Camping Weekend - Waimanalo

One of the things that we really miss about living in MA is all of the camping that we would do, all summer long. So, we spent this past weekend camping at Waimanalo Bay Recreation Area. It is about 15 minutes from our house on a beautiful beach.


Our campsite, complete with hammock! Of course, with the kids playing in it, I think it saw about 15 minutes of adult relaxation...



About 5 yards from our tent...the view back toward the Mokolua Islands.

Our friends Gretchen, Andre, Stella, Talulah, and Hazel camped with us for the weekend and we had visits from Khris, Bruce, Zoe, Cristof, and Joe.

Gabbi, Stella, Talulah, and Jacqui's knee...playing cards in the tent.

We've camped in HI often enough to not really be phased by the neighboring campers watching movies on their projection television on Friday or rocking the night away with their karaoke machine on Saturday (although rocking probably should not be used to describe people belting out bad 80s ballads...)



The weather was great. The only complaints were that there were a fair amount of man-o-war in the ocean (3 stings - 2 for Talulah, 1 for me) and the waves were a little bigger than the kids were comfortable with (I managed to spend a little time riding them...)



Gabbi and Stella popping man-o-wars and marking their locations with sticks. You can make out the long tentacle of on extending down from Gab's stick.

Rob and Carina Visit

We were blessed this summer with a visit from our dear friends Rob and Carina!! They visited us from Albuquerque N.M. We met them up in Alaska when we were there 2 years ago. Bill worked with Rob up there as a fellow planner. And last summer, Rob came here for 8 weeks and worked with Bill.

Carina, Gabbi and Jacqui

At Laie point....a filming sight of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"

Playing at Lanikai Beach

We went for a great hike up the "old pali" road.

Here is Carina on Bill's shoulders trying to pick an avocado out of a tree...seconds before she fell. We had some beautiful avos to eat thanks to our hero Carina for braving the picking!!

On top of the windy Old Pali Lookout.

Here is the waterfall on the way down

Sometimes you meet people and you just know immediately that you connect. Rob is one of those people for Bill and me. He is truly like family....and I don't think it's just because he's Italian. He and Bill have a really special friendship in which I am so happy for both of them to have. And for me, Rob is like a brother. Carina is one of the most fantastic teenagers I have ever met. She is grounded and treats my girls with such love and respect. They had such a great time together, whether it was playing "Killer Bunnies", swimming, hanging around or making up dances....it was so precious to see. I only wish they moved to Hawaii instead of Albuquerque!!!

Our last night together at the Foster Botanical Garden's "Midsummer's Nights Dream"

June/July Happenings

The girls for the second year in a row, took swimming lessons at the Kaneohe Yacht Club. Their instructor's name is "Mark the Shark", and they completely adore him. Although he is constantly making references to pop culture that go completely over our girls' heads, he is awesome.

As I sat there every day for 2 weeks, I was wondering if perhaps this was one of the most picturesque settings of swimming lessons in the world. Unfortunately, the pictures do it no justice.

Another fun event that happened early summer was a visit from Gabbi and Jacqui's favorite storyteller to Hawaii....Bobby Norfolk. He is just amazing. We discovered him last year when the girls and I studied W. Africa. He has a whole CD on the "Anansi Tales". He came to several of the libraries on the Hawaiian islands....we caught him twice.

Here is Bobby signing autographs.

We even brought 3 neighborhood kids to see him at the Kailua library because we thought they'd enjoy his performance.

We met a nice (cute) Italian guy at a mall who wanted to sell us a "Jose Eber" infra-red curling iron. Even though the girls were ecstatic over their curls, I could not justify spending almost $200 on a curling iron!!

The girls took a ballet class and an African dance/Jazz class through the Recreation Department this summer. Even though they weren't able to complete the progam because of our travels, they were able to put on a short show for us before we left. Their teacher Gabbi is fantastic!!

Gabbi and I got to celebrate her birthday early with trip to the "tea room" as Jacqui and I did the month before. We had a beautiful time sipping tea and eating scones!