Pillboxes

As promised, there was hiking yesterday morning. This one the kids LOVED, but it was rough on me.
















After, to the beach at Kailua again, this time in the official "beach park" zone.



A little swimming and a lot of exhausted laying-around in the afternoon. Girliness made garlic pasta (and rather imperiously informed her papa that steak would go well with it) for dinner. The game "Bananagrams" turned out to be great fun. And the kids, surprisingly enough, stayed up all the way until we enforced lights-out at 10pm.

Big Waves

On Thurs the waves were supposed to be 15-20' on the North Shore, so we went wave-watching. Or tried to anyway.

Overcast and angry at Laie Point:





Biggish waves but no clean break at Sunset:




Light lunch (shared a plate) at Giovannis, and then a stop for some swimming and out-of-the-car time in Laie.



Boyness drew us a sand fetus:



BittyPrincess countered with a mother-and-child drawing that, alas, was total nonsense to my eyes (and remained unphotographed).

Back to Tutu and Papa's house to hang with Aunty B and Uncle P and swim in the pool.

WAAAAAAY too much energy in the car during our drive time, so the kids have pretty much forced us to elect a difficult hike for today...

Bishop Museum

No pictures today. I took a couple, but they're of the kids dressing up as "good insect bad insect" in the native/non-native section, and they didn't turn out so great.

Well, ok, one token picture, the only decent one from the set:



We had meant to go hiking at the Maunawili trail, but the day dawned very rainy and overcast, so Bishop Museum it was. The kids got more than I expected from the planetarium and found a few constellations once it got dark.

Makapuu Lighthouse

Tuesday, we hiked up to the Makapuu lighthouse. The weather cooperated (overcast and windy), so it was only mildly miserable (and not completely grueling the way it was last time). It's whale season in Hawaii, and it was a great day to rest on the lookout points and watch a pod of whales at play. No pictures of that, though, because from that height/distance it just looks like photos of "ocean" without the special lenses.





We were going to head for Logs after that to swim, but saw at least three groups of 6-8 people heading that way, and that would have been too crowded (especially with the kids). And then the beaches were too windy all the way through Waimanalo (really, really windy and deserted), so we wound up in Kailua again. Already have photos of that.

On the way home, John's Store was open and the kids finally got their shave ice:

Beach Day in Laie

Our day on Monday got slightly hijacked by Uncle P and his friend. We were going to head to do some snorkeling/playing in the tidepools, but friend M invited us out to "the perfect beach" where his aunt/uncle live in Laie.

It took us quite a while to get ourselves sorted out and there. We had slightly divergent mornings, so our crew (me, Papa, and the kids) stopped at the store, and then at the mac nut farm (prices have risen, so no mac nuts were purchased, although some were sampled), and met up with everyone else at Kualoa Beach Park, where the kids got some play-time:




Before we drove on to Laie. The beach, was, indeed, perfect. Perfect clean sand, lots of sandy area without a lot of reef, but plenty of things to see while snorkelling. The menfolk took spears and went out in search of dinner (they were successful), while the rest of us just played.






The kids got a chance to try out a newish quasi-sport, stand-up paddling. BittyPrincess wasn't quite up to standing and paddling, but the other two caught on quickly.







Home as evening hit, with just enough time to hit the pool yet again, get cleaned up, and watch the fish-cleaning and crab-cooking festivities.

Honolulu Zoo, Kailua Beach

On Sunday we attempted an early start, so that we wouldn't die at the Honolulu Zoo (I've just not ever been there and had it be a comfortable temperature). It mostly worked. There was much complaining but no dying.

Lemurs. Many move-it-move-it jokes:



We had the hippos:



And the rhinos:



So, unfortunately, there were Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros references.

BittyPrincess was, of course, most enamored with an animal easily found anywhere:




While Boyness' favorite was at least slightly more exotic:



Laulau at home for lunch, and then off to Kailua for more beach time. The water was unusually calm again, and for a Sunday afternoon it was really quiet, even for our favorite stretch of beach (through a public access path but far from the Beach Park).



Back home, the kids jumped in the pool for an additional hour of swimming as the sun set.

Judd Trail

Yesterday, a slow start, lots of pool time, and then a hike. Parked at the trailhead:



At the beginning of the trail:



We have tried to do this trail before. We got lost and wound up MUCH higher in the mountain than we should have been. Not so much this time. If you figure out accurately how to leave the clearings without also leaving the trail and following a wildlife trail or false trail instead, it's actually a pretty easy hike that took us through several different layers/types of forest.













A detour to Jackass Ginger (waterfall/swimming hole):