care so much. I didn't care for Honolulu very much. Big city, lots of traffic. But out in the rural parts of the island was awesome. I love the way Hawaii smells. Even in the city you can smell flowers everywhere, all the time. There is almost always a breeze blowing so it smells clean, fresh and like flowers. The colors of the island were so beautiful. I never feel like I am doing justice to the beauty I see with my camera, but it is fun to try to take some pictures to help remember how it felt to be there.

 This is a monkey pod tree. I fell in love with them. This one was in Waimea Canyon. It is an ancient, sacred site of native Hawaiians. We didn't hike up to the water fall there, it was raining and we learned that hiking in mud is just not fun, especially in flip flops. Of course we were true to ourselves and had not planned ahead. We just got in the car and went to see what we could find.  The monkey pod tree has wood of all shades, I thought that was really interesting. You will also see it's seeds made into lei's. These trees in Waimea were hundreds of years old. They were incredibly beautiful to me. There is something so timeless that speaks of enduring strength in an ancient tree.

 

 Pearl Harbor

I was touched at the Arizona memorial to see on the monument men who chose to have their remains added to their fellow soldiers who died so many years ago. Such young men who gave so much. I am grateful for those who have, and still do give, their lives to protect our country. Have the young Navy sailors sail us out to the memorial really brought home to me just how young most of these men were. 

 My favorite beach we found. It is called Makepupu. It has a small sandy beach and tons of rocky tide pools. I so wanted to have my kids there to show them all there was to see!

Jason at Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve. HUGE tropical fish. Seriously. Parrot fish that were like 2 feet long, angels almost as big. Really fun, even just snorkeling.

Valentine's 2014

This was Noah's Valentine for me. So sweet. We were snowed in still so Valentine's was pretty mellow at our house this year. We were able to get our suitcases when we dropped Grandma and Grandpa Smith off at the airport so we had a Hawaiian themed holiday with treats and presents from the islands. I didn't even take a picture of the kids all together this year. We did our traditional Valentine's breakfast. It was hurried so the kids could get outside and go sledding. Grace told me she is tired of snow and ready for it to get warm. I have NEVER heard that from her before :)

Crazy

Jason and I went from this in Hawaii...

to this in North Carolina!

It has been snowing here since yesterday afternoon. We have 7 inches. Unheard of in these parts! The roads are too bad to go sledding in our old neighborhood so Jason got the tractor out and pulled the kids behind him.

The kids made snow forts for the first time ever!

 Mom and Dad are stuck. No flights out until tomorrow, hopefully! Fun for us to have them here longer although I am sure they are ready to get home and back to their own life.

This is my favorite picture of the day. Noah, Mom and Molly in our snowy woods.