Learning to do puzzles

I've never really doubted our (my) decision to have four kids, but there are times when I watch my kids as siblings and I think we should have even more kids. Tonight has been one of those precious moments. My older kids relish watching, hearing and helping Sabrina learn new things. For the past 30 minutes Isabella and Hunter have been joyfully teaching Sabrina how to complete our half-dozen wooden puzzles. They are so excited to help her succeed and Sabrina is completely thrilled to have their undivided attetion ... and Sabrina is learning to work the puzzles which she had never touched until this evening.I was prompted to take these pictures because I over heard Hunter talking to Sabrina. The quote is "Sabrina, you are getting to be a bigger girl."

Dresses made by my Grandma

What's wrong with this picture?

If you think you can name the three things "wrong" with this picture, please post.

It isn't very nice for parents to set their kids up, but what else are we going to do for entertainment.

We're home!

We left Hawaii at 9pm Friday night. As we walked from the terminal (which is completely outside) to the airplane I told Brett I didn't want to leave. We had a blast in Hawaii. I can't wait to go back some day. We flew all night and Saturday morning - arriving in Denver around noon. We stopped in Castle Rock (about half-way between the airport and our house) at Sonic for some lunch. Then we spent the rest of Saturday unpacking and just hanging out. We were all very tired - so tried that we slept 12+ hours Saturday night. It has taken longer than I thought it would to adjust our body clocks. I will post pictures to the blog from the last half of our trip gradually. We are back into the busyness of school, work, MOPS, basketball starts on Saturday, etc. Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers for our safety and enjoyment of our vacation!!

Deep Sea Fishing

Brett, Orion, Harve, my Dad and Mike went on a deep sea fishing trip Sunday afternoon. They each caught a couple of small tuna. Orion reeled in a 10 pound tuna that we ate for dinner. Brett reeled in a 160 pound marlin.

Island Breeze Lu'au

These pictures are from a few days ago, but we couldn't figure out how to download them from Brett's camera.

On Wednesday night we went to the Island Breeze Lu'au at the King Kamehameha Hotel. It was a great experience. The only glitch for me was that while the narrator was a really dynamic voice, I could only understand about 50% of what he said; his Hawaiian accent was very thick. We sat at long tables. The food was buffet style. Before dinner we wandered around the sacred grounds - there was live music, hula dancing lessons, a royal procession from the beach, a ceremony uncovering our pork which had been cooked in a pit lined with rocks

and lots of mai tais.

A group shot at our table
Isabella and my mom learning to hula dance - bottom right corner.
Our dinner
Another group shot watching the pig being uncovered.
The royal processionOrion drinking Hawaiian punch
Sabrina dancing to the Hawaiian music

Hunter dancing

Isabella dancing

We figured out we're going to support ourselves while living in Hawaii - we're going to employ the kids as hula dancers. They LOVED dancing. They spent most of two hours on the side of the dinner area dancing and running around. There was even a little cabana at the back that had a stage where they performed.

Where we're staying

The house we've rented for the week. I would like to stay here the rest of our trip, but today we're moving over to cabins near the volcano. This house is great! Anyone planning a trip to Hawaii - stay here.

This is the view from up the mountain from our house. The rental house is somwhere in those trees along the coast.

Ironman Race Day

My Dad and Brett's Dad took Brett down to the race start about 5 am Saturday morning. The rest of us caught a shuttle bus at the end of our driveway. We got to the race start about 6am and I wandered around a little bit trying to find Brett, but I didn't. We parked ourselves on a little beach near the race start. The sea wall was lined with people 4 or 5 deep.

An Air Force C-130 dropped three Navy guys off. They parachuted to the starting line, got into a boat, changed into their race gear and then did the Ironman.
We couldn't see the actual starting line, but we could see folks entering the water. It looked like chaos. The starting line was about 500 yards from this spot where they enter the water.

Swimmers going out.

This is part of the sea wall that was lined with people. We moved onto the wall after the start. After Brett's transition we came back to the beach for quite awhile. My brother swam out into the ocean and got to swim with spinner dolphins. He says it was an experience of a lifetime.

Mike flew in Friday night and all in one day he got to snorkel, swim with dolphins, see sea turtles and watch THE Ironman. I joked with him that after 36 hours in Hawaii, he could already go home because he had experienced so many new things.

Brett coming out of the water - he is in the middle of this picture and wearing only a swimsuit. (Most of the race participants had skin suits to swim in, so I guess Brett didn't have every piece of tri gear that he could have.) We were right there behind the swim exit. Some how I found favor with a race official. I asked her if we could get up in the bleachers; she said they were off limits, but she took us behind the fences and let us sit there until Brett came out of the water. Brett going out on his bike ride. He did not see the bike course ahead of time. At the banquet the race announcers said this is an advantage that first -timers have. Brett didn't think it was much of an advantage. He says it was the hardest bike ride he has ever done.
Our beach hang out. My mom made the banner - it hung from the porch of our rental house all week. I had our matching shirts made. The kids' say "Go Dad!" on the front. It was easy to spot them during the race in their matching shifrts.
Brett coming in from his long, hard, hot, windy bike ride.

Brett going out on the run - this was where he told us it was his hardest bike ride ever!
This was about 100 yards from the finish line. I don't have an in-focus picture of Brett at the finish line. He finished at 10:56:07 which was 6pm local and just about dusk. We'll get "official" finish line pictures later.

Kahalu'u Beach

Across the street from our rental house is Kahalu'u Beach - according to our guide book it is one of the nicer snorkeling spots on the Big Island. Most of us have snorkeled at this beach during our week here - including Orion. :-) The sand is very coarse, but there is sand so the kids play okay at this beach. (Not all of the beaches we've been to have sand.)

The beach is a habitat for a handful of sea turtles. The turtles have been at the beach every time we visited and don't seem bothered by people in the least. The kids really enjoyed seeing the turtles on the beach, but got really spooked when the turtles touched them while we were swimming.

Orion and Brett snorkeling. I haven't gone snorkeling with Orion, but Brett says Orion does really well. I took Isabella out with goggles (no snorkel). Isabella saw some fish and was excited by it.

Our first afternoon in Hawaii Sabrina fell asleep on my lap at the beach. She was still adjusting to the time change and catching up on lost sleep.

Ironman Welcome Banquet

Brett and I went to the Ironman Welcome Banquet tonight. It was outside, set-up for a huge amount of people - considering there are almost 2000 race participants and their families and sponsors and families. There was a bit of a Hawaiian show with fire twirling and hula dancing. They introduced or featured a number of interesting race participants - the oldest and youngest male and female. The youngest are both 18 years old and live here in Kailua-Kona. The oldest woman is 72 years old and she is last year's winner for her age group. The oldest male is 79 years old. I told Brett that I really hope he isn't still doing Ironman races when he is 79 years old, but he has already commented to me that he feels that he won't be able to only race Kona once.

We went to a lu'au on Wednesday night and I'm hoping to post pictures from that. The pictures are on Brett's camera and I can't figure out how to get them downloaded yet.

Today (Friday) we are just laying low - Brett did a short work out this morning, we're going to the beach across the street from our house and then this afternoon we're going to the race expo where Brett will drop off his bike and all of his gear bags. My brother flies in tonight as well.

Thursday in Hawaii

We drove south of Kona today. Our first stop was Kealakekua Bay. Across this bay is a monument to Captain James Cook, the first British sailor to find the Hawaiin Islands. The choices for getting to the monument aren't real good for our kids' ages - kayak, swim or a strenuous hike. We had hoped there would be at least a little bit of beach for the kids to play on because the snorkeling here is supposed to be very good and the bay is frequented by spinner dolphins. To our dismay there is NO beach, only rocks. It was a neat place to stop and see anyways.

We drove on to the Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historic Park. This historic park has examples of temples, thatched roof structures and walls that were built 100s of years ago by the native Hawaiians. It was really interesting and the coconut trees there made the beach very picturesque.

Orion found this dead crab. It was a complete crab. We brought it with us.
Isabella, Sabrina, Hunter and Orion posing in these trees - they made a natural picture frame. Zoom in on the picture to see Hunter's face. He made this face in pictures all day.

Coconut trees were all over the park grounds.
Hunter and Sabrina exploring hermit crabs in these tidal ponds.

Our picnic lunch.
We played in these tidal pools for over an hour. The water was warm and it was deep enough for the kids to swim, but shallow enough for the adults to sit.

From here we went to another beach where the adults snorkeled while the kids played on the beach. We don't have an underwater camera, so no pictures from that. Brett and his parents are the most experienced snorkelers; they saw were some incredible fish and corals.