Happy Birthday Grandma

Today was Grandma's 66th birthday, and what better way to celebrate than kissing a dolphin, right? Did I mention Grandma doesn't swim? She won't even take her feet off the ground in a swimming pool. Anyhow, we made our way down to the Sealife Park about a half an hour south of our condo to hang out with the dolphins. Evan was quite excited, which made it a little difficult when we had to wait a bit to get into the water with the dolphins.

Jon, Grandma, Evan and I all got into the dolphin show pool with a group of about 8 other people and a dolphin trainer. I think we all had a good time. All that Evan cared about was getting to feed the dolphin, so fortunately the trainer allowed Evan to toss our dolphin a fish once he was done posing for pics kissing (licking) and dancing with the dolphin (which apparently wasn't as exciting as actually feeding a dolphin). Then Grandma had her chance as I held onto the back of her lifevest so that she didn't take a dive into the quite deep dolphin pool. Her pics turned out great. Hopefully I'll get the pics scanned in so I can post them here. Again, no instant digital camera gratification this time.

Evan enjoyed the touch pools with Jon, complete with getting to pet a small sea turtle. The touch pools were reminiscent of Evan's story where Curious George goes to the aquarium, so it was fun to make comparisons between the images in the story and real life. We also had the chance to feed the sea turtles once again, and Evan had a close encounter with a manta ray through the glass of the aquarium.

The Peacocks Will Get Me!

Today we took Evan and Grandma to the Honolulu Zoo. It was definitely worth the price of admission, which for us happened to be free, as it is part of a network of zoos that allows free or discounted admission if you have a family membership to another zoo in the network. In our case, we have a famiyl membership to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, so that worked out well.

We like the zoo there. It's easy to get around for Evan and Grandma, and it lends itself well to entertaining small children. There's a large playground in the middle, so Evan took his turn playing with the other children running around before we headed into the Keiki (children's) Zoo area where he enjoyed crawling through the glass tunnel that leads through a large tank of Koi (big goldfish).

The only way to convince him to explore the rest of the zoo however was to allow him to believe that the numerous roaming peacocks were out to get him. This became quite an amusing game for Evan and Jon. Evan would run from exhibit to exhibit yelling, "The peacocks will get me!" It provided us an efficient way to go through the zoo and see the exhibits. At one point however, as Evan was running from the peacocks, he went through an area with two exhibits on either side of him, where he was nearly cornered by two peacocks who started to "yell" at him. I guess it's hard to describe, but Jon and I couldn't stop laughing. We started to wonder if the peacocks really were chasing Evan. Hilarious.

Some other really cool exhibits to note are the big turtle exhibits, and also, that we got to see a baby tiger. The tiger exhibit is interesting because, at one point, there is just a glass door between you and the tiger, as you can see in the photo above. Hopefully this is as close as Evan ever gets to a tiger!

Senator Palpatine Checks Out a Waterfall

Sunday as we were walking back from lunch, Grandma asked if there was anywhere we could go to see how pineapples grow. I thought this was an interesting request, and it just so happens that we've never visited the Dole Plantation here on the island, so we decided to go on our way up to the North Shore.

We took a little 20-minute train ride which Evan loved, and did, indeed, get to see how pineapples grow. Afterwards, Evan also got to feed the fish in the koi pond, so that was a special added bonus.

We then drove up to the Waimea Audubon Center, where there is a botanical garden you can walk through that ends in a waterfall. It's the same place I took Evan swimming in a waterfall back in October. You can view the photos here, and also see what a difference a bit of rain makes. Here's what the waterfall looked like this time around:

So, no swimming in the waterfall. There was a lifeguard available to make sure we didn't even consider it, and was kind enough to take our picture.

You'll notice Grandma is wearing a lovely $1.50 poncho purchased in the gift shop prior to the hike. She wore the hood the entire time, so that Jon was cracking jokes that she looked like Senator Palpatine. Among many other firsts for Grandma this vacation, flying by herself, going to an island, being in Hawaii and eeing the Pacific Ocean, she can now add seeing a waterfall to her list.

Afterwards, we drove into Haleiwa for our fave Hono's shrimp truck, in a gravel parking lot, and ate lunch. Grandma had the pineapple shrimp, I had my favorite butter spicy shrimp and Jon had the garlic spicy. Evan had chicken nuggets from the McD's across the street. The Hono's truck also had some spare Sharpies laying around this time, so we had our chance to add our own graffiti to the shrimp truck. Notice I had no clue what today's date was when I added our names.

Then we stopped by Matsumoto's for shave ice, which is now becoming our routine when up on the North Shore. The Matsumoto (lemon, pineapple and coconut) is delicious, and Grandma got her favorite flavor (which I now know), blueberry.

And of course, then we all headed back to the condo for a nap!

Turtle Paparazzi

Another item to cross of my list of things to do in my life. Jon, Evan, Grandma and I all went together to Hanauma Bay today for some snorkeling. Jon and I snorkeled while Grandma and Evan hung out on the beach. While we were out in the water, Jon started pointing to what at first appeared to be a squid. But then I got a closer look...I finally had a chance to swim with a sea turtle! Despite the fact that the guidebooks tell you that if you pretend to not pay attention to a turtle that it won't swim away, I of course started to play turtle paparazzi, snapping underwater shots of the critter as he tried to swim away from me. Of course, the turtle was smarter than me, and swam above a reef where the water was to shallow for me to follow.

Eventually, I'll have some photos to post here, but the underwater camera is the disposable type, so no instant gratification as with a digital camera. We all had a great time.

Pearl Harbor

Today I finally made it out to the USS Arizona Memorial. The tickets are free, but then there's a four hour wait, so Jon left when we all woke up and went out there to get us tickets and then he stayed home at the condo and watched the Super Bowl.

Loli, Grandma, Evan and I headed down to Pearl Harbor. When we arrived we got some much needed coffee, then Evan had fun exploring the guns and submarine interior before watching a film and heading over to the memorial.

I think the best part of the day wasn't so much the memorial, but getting to hear from a survivor, Everett Harland, of the attack on Pearl Harbor. My opinion of it is, the memorial will always be here, the survivors won't be. Mr. Harland introduced the film, before Evan started talking, asking us what the gentleman was saying. Loli took him outside. I had hoped to meet and shake the hand of Mr. Harland, this didn't happen. On the other hand, my two year old son who left the movie before it had began had the opportunity to meet this person of living history. Loli told him that Evan wanted to know what he had to say. His response to Evan was, "Eat at Zippy's." So there you have it, the conversation of a two year old with a Pearl Harbor survivor. Frankly, I am jealous. I was more moved by Mr. Harland's introduction to us than I was by the rest of our visit there. What a hero, and I cared more to meet him than to meet any celebrity.

Loli Is Here!

Lori Beth comes to visit again. And mommy is so happy! Lori Beth is my friend from college. She also happens to be first person besides Jon to see Evan when he was born. What makes this particularly special is the unique fact that, she was living in Maui at the time. She was training to be a doula and I had invited her to come to Ohio and be there for Evan's birth if she could make it out there. So, she booked a flight to arrive two days before he was born. This is a huge deal. She timed her two weeks of vacation out to Ohio around the birth of my son. For this, she gets Auntie status. And she is the only person besides Jon who actually saw me in the labor and delivery room with Evan. No one will ever share this memory with me. The story is quite amusing. As she was waiting at the airport on Maui to fly to Cleveland, I went into labor and called her. As she was traveling I was in active labor. Shortly before she landed, I gave birth to Evan. Shortly after she landed, she had a friend drive her directly to the hospital, after a long 12 hour trip, and was the first, besides Jon, to see Evan and I together. For this I will be forever grateful and amazed. Who does this kind of thing? Only a very special person.

So, whenever we are in Hawaii, we try to make sure she can come visit us, at least for a weekend. She actually got in on Friday evening. Evan and I picked her up from the airport, then managed to walk over to the harbor just in time for the Hilton's fireworks show and then picked up the best Outback Steakhouse meal I've ever consumed. This was on Friday night.

On Saturday, all of us headed over to Ala Moana Beach and played. Afterwards, while Evan was napping, I helped Lori Beth find her Rocket Dog shoes and introduced her to Gap jeans, the best jeans ever for women who happen to have hips and curves.

Grandma arrived this afternoon too, so we had a full house! It was funny how we are on vacation and hosting house guests. We ordered some barbecue from a local restaurant and had dinner outside by the pool enjoying some Longboard brews...and using my new Reef sandals with a bottle opener installed on the bottom to open them! How cool is that?

BTW, Loli means Lori in Hawaiian, and I decided this trip that Loli is an absolutely perfect nickname for Auntie Lori Beth.

Sunny Day...Sweeping the Clouds Away

Uh, yeah, so I started to write the title of this post and Big Bird started singing in my head. Go figure.

Today we actually looked at the radar and the report was sunny all around, so this time we decided to try out the Leeward coast again. Jon prefers Kailua with its showers and facilities, and I want to take my mom to Lanikai anyhow, because it's so picturesque, so we ended up at Kailua beach. We've now officially been to this beach for each of our three trips here, probably a good sign to check out this beach if you are ever on Oahu. Anyhow, we had a good time. Evan enjoyed walking on the sand with Jon. They found a piece of driftwood with some small shells attached to it, this they enjoyed exploring, Jon would touch the shells which clearly had something living inside of them as each would clam up much to Evan's chagrin.

Then Evan came back for a rest with me and play in the sand, and then I took him in the water for some wave jumping. He seemed to love this until one somewhat large wave smacked us in the head, at which point I am pretty sure I lost my sunglasses I had purchased the day before.