Old Ruins and Ice Pond

Hello again from Oahu!  Let's check off a couple more activites by starting with a really neat hike.  It was short, which the girls appreciated, but muddy, which they did not.  We started back through some now familiar bamboo forests.

And came across another beautiful waterfall.  It has rained an awful lot since we have been here but the bonus to that is beautiful waterfalls.

Back along this path, we came across King Kamehameha III summer cottage.

This was a nice cornerstone, so I decided to take the shot.

It is quite refreshing to have a place all to yourselves when you have lived in SoCal for almost six years.

Me and my girls waiting for Dad to set up the camera.

Even the roads you walk on here are beautiful!

All right, so on one of the days everyone was sick, my brother and I decided to take a stroll down a river.

Which cascaded several times...yes, I am starting to mess with more settings...notice the water. Ahh.  :-)

We knew the river would reach this waterfall, which is great for jumping.  The rocks are super slick right now from all the rain, so we opted for the rocks to right the side of the waterfall instead of the waterfall itself. I have no pics because, well, it was the two of us and we were jumping in water.  :-)

Anyway, a few days later, when M was better, we took him and the kids back to jump off the waterfall.  This time we took the road...

...and repelled down the side of a mud cliff.  So much safer.  I think.

I caught K swinging for a mosquito...this visit was short-lived.  The mosquitos ate us up!

This time, however, I had the camera out for the jumps...that rock they are standing on is the first jump height.

That one, up high, is the third rock height.  My brother isn't scared of anything and since he has done higher, apparently this was no big deal.  Neither M nor I went from that height.  There is an intermediate height we both jumped from but I neglected to take a picture of it...probably because I was too busy swating mosquitos off the kids.

On top of the falls.

Like I said, it was too slick to go off the top, so he jumped from a more secure push-off point.

Well, we wanted to jump off a waterfall this trip.  Check.  More to come soon!

Ben and I

Well, to say it has been a whirlwind of fun is to understate it, but I will try to keep it brief.  We have been doing a lot of hanging out...the kids love to draw with Auntie MoMo.

Last weekend we took the kids to a local hotel to see the animals.  It had everything from fish to hammerhead sharks to sting rays.

Then we walked along the beach and checked out the 'wildlife'.

We took a walk down a neat path to a 'hidden' beach where the turtles notoriously hide.  Sadly, the sun was not out so none were sunbathing.

A couple came tantilizingly close but stayed in the water.

We did see a squid though.

So we were off to another beach.  At this point, let's see, only the three oldest cousins were sick, but we had yet to realize how seious it was.  They had fevers but weren't acting too abnormal.

Well, they all spiked fevers and came down with coughs.  All of the kids eventually got it, except Emily.  Yep, you read that right, Emily was the one who did not get sick.  Miracle number five billion in her life.  We were praying God would protect her and He answered in her favor.  As of now, she and Mo and I are the only ones who have yet to get sick.

The timing was all right though since we then proceeded to get several days of rain in a row.  My brother held out getting sick for a long time so for a couple days he and I were the only ones who felt good.  Leaving the rest behind, we chose to do the activities least likely to be fun for the whole family.  First, there was a storm producing large waves.  So we headed up to the north shore and drove until the car couldn't move.  Then we got our bikes out of the back and biked up and down the coast checking out the waves along the way.  These were the 'small' waves that were closer to shore.  They were massive.

These were the waves further out.  They measure height based on the height of a surfer...they were generally three to four times overhead.  Not the biggest they get here, but certainly very large.  I was intimidated and I was standing on the cliff.

They are hazy pictures because it is raining and they are so far out from the shore.

Ok, a few more for my Dad.

We then went to a muddy road to try for some off road biking.

Not very far down the road, my tires completely stopped turning...the mud here is clay.  So we came back and stayed closer to the water.

I love this shot.

We had a blast!  It was a great, kid-free day.  Imagine, we spent an entire day in the rain and mud and no one was complaining about it or begging us to go home.  I feel revived again!  :-)

I have much more to share with you but for tonight, we shall stop.