Charter fishing

Friday early morning I dropped Justin, his dad, and brother off in Honolulu for their annual Redfern men's fishing trip.  They were at the dock at 5:30 am and I picked them up at 8pm.  They had a very long fun day!  

Grandpa taking pictures.

Beautiful sunset (or maybe sunrise).

Justin has wanted to go Marlin fishing for years and years.  So this trip he was really hopeful that they could catch one.  All day no Marlin.  Jeff caught a yellow fin tuna (Ahi) and Grandpa caught a mahi mahi.  3pm and they are headed home  and low and behold a Marlin gets on the line.  Justin jumped in the seat and they all helped him battle her for 2 hours!

There she is!

Celebratory cigars!

BIG fish!

 They hooked the fish up to a wench on the dock to get it out of the boat and to weigh it.

It was the second largest Marlin ever caught on this boat!

Jeff with his 145lb Ahi.

The guys with the captain and 1st mate.

One happy guy!  One huge 607 lb Marlin!

They are having it mounted and it will stay at his parents house until we are done moving around so much.  The Marlin is 2 inches short of 12 feet!!  Justin has always wanted one over his fireplace!

They didn't get to keep any of the meat from the Marlin or Ahi.  The captain takes it to the market to sell.  We did get the mahi mahi and plan on eating tomorrow night.

The rest of the house tour

I've been meaning to do this for months now.  The final tour of the house.

Standing in the living room, looking at the playroom/school room.  

Standing in the doorway to the bedrooms looking at the playroom.  The living room is on the right, the dining room is the dark doorway and the kitchen is the other doorway.

Living room

Living room

The dining room is what you walk into from the front door.

Weird little space in the kitchen area.

My kitchen

Walkway to the pantry (doorway on right) and the laundry room.

Laundry room, toilet room, and on the far right (not pictured) is a shower and 2 other small rooms (that count as our 4th bedroom and second bathroom.

One of the small rooms.  No closet in these rooms so we use one as storage since we don't have a garage or attic and the other has the elliptical and Justin's Army stuff.

If you want to see the floor plan click here.

Big waves

Saturday morning Justin had the kids help him hang some plywood in the hall way.  The plywood is so the wall tracks can be hung again.  Our walls didn't make it easy to put them up, so this is my solution!

Both bigs got the chance to use the power tools!

Then after nap we headed out to the North Shore.  We went to Sunset beach to watch the big waves.  And boy were they big!  The many surfers were fun to watch.  I packed dinner and it was so relaxing watching the waves and the sun set!

I put my phone up to the binoculars to take this.  The black duck looking like object in the middle of the shot is actually a surfer that fell. 

The boys enjoyed playing football with Justin as well.

An absolutely gorgeous sunset!

Ocean Adventure Camp

As I mentioned before, the bigs went to an ocean adventure camp for 4 days this week.  From 9-12 they went on reef walks, built sand castles, played in the water, went sailing, paddle boarded, fished, and just had a great time!  Sunday Will was complaining that he didn't want to go.  Missing play time outside with friends is so tough.  But after I asked him how his morning went on Monday he voluntarily told me thanks for signing me up mom!!  They both have asked me to sign them up again when they do it in the summer.

Eric, Miles, and I went early to pick them up one day and let Miles play at Dog Beach.

We got to see a tug boat pulling a barge into the harbor.

Air Force One has been parked at Hickam as well.  The kids really enjoyed seeing the Presidents plane.

I went a little early to pick them up Friday so I could get a few pictures.  They were playing in the harbor after sailing and wind surfing.

Will is standing on the left and Caroline on the right.

Boats all lined up with the sun glinting off the water.

The water was SO green.  The land behind the boats is the runway for  the Honolulu airport.  You get to watch all the planes take off.  We even got to see 2 F-22's take of Friday when we dropped them off!

Will jumping off the dock.

Diamond head is off in the distance.

Part of the group in the water.  The guy sitting on the dock was the main instructor.  They called him Uncle (something).  Typical in Hawaiian culture.

Happy New Year!

4 days into 2014 and I already have some catching up to do!!  The bigs have been busy this week participating in an ocean adventure camp at Hickam Air Force Base.  (More in another post about camp.)  Tuesday night we went to a pot luck at Justin's Marine friend's house.  There were tons of kids and they enjoyed riding bikes, scooters, doing pop-its, and watching Smurf's 2.  The adults sat around a fire pit enjoying being outside.

New Year's hair do.

New Year's day we went to the beach after Eric got up from his nap with the Calicott family.  the kids really enjoyed having their friends (Adam and Lottie) to play with at the beach.

Beautiful afternoon

All 5 kids

Here's to a great 2014!!

A little brother

Caroline might not play dress up any more, but Lottie, the next door neighbor, does. She has taken Eric as sort of her little brother. Lottie is 5 and has a 7 year old brother.  Lottie loves it when Eric is out playing. She will take him in her house get him water ( in a cup with a lid and straw) and feed him a snack!  It's so cute to watch her with him. Eric loves the attention!

Eric all dolled up with Lottie in the background.

Eric loved twirling the dress and then they were quickly back inside changing because it was itchy.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas!  The kids woke up after 6 am and we got started opening all the great gifts that had been piling up!

Happiness!

The aftermath!  Lots of paper and boxes.  And that wasn't all of it.

After opening gifts, having breakfast, and playing with all the new toys we got dressed to go to the Hale Koa hotel in Waikiki.  It is a military hotel and we had made reservations for a buffet at 1:30.  After eating a great meal with some traditional and Hawaiian fare we went to the pool.  The kids had a blast swimming.

All dressed up in our new dresses!

The view from the pool.  The kids didn't even want to go to the beach!!  Just the pool for them.

Will is in the black suit and Caroline the pink one.  The boy in the blue suit was a friend they had made.  They make friends everywhere they go.  It is neat to watch.  

We left the pool around 5:30 and headed home.  A dinner of leftovers, grilled cheese, or pb&j rounded out a great day!

Merry Christmas everyone!  We missed being with our extended families.  Come to HI next year!!