Wet Wednesday

We all have so much fun on pool days. I love it because the kids are so motivated to get their school done early too.
Here we are with old friends from when we did park day last year.

Owen-sliding down the hand rail.

Field Trip

Today we went to the symphony. It was awesome, very interactive and they played my favorite-Westside Story.

Albatross Air show

I hope I don't make you ill trying to watch this. I wanted to try and capture the magnificence of these birds. We got to see three of them circling around right by us at the same time. Unbelievable.

Ka'ena Point Day 2

After yesterday's hike we decided we had to do the North Shore side of Ka'ena Point. It was a spectacular 5.5 miles.
Here are the mountains on the north shore side.

We walked out along the mountains and came back along the ocean.

The boys found a really good rock to climb.

We past this very intriguing fissure and Erik couldn't pass up an opportunity to do a little off road exploring. He took the boys with him.

They had to wade through grass as tall as they were. Their legs were pretty scratched up.

Getting closer.

They picked up the river bed.

Erik said he could tell flash floods came through.

Sun rays at the end.

On the way out.

Erica and I walked on. We sat very still and watched the crabs. The slightest movement would send them scurrying away. There are 4 crabs here. At the top of the rock you can just barely see two eyes.

Napping monk seal.

The end of the island.

It was our day to see the Albatrosses out flying. We were treated to a real air show.

Seeing this absolutely made our day.

They are such huge and majestic birds.

The kids have decided to want to fly like the albatross.

There are ground nesting birds called Seawaders. The holes they make for their nests were all over.

I was actually able to catch a picture of one in his nest, it's hard to tell though.

Baby albatross waiting for mom and dad to come back.

More interesting plants eeking out a life.

Leaving the sanctuary area and heading back toward the start.

The walk back along the ocean was breath taking. We had the sound of big waves crashing the whole way.

This is a distant shot of Ka'ena Point.

Sea turtle! Michelle told me about a great beach where the green sea turtle, Honu in Hawaiian, feed. There were so many, huge ones too! We are going back at low tide and in the summer when the waves are smaller.

Heading home. I never tire of the mountains. They were so beautiful the way the light was shining on them.

Washed out road section

Michelle noticed Charlie was past the washed out section of road with Hope and Evan (who are the most reluctant of all of us to do any trail that even looks the slightest bit hairy) so we took it thinking it wasn't that bad. Little did we know we'd be do some rock climbing! Charlie just has a way of being able to get the kids past sketchy parts on a trail.
Does this not look crazy! Glad everyone else took the upper trail like we had done on the way out to the point.

We discovered a blow hole!

As Michelle and I were walking back we heard this rather loud blowing noise-like a whale blowing out it's blow hole so we watched as the waves came in trying to locate the noise. Dan, being the mega-army-mp that he is climbed down to find it (yes, that tiny person moving down there is him). When the wave came in, the air blew up-right in Dan's face. It was very cool and as you can tell we were all very entertained.

Another Amazing Adventure

Today was just spectacular, there is no other way to describe it. Michelle picked the Ka'ena Point hike in the hopes of seeing monk seals. We were all in for a real treat today. We started on the west side and walked out to the northwestern most point of the island, an easy 5.5 miles round trip.
Here's our little troop starting out: Amber, Dan with Madison, Hope, Charlie, Erik, Evan, Owen, Erica, and Michelle.

I just love these flowers, they remind me of fiber optic lights.

What a view.

Owen and Evan hanging out.

Hey wait, that's not Erik-it's Charlie and Erica! Thank you Charlie!

Part of the old road had washed out so we got to take a trail.

There were so many nesting pairs of albatross. Owen saw them nuzzling and asked if they were married.

Michelle and I took off running when we found out there were monk seals. We ran around looking everywhere for them so a very nice man pointed them out to us. Right there, we went right by. The monk seals are not to be disturbed so we were trying to be fairly quiet, Erica comes running down the hill right toward them and gets about 5 feet away and realizes there are animals lying there! Her expression was priceless-she sure did better than I did spotting them though.

This is a real albatross flying. They are huge. While we were walking toward the point Charlie yells, "look at the bird!" It flew over like an air plane.

Owen and I looked in the tidal pools for awhile. We saw tons of snails, camouflaged fish, various worms, really cool stuff.

Do you see all of the snails? There are at least 5. Tip-look for eyes.

Wow, sleeping monk seals. How amazing is this.

I love this picture, we look like a rag tag band. Here's the 11 of us.

Here is a panorama of Ka'ena Point, to the left is the North Shore, to the right is the Wai'anae coast.

Here's our little family.

We found some very tiny but beautiful flowers. The environment is harsh-rocky, sandy, hot, dry, and windy but yet there are so many gorgeous things to see.

This is really interesting. Michelle pointed out to me how, one can see the difference in the ocean between the North Shore and the Leeward side. If you enlarge this picture, the ocean up by the horizon has white caps then you will see a white line where the north and the Leeward meet and below that is the calmer Leeward side. Interesting, huh?

Two curly girls.

The end of our picture perfect hike. After the hike we headed to the Army beach in Wai'anae for a late lunch. While we waited for our food, the kids played in the gentile surf. Loads of fun. Thank you so much you guys!