Hawaii

Well 2011 has been a very good travel year for Javan and I. We have been able to do a lot of really fun things, and feel very fortunate and blessed for our experiences. My sister Amber and her family have been stationed in Hawaii for the last few years with her husband Steve being an orthodontist for the Army. They were getting out of the military this summer and so in April we decided to take one last trip to Hawaii to visit them while they were still there. And we decided to take the kids this time. They were so excited. My mom and I took them a few years ago, when Amber and Steve first moved there, and Ethan and Ally have talked about it since. We had a great time.

We got to Hawaii, picked up our rental car, got settled in at Amber's house and went straight to the beach. I guess I didn't take any pictures that day. We had a great time and wore ourselves out. That combined with the time change and jet lag and we were all wasted come evening time.


The next day we went to North Beach. It is on one of the military bases on the island. It was a good place for snorkeling and catching sea life. This is Cole, Steve, and Ethan, on the hunt. (I'm not sure what for though.)
Ally and Havyn playing in the sand.
Grandpa Craig getting ready for a snorkel.
Javan and Ryan playing in the waves, and the girls playing in the sand.
A view of the North Beach Coast. So beautiful.
A little hermit crab we caught.
The next day we went to a different beach, this one is called Bellows Air Force Station. It was nice to be with Amber and Steve, they could get us into all the best beaches. This was a great place for boogie boarding/body surfing and playing in the sand.

Havyn and Ally jumping the waves.
Ethan catching a wave on the boogie board.
Javan and I trying to catch a big wave.Grandpa and Grandma soakin' in the sun.
All the kids buried in the sand. Ryan didn't take well to being buried all the way to his neck. What was funny was that people walking by stopped to take pictures of our kids in the sand. Why do you want pictures of other people's kids at the beach.
Hanging out at the beach.
Ally (and Javan) got stung by a jellyfish while at the beach. We took her to the life guard stand and they sprayed something on it to help soothe the sting. She was pretty sad, but she was a tough girl.

Our next adventure was a visit to the Laie Temple. The grounds and temple are so beautiful.
Ally and I with flowers in our hair. Even though you can't really see them in the picture.
Grandpa Craig at Laie point.
Then on to the Polynesian Cultural Center. The kids enjoyed the hands on parts of the PCC, some of the presentations weren't their favorite. Here's Javan and Ethan trying to start fire by rubbing two sticks together. We couldn't do it.

Showing off their "tattoos"Some of the dancers in the parade.We made some fish out of palm fronds.Ethan eating sushi at the dinner buffet.Feeding the fish while we waited for the show to start. The kids absolutely loved the show. The hardly blinked their eyes the whole time. They loved the parts with fire in it. We were seated right in and aisle and there are several parts where the dancers run up and down. They thought it was really cool that they got so close to us.The next day we went on a couple of hikes. The first one was called Likeke Falls. The jungle was dense and thick.Ally at the falls.

Ryan loves to throw rocks into any body of water.
Ethan climbed out onto a branch that was hanging over the water.
Amber and I at the falls.
A family picture by the Likeke Falls.
The kids hanging on a vine.
After Likeke Falls we took the kids home and we went on another short but very steep (for me) hike called Lanikai Pill Box. I think I almost died. The thing we are sitting on is an old bunker type lookout thing that the Army used to use.
A view from Lanikai Pill Box.
After some lunch and a little rest the kids were ready to head back to the beach. We went to Lanikai beach, the one we could see from the Pill Box. Ally and Havyn made this sand cake.
Ryan buried Ethan in the sand.
Grandpa made a sea turtle out of sand.
Another day in paradise.
Nothing like being in paradise with your family.
Ethan and I built a swimming pool out of sand. We were trying to make it so it would fill up with water when the waves came in. It worked once!
Our next adventure was scuba diving. I had been feeling a little iffy for a few days and Steve always gets sea sick so we were a little worried about how we would do. It was kind of a stormy day so the seas were a little rougher than normal, which made for a very rocky boat ride. We all held it together, barely, and had a couple great dives. We saw lots of turtles, and some really cool fish. And we even got a picture with everyone smiling and happy.
After scuba, the boys went fishing and the girls went shopping. Ryan caught this little fish.
Go get 'em boys.
Ethan checking out a crab. The next day we visited the Honululu Zoo. Everyone was getting a kick out of the monkeys. The kids in the fish pond.
Checking out the goats in the petting zoo.
A cool lizard. It only took me about 10 tries to get the shot of that neck thing.
After the zoo, you guessed it, we headed back to the beach. This time to Kailua Beach Park, where I found some cute little mermaids. That night we headed to Lanikai Beach to go crab hunting. We decided that building a human pyramid would be a good way to start us off.
Ethan digging up a crab. Amber and Havyn catching a crab.
The big daddy. Everyone screamed when javan finally unearthed him and he came scurrying out of his hole. It was pretty funny. Our catch. We probably had 100 crabs in there of all sizes.
The next day we had to go home. We had such a fun trip. Amber and Steve were great hosts and tour guides. The trip was unforgettable, we are all still talking about the good times we had. Thanks Amber and Steve for a great vacation.

Costa Rica

Way back in February Javan and I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Costa Rica on vacation. I have wanted to go to Costa Rica for a long time, I have always heard that it was an awesome vacation destination. And it was! It was one of the funnest trips we have been on. We loved it and would love to go back. This trip was sponsored by Contractor's, one of Javan's cooling/heating suppliers. Mike and Shan also went with us, along with a few other friends we have met on other trips. It was a great trip with great company.
Javan and Mike, along with our friend Ryan and his dad Cliff went on a deep sea fishing trip. The boat picked them up right at the beach of our hotel. They caught lots of fish and had a great time. Here is Javan fishing.

Javan with one of his fish, a tuna.

I thought this was so cute. It's bird on the back of a turtle out in the middle of the ocean. Pretty good of the turtle to let the bird have a rest.
Mike eating fresh, fresh, raw tuna, just caught by them. Yuck!
Our friend, Ryan, and his awesome needle nose fish.
One of the whales they saw on the trip.
Mike with his huge fish.
They guys getting home from their trip.
Javan and I also had the opportunity to go scuba diving. These were some of the coolest dives we have ever been on. The wildlife in Costa Rica is amazing, and the underwater world was no different. We swam with lots of sharks. When the dive master told us we would be seeing sharks I was sort of freaking out, wondering if I was going to be eaten. But they were really awesome to see. We would swim up on them and they would just sit on the bottom or slowly swim away, the guide said they don't like the sound of our air bubbles. They were a good size shark, bigger than me, probably the size of a couch or something. We also so some eagle rays, tons of starfish of many varieties, eels, octopus, lots of different fish. We could hear whales "singing" in the distance. We did have a little bit of a scary thing happen on the second dive, Javan ran out of air. We were just swimming along and Javan checked his air gauge and saw that he was in the red. He alerted the dive master, and we started to ascend to the surface. You have to make a safety stop a certain distance from the surface to let all the gas bubbles out of your body so you don't get the bends. So Javan kept watching his gauge, meanwhile, I was right there with him ready to hand him my secondary air supply, just in case. Just as we made our final ascension Javan ran completely ran out of air and hit the surface just in time. It was kind of scary, but also controlled so it worked out fine. And we had a great time on the dives.
We headed out on a tour to the rainforest, and it started to rain, imagine that. We wanted to stop somewhere to get some poncho's so we didn't get absolutely soaked. We saw this boy scout walking down the road and asked him where we could find a store, he was pointing us in the right direction. What a good boy scout.
This man stopped us on the way to the rainforest to show us the snake he caught and killed at his home. Our tour guide said it was a very poisonous snake. Scary.
We went on a hike through the rainforest. We had to cross several bridges like this one. Out in the middle of the bridge you are so high off the ground but the jungle is so dense and thick. We didn't see alot of wildlife, probably because it was raining, but the vegetation was beautiful, and we had a fun hike.

A view looking down from the bridge. You can't really tell how far down it was.
Glad we had the ponchos. This is Rob, Lisa, Shan, Mike, Javan, and I, trying to stay dry.

After the rainforest hike we ate a delicious lunch at a local restaurant and then visited a little wild life preserve. Then we headed to the river for a rafting trip. Our guides were so amazing. I couldn't believe how they could spot the tiniest things on the banks of the river. Then they would back-paddle us over to the side so we could get a good look. If you look close on the trunk of this tree you can see a family of bats, all in a row, sleeping on the tree.

There were soooo many iguanas along the river, of all different sizes and colors. These two green ones were pretty cool.
A momma monkey, with her baby on her back.
Some cool looking bird.
A big crocodile.
Another croc, just coming out to eat us.

Rob and Lisa, Mike and Shan in their raft.
Javan and I after the river trip.
Shan and Mike, hot off the raft.
The beach at our hotel was a turtle nesting ground. The beach was covered in these wire enclosures that were protecting turtle eggs. Most nights you could go down to the beach and catch some turtles coming up to nest. You had to be very quite and sneaky so you didn't scare them away. We went down one night to find the turtles and saw these little baby owls in the tree. They were so cute, and so little, you can't really tell how small they were in the picture.
We made friends with one of the security guards that was patrolling the beach and keeping the turtles safe. This turtle came up on the the beach and then turned around and headed back to the ocean. The security guard said there were "no eggs", so he let us take some pictures. Look at the barnacles that were growing on its back.
He even let us touch them.

We did get to actually watch (or more like listen, it was pretty dark) to a couple turtles nesting. We probably sat for an hour at this spot while the turtle flinged sand everywhere, and then moved on to a new hole. I guess it couldn't find a good spot to lay eggs. Well, who knows, maybe it did. We came back the next day to see where she was digging and found all these holes.
After we left the turtle nesting we did a little crab catching. These little hermit crabs were everywhere on the beach at night. We just gathered up a bunch for a picture, we could have gotten 10 times this many.

A video of Javan catching a crab.





The quick little varmit.

A group of us went to church. I always love going to church in foreign countires. I love seeing that the church is true all over the world. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. And the little kids are so cute, and curious.

Ahhhh, living the dream.

While we were relaxing on the beach, the sun was going down and there weren't any other people around. These little crab started coming out of their holes. They were so cool. The walk sideways, and as they move along they scoop sand into their mouths with their front claws and then spit out little balls of sand. It was so crazy, and really cool. I took a video of the little guys in action, but of course it won't upload. I uploaded it to Youtube. Here's the link if you want to view it: http://youtu.be/xY9_DwaVvBY
A view of the hotel grounds from our room. So pretty. It was the dry season in Costa Rica when we were there, so the little mountain over on the right was all brown and dead. But there were still lots of monkeys that lived in the trees. It was really cool. And still beautiful. I would love to visit Costa Rica when everything is lush and green.

The snorkeling at our hotel was some of the best we have ever seen. We saw so much sea life, it was so amazing. We would stay out for hours at a time, until our skin was so pruned and we were freezing. This is one of the eagle rays we saw. They were so cool, we just swam along beside it for quite awhile.
This is me, in my snorkel mask.
This is a sting ray hiding under the sand.
Here is another one, they are sneaky little things.
Here is Javan using my fin to uncover the sting ray. He didn't want to get stabbed.
Here is the uncovered sting ray. Aren't they awesome?

We found an old pair of sunglasses on the ocean floor. When we picked them up, this little star fish was attached to it. Pretty cool.

A creepy eel. They were everywhere.

I guess that's it. Costa Rica is amazing. We loved it. It's one of my favorite places in the world now. The people were so kind and friendly, the country was pretty clean, compared to other places we've been and scenery is absolutely beautiful. Everyone should go. And if you do, make sure you invite me.