ACS's birthday celebration

Friday mid-morning the kids, Zoe (neighbor), and I went over to the Army Community Service's 50th birthday celebration.  The kids had a blast doing sand art, painting, making flower leis, eating shave ice, and watching the dancers from the Polynesian Cultural Center perform.  After the fun we went across the street to play at the pool for a couple hours.  

Zoe trying out hula.

Will on stage dancing.

 Eric didn't want to go on stage to dance.  Can't say that I blame him!

Caroline and Zoe dancing.  

That night we had homemade pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and walked to the post theater to see the movie Inside Out.  It was a pretty awesome day!!

New phone feature

A few weeks ago Justin and I traded in our old iPhones for the iPhone 6.  One of the features on there is the ability to take slo-mo videos.  So Sunday night when we did dinner at the beach watching the sun set I played around with it some.  And then Monday when we went to iTrampoline with some friends I took more videos.  The one of Will is really blurry but you can see his flipping technique is very different than Carolines.  

It is a fun feature and I'm sure there will be more slo-mo videos to come!!

Mariposa Grove and the Giants

We left Yosemite Valley and headed south to Mariposa Grove to see some giant sequoia trees.  The trees were enormous!  After seeing the trees we drove back to San Francisco, checked into our hotel, then went to the Giants baseball game.  We took public transportation from the hotel to the stadium.  Which was quite an adventure, but fun.  We didn't take public transportation back to the hotel!  We walked to keep warm.

 We had seats in the bleachers an enjoyed the game.  It was very chilly!!  Dinner of stadium food topped off a great day.

On the plane leaving SF!

 Can you spot the kids at the base of the tree?  The trees were huge!

 Before heading to the airport we ate breakfast at IHOP (it's too expensive in HI) before driving around the city.  Eric would later say the pancakes were his favorite part of the trip!!  Lombard street was stunning with the azaleas in bloom and the cloudless blue sky.

It was a whirlwind of a trip but we had a blast!!

A great weekend

 Saturday morning we all got up (a little earlier than we all wanted to) and drove to Waimea Bay.  I was swimming in the 3rd of 5 races on the North Shore.  It was a rainy day because of some tropical storm or something, but we didn't let that stop us from having a wonderful beach day.

The race was a little challenging.  It was 1.6 miles against the current with a few choppy waves thrown in for good measure.  Not as challenging as the Alcatraz swim, but not as easy as the last swim 2 weeks ago.

Caroline took this, but I'm not sure if I'm in this picture or not.

 The big kids had fun jumping off the big rock, Eric boogie boarded a little, we had a picnic lunch, and just enjoyed swimming.  It did rain on and off but we had our sun tent (rain) up so we stayed dry when we wanted too.

This sweet boy has been asking for months for a haircut like dad's.  Today it happened!  He was thrilled!  He told me he doesn't look like Eric anymore.  And when I asked him who he did look like he replies dad!

 Running up the beach to the finish!

 Nothing better than a little beach sitting with you siblings!

 Eric and Caroline also did a little gymnastics in the sand.

Sand hat

We left the beach and got home around 3pm.  I made dinner for the family and then I left for a spouse event I had.  I was pretty tired after swimming and playing at the beach then standing and socializing until almost 10:30!  Justin woke me up from a deep sleep this morning at 8:30!  It was crazy humid and hot today, and rained too.  We took it easy today, taking naps, and reading.  Justin did run 8 miles and Will rode his bike with him.  Dinner in Hale'iwa capped off a wonderful weekend.  We were hoping to catch the sunset but the clouds hadn't moved entirely out of the way yet.

On the way up the hill, there were some low lying clouds and the sun peaking through and it was beautiful!

 Mountains, clouds, water, sun, and pineapples!

Caroline and Will used the Go Pro when they jumped off the rock to take a video.  They turned out pretty good!  And I included a video that was made of the swim I did.  

Yosemite - Day 2

Day 2 (first full day) included lots of driving as we left the valley and we up to Tuolumne Meadows.  Justin and my dad have often told me just how wonderful it is.  So I was thrilled to be actually going there!  I felt terrible ( I had a bad cold) but we still hike and enjoyed being outside.  We just didn't do as much as we had hoped since I wasn't feeling well.

(Pictures are out of order, so the story will jump around a bit)

 Beautiful views!

 The next 2 pictures notice how nice Caroline is standing and then what the boys are up too.  Caroline asked for Justin to take her picture and the boys wanted nothing to do with standing still after being in the car for about 2 hours!

 Justin took a picture at our snack spot.  I sat for a bit and he went off exploring up a big boulder.  The kids eventually joined him and then I slowly made my way up too.

 After the hike it was a sit-on-a-rock-in-a-creek kinda moment!

 Or playing on the creek edge.

 That night we did a Starry Skies over Yosemite that night.  There was an amateur astronomist telling us about the stars, universe, and sun, while we laid on tarps in a field near Yosemite Falls.  It was pretty amazing!  Eric cuddled right next to Justin and was out in a flash!  We weren't too surprised since it started at 9pm.  The sun sets in HI by 7:15 even in the summer, so the late nights were a little different.

 The lake was beautifully clear.

 More views of Tuolumne Meadows.

 They cooperated for a picture and this was a first take!

The picture to the left is the top of the big boulder Justin went off the path to explore.

The creek running through Tuolumne Meadows.

 Heading up the trail.

While on top of the big boulder Will started throwing rocks down and watching them tumble.  It progressed from there to big ones.  Of course!

Soda springs was a natural bubbling springs.

 Sitting on a beach, slightly different view than what we usually have though.   That water was COLD!