Licensed to Drive

The kids and I went to Sand Island Sunday with the Ocean Point Posse. The occasion? The Launers just bought their second wet bike. We all got turns riding, being towed behind or driving the colossal toys. Meanwhile spectators and kids ate, drank and played in the sand nearby. Thanks Launers for a fun day at the beach. (video)

Night at the Museum

It's been super hot and muggy on the island lately. I think there must be some vog going on too. I can't even see the Waianae mountain range from work. Sue and I switched off kids in the lot yesterday so that she could go to her evening shift. After a day of meetings, I just didn't have it in me to head back to Ewa to sit around, sweat, and watch the three munchkins. Idea: sit in a cool movie theatre with the kids. Sure! We went and saw Night at the Museum at the Dole Canary instead. The kids liked the movie and I enjoyed some cool air in a dark room. Win win. For those adults out there, this movie was pretty not-okay. If you've seen the trailer, you seen the best parts of the movie. Save your money and catch it on TV next year.

The Gauchos are Coming

My little Powerbook is so choked with video footage that I didn't have room to do a system update today. Ouch. Biggest movies need to go first. I had eleven gigs of old footage I sampled in about a year a go. The subject: a family trip to an Argentine gaucho (cowboy) parade in the early 80's. It was from a box of other VHS tapes my parents handed off to me last time they moved. It's taken me a while but after a few editing sessions I finally got the hour and a half of source footage down to the best 6 minutes. Above is a frame of dad, a little older than I am now, with me in the background. (video)

Waimea to Haleiwa

Randy, Ernie, and I met up at Waimea Bay to do a North Shore training swim this morning. I also came with my friend Greg who was looking to get some paddleboard training in. Greg and I went all the way to Haleiwa. The swim was about four and half miles, and took us about 2 hours and twenty minutes. The current was probably in our favor most of the way. There was some surf though, about 3-5' faces on some breaks. Greg took the inside as we paddled through Chun's and caught a couple. I spotted five honu during the swim. We planned to rendezvous with Sue and the kids at Haleiwa at 10:30. We were right on schedule. After I dried off, we had breakfast at Jamesons. Ernie also drove over to meet us after he finished his swim. He snapped this picture of me coming in. I started a tradition of finishing butterfly incase someone I know is watching and looking for me. This finish was for Sue.

Homework

Sue was wiped out, so I helped Nate with his homework last night. He had to make sentences each with two words from the day (sock, block etc.). This is something they do every week. When I asked Nate what the sentence would be, Nate immediately belted out, "The sock and the block go on an adventure." Sue who was down, but not out yelled back from the living-room recliner: "NO MORE ADVENTURES NATE!". Apparently Nate has ad-libbed this before.

Cheeseburger Waikiki

Around Mother's Day every year Susan and the girls from Ocean Point try to get out for an overnighter somewhere to have a little fun on there own. This year we dropped Sue off at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Waikiki near the Outrigger club. On the way there we stopped for a delicious greasy meal at Cheeseburger Waikiki on Kalakaua.

Mother's Day

It was a pretty busy Mother's Day. The first open water competitive swim of the year was this morning. Popoia, the Flat Island race started at 8:00 AM, and registration was long before that. I was flattered that the whole family wanted to make the trip to see it. I'm not sure but I think I'm seeing a trend! Awesome. We found church in Kailua to stop in at on the way back over the Ko`olau. Ben was feeling sick, but managed to make it through the service okay. (video from race)

What the ????

We had a whole family outing to Ho`olmaluhia botanical gardens in Kaneohe. The 400-acre garden is planted with rain forest trees and shrubs from the tropics of the world, and has a lake in the middle of it. We enjoyed hiking down to the lake, seeing all the greenery and fishing for "Red Devils". Afterwards we all went for drinks and grindz at Buzz's in Kauilua. video