Vacation Photos, return to life as usual

A BIG sorry for the delay in getting the rest of the vacation photos posted. Long story, but I don't recommend trying to upload 680 photos in one web album in Picasa using a laptop, trying to create a Storyteller Photobook at the same time. Anyhoo, we have recovered, reorganized, and they should all be posted by morning (running overnight!)

It was a long week getting adjusted back to life in the fast lane last week. Not to mention that Mark had to clean out the entire basement and entertainment center for the arrival of his Father's Day gift on Saturday. We spent the entire day with the Geek Squad and the DirectTV folks who had a great time on our roof in 90 degree heat.

In the midst of all that, Matthew lost his first tooth!!! He was so excited. It was really bothering him to eat and it was "hanging on by a thread" so he ordered a PB&J for lunch. Halfway through the sandwich, chewing got a bit easier! So then we had to deal with the whole tooth fairy thing including a family debate over who works harder, Santa or the Tooth Fairy. Luckily we have been prepared for this event for at least a year now and we even took stuff on the trip just in case. The crazy Twinkle Toof that you see in the photos has been to Hawaii and back!

Late Friday night as we were moving the entertainment center in the basement, I got this crazy idea to take the two end parts of the entertainment center and squish them together to make a china cabinet (which I have never had). Volla!!! It worked and all of the china is finally out of the dungeon in a nice place in the dining room. Andrew wanted homemade pizza for dinner on china on Sunday.

Sunday the men spent most of the day in front of the TV, ahem! Late in the day, we discovered Monty wouldn't start so Monday morning, I stayed home for a bit and Mark picked up a new battery. Worked like a charm. Somewhere in there we thought the ice maker was broken, but seem to have started working after a slight "kick".

I have been getting home late all this week as we were hoping for a scanning go live this Friday but it looks like we will wait until after Labor Day now. Too many things at once.

Getting ready for soccer camp, signing up for fall baseball and soccer, learning about orientation plans at the boys new school, contemplating school supply runs, you know, just your usual August!!!

We all live in a white submarine, white submarine...

Ahh, today was submarine day in Waikiki. Definitely a tourist trap, because we spent more on pizza than the sub ride (not really, but $63 for Round Table Pizza for 4 - no alcohol, is rediculous!) They do have the best pizza on the planet, but I digress.

So, we got to Waikiki in time for lunch and a lesiurely walk to check in for the sub ride. They have two subs, one is fairly new and huge, seats 64 passengers. We sat right behind the captain, so the boys got to watch him drive. Atlantis worked with the University of Hawaii to purchase and sink two ships and one airplane, along with building some pyramid shaped reefs. Since they started the reefs over 20 years ago, the sea life has increased by 3000% in the area. It was really a great sub ride and we got to see a sea turtle.

After that, we wondered around Hilton Hawaiian Village (4 separate hotel towers combined) and ate ice cream, bought a few things, and met Mark's Navy buddy Rumel and his girlfriend Maggie for dinner at Benihana. It was great to see Rumel again and meet Maggie. The food quality has really gone down at Benihana (or the Japanese restaurant in our neighborhood is just that much better). Anyway, we all had a good time and we put the boys in the car to come home and Andrew had passed out before we turned out of the parking garage.

The boys are really great travelers and we are looking forward to our day with the Johansson's in Kaneohe tomorrow. Photos from today are posted at Picasa.

Dinner with 1300 Cousins

So our day started off a bit slow this morning, Matthew and I have some cough/head thing going on and neither of us felt like moving. We hung out at the house for awhile and gave in to Andrew's repeated requests to eat lunch at McDonald's. This didn't turn out to be a bad option for me, in Hawaii, they have Haupia Pie (rather than Apple Pie). I had to try it. The filling was warm creamy coconut and it was quite tasty.

After lunch we went to Punchbowl Cemetary which is an old crater filled by 33,000+ graves, including 700+ from the attack on Pearl Harbor, hundreds from Korea and Vietnam, as well as several mass graves of unknown soldiers. The cemetary is immaculate and then you get to enjoy the panoramic views of the mountains, Hawaii Kai, Waikiki, downtown Honolulu, the airport, the new SuperFerry that takes cars to Maui, and beyond.

We came back to the condo to visit the box office for the Paradise Cove Luau to see if we could attend tonight. They were supposed to open at 3 pm, but then we were told 4 pm (@!$! Hawaiian Time!), they told us to call anyway. So the doors open at 5 pm and off we go to the luau. In all the time we were in Hawaii, we never went and boy was I unprepared. You get there and you see tour bus after tour bus, 9 in all tonight. They feed you one drink, take your picture, then you get to walk around and take in the activities like paddling an outrigger canoe, getting temporary polynesian tatoos, making leis, hula lessons, games for the kids, etc. Which is all fine until you realize you are slowly but surely becoming a sardine.

Right before dinner, they do a quick luau show on the beach (audience participation) followed by a lesson in throwing a fishing net (ok, that was cool, see photo). The sun sets, and they begin herding you table by table through the buffet line. I had no idea until the end that there were 1300 "cousins" there (remember everyone in Hawaii is related). They were pretty efficient with the buffet line. The food is nothing to write home about but you get to try roasted pig, lomi lomi salmon, almond jello, etc. About half way through dinner, the singing and dancing and fire knife show begins. The show was great and I think the kids really enjoyed it. Some of the photos didn't turn out too well, but good enough. The luau is on the beach under the moon and the big dipper.

All said, a good day and the best part is that the drive home from the luau was about 2 minutes. It is right across the street from our condo. We were thinking about walking, glad we didn't as the boys washed face, hands, and feet about an hour ago and crashed in bed. Tomorrow we are off to Waikiki and the Atlantis submarine which should be great. Updated photos on the Picasa site.

Tora, Tora, Tora!

So today we were out of the house at 9 am to go to Pearl Harbor. We arrived at 10 am and were nearly the last car in the parking lot. Got tickets for 12:40 tour. Waited around, got snacks, talked to some folks from Colorado, and then we watched the movie and took the boat to the memorial. Beautiful as always, and the boys were very interested in every aspect of what happened to start the war and why the Japanese are now our friends and make Prius cars.

After the Arizona Memorial, we went to the USS Missouri, you are herded in large tour buses across the Admiral Cleary bridge to Ford Island where the Missouri is anchored a short distance from the Arizona Memorial. Ford Island looks completely different than when we lived here...the new bridge for one, the golf course actually looks taken care of (instead of the honor system and little wooden box you were expected to put your $1 in), there is new base housing for enlisted folks that looks nicer than our house in MD, a new officers quarters building, the Missouri, and the new Pacific Aviation Museum.

We had a great tour of the Missouri, I have been on it twice now and things have changed since it was used in the Gulf War. The fact they were actually using such a historic ship in combat and risking that it could be destroyed boggles my mind. I am so glad they set up the tour and brought it to Hawaii. It is a nice beginning and end to the story in one location.

The Aviation Museum was a pleasant surprise and the story goes that the hangar that houses Phase 1 of the Museum is about 60 feet from the location of the first bomb dropped on 12/7/1941. Inside the museum they tell the story of before the war and how the war began. They have all sorts of aircraft exhibits. They have also recently acquired the F-15 used in the movie Top Gun, but it was not yet on display. Their plans are to use several other hangars for Phases 2, 3, and 4 which will cover the later years of the war, the Korean war, and Vietnam. At the end of those projects, they are then going to restore the air traffic tower for the Ford Island airstrip. It is one of the last photos on the Picasa site and the white portion of the building was in use on 12/7/1941. The tall red and white tower was built after and used in the movie Pearl Harbor (I have to watch this again now). They now use the red/white tower for training submariners on how to safely ascend out of a sinking sub.

Another treat today was to see the Bonhomme Richard in port http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6)

They are in town for RIMPAC and they were practicing maneuvers with the hovercraft all day (forgive me for all the pics of the hovercraft, I am fascinated by the thing and the noise it makes on the water). It was parked across from the Arizona Memorial.

The boys had a long but fabulous day, we caught the last shuttle off Ford Island at 5:05 pm. We managed to find our favorite steak house (used to be Black Angus, now Cattle something) for dinner, talked to mom & dad, and then headed to KMart to pick up a few things we forgot and some new snorkle gear for the boys. We are considering going to Haunama Bay tomorrow but I think we may try to go later in the afternoon instead of first thing in the am (parking permitting).

See the new photos on the Picasa site.

ALOHA!

Yay, the condo has wireless access! So updating our travels from the last post, we drove from Debbie's house back to Glendale on Sunday. We hit some end of the holiday weekend traffic, but made it to Grandma's house in about 4 hours. We all ate dinner at the food court at the Glendale Galleria so everyone got to eat what they wanted. We dropped Grandma off at home, picked up a couple of our suitcases, then headed to LAX. I returned the rental car Sunday night (smart move!) and we were in bed around 10:30 pm with everything packed.

We flew to Oahu on Monday and everything went well. The flight was a little less than 5 hours and we managed to get the rental car (remind me not to buy a Chevy Uplander minivan - no offense if you have one) and get to our condo by 3:30 pm. We unpacked a few things and then went in search of food. Ate dinner at Chili's and picked up the essentials for breakfast and lunch at Safeway.

Today we went to the lagoons at the Ko Olina resort where we are staying. The Johansson boys and mom Kristin joined us and they had a blast playing together in the water...like no time had passed at all. We came back to the condo for lunch and clean up. Then we took off on an expodition to find our old house and explore the North Shore. Our old house in Mililani is in great shape the neighborhood looks the same. Not much has changed on the North Shore, beautiful beaches and the best Shave Ice! We ate pizza at Pizza Bob's in Hale'iwa and Mark and I stood in the parking lot afterwards feeling like we never left this place (did I mention no one drives more than 60 mph on the freeways?). Definitely a different pace.

The boys got a bit of a sunburn today even with sunscreen on so we are taking a break from the beach tomorrow and going to the Arizona Memorial and USS Missouri. The boys were fascinated by the whole story of the Arizona and the war with Japan so we had a lengthy history lesson before bed tonight and looked up some info and photos on the web.

We picked a great week to be in Hawaii, it is the annual RIMPAC exercises for the military and there are planes and ships here from all over the pacific rim. There were F-18's and F-15's flying over the lagoons today preparing for the war games. Mr. Johansson is planning a tour of the tower and a P3 aircraft at Kaneohe Marine Base on Saturday for us and his boys.

Mark and I are now trying to figure out what conditions would allow us to move back over here again and how we could pull that off and not have to work - I say LOTTERY! (Just kidding about the move part!)

Hope all of you are having a good week. New photos from the last couple of days are on the Picasa site (link is on the right side of the blog).

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th! everyone and hello from Templeton, CA. We are barely a week into our vacation, but it feels like we have been away for a long time. We started our vacation on a low note after leaving BWI and flying to LAX. Andrew fell asleep on the plane and he woke up shortly before we landed. On top of the fact that Andrew and I were both on antibiotics and our ears were plugged, Andrew threw up all over his blanket, socks, shoes, my purse, his backpack, and the floor of the airplane within 5 minutes of landing at LAX. Thank goodness I had a pack of wipes with me because I used them all just getting him cleaned up enough to get off the plane. He proceeded through the airport and to the hotel in a pair of Matthew's socks. This all occurred at 11:30 pm west coast time, 2:30 am east coast time.

Moving on to the following morning, we drove from LAX to Grandma's house in Glendale (did a load of laundry, thanks Grandma!). Then we moved into our home away from home in Altadena (the house behind where we used to live) with Miss Christy Joy. We were very disappointed to see that our old house had deteriorated and the awning had recently blown off the deck in high winds. We had a fabulous time with Christy Joy and Ron, catching up on all of the changes since we left and enjoying some great dinners on the patio.

On Friday, we went to visit my previous co-workers at City of Hope and spent the afternoon with the Burkhart boys in La Canada playing ball in the park. We spent Saturday at Universal Studios and had a great time. Sunday we had lunch and dinner with cousin Brenan who came up from San Diego to Grandma's house in Glendale.

Monday we had planned to go to Disneyland, but Matthew wasn't feeling well. We stayed in and did a load of laundry, watched movies, and then in the afternoon, took Matthew to the hospital in Pasadena where he was born.

Tuesday we went to Disneyland and took Grandma along. We arrived at 10:30 am and left at 8:30 pm - long day but it was really fun and the boys had a great time. Their favorite ride was Space Mountain which we saved for the end (roller coaster in the dark). Andrew asked me to hold his hand, but after the first few turns, he was holding onto the lap bar and now claims he wasn't scared at all.

Wednesday we piled all our stuff in the car, picked up Grandma, made our second run to In n Out Burger (YUM!!!!!) and headed to Debbie's house in Atascadero. The ride was beautiful along the coast, except for the blazing brush fire in Santa Barbara. We arrived at Aunt Debbie and Uncle Caleb's house just in time for dinner and their home is absolutely beautiful. It sits on a hillside above the coast and the sunsets are gorgeous. They have 4 goats on the property to help keep the grass in check on 2.5 acres. So far the boys have picked peaches off the trees, fed cantelope rind to the goats, played baseball in the yard, and eaten plums fresh off the trees.

We are staying in a very new Marriott hotel in Paso Robles and the boys are enjoying the breakfast buffet. We stayed in at Debbie's house yesterday and today as the boys are having a great time playing with toys that Debbie got for them and playing baseball in the yard. It's good to have a break from the running around. Last night, cousin Tiana and her boyfriend Jon arrived just in time to join us for a game of wiffle ball.

Tonight we are going to the Meridian Winery where Aunt Debbie works to enjoy the fireworks. Tomorrow we are going to a barbeque at Uncle Caleb's family's house in San Louis Obispo. Suffice it to say, there is no shortage of good food when you spend time with Debbie and Caleb!

Sunday we will pack up again and head back to LA to drop off Grandma and drive to the airport. Off to Oahu on Monday around 11:30 am. We are having a great trip and I am in the process of uploading photos to the Picasa site (click the link on the right side) so you can all see the sights of Southern CA.

I am hoping to update again from Hawaii, but if not, I will update when we get home to Maryland, sometime after 7/18.