Manoa Falls

For the longest time I have been wanting to hike to Manoa Falls. It's only a few minutes from where we live, and the hike is not hard at all. I don't know why we took so long to finally go. Was it worth the wait? Sure. I mean, the falls weren't that spectacular, but it's always fun to try something new!

The falls from afar

And here they are up close

Since Rick is still familyless, his wife and son are in Utah while he studies for the Bar, he joined us on our excursion. The best part is he carried Jaxon, so I didn't have to carry any kids! Woo Hoo! And yes Alicia, he still studied while hiking (note the paper in his hands).

By the end, the kids were tired of their backpacks. Jax was lovin' his new perch over Jason's shoulder.

little girl BIG TREE

Check out the size of that leaf!

Beach Boy

Jason promised a post about Jax, so here I am, NOT making a liar out of him. This boy LOVES the beach. He is just so happy and content crawling around. That same Saturday out in Kailua was the first time I just let him have at it. He also loves the water. We could not keep him out of it! When I was holding him he was constantly trying to jump out of my arms so he could splash around. I think we have a little dare-devil on our hands!

Some like the sand between their toes, Jaxon loves the sand between his cheeks....yes, those cheeks. That kid eats sand by the handful, and that's exactly where it ends up. TMI? Maybe. But since when has that stopped us from posting something?

Jaxon even did a face-plant, but that still didn't stop him. He was right back doing his thang in seconds.

Here is our little man in action. He has gotten pretty good at crawling. If he is this much fun at the beach, just imagine the good times at home! Let's just say that our bathroom doors are rarely open these days...

This is their newest game. They just yell back and forth. They were doing this the whole way from the parking lot, but I didn't capture it until we were riding up the elevator (hence the beeping). And yes, they are sitting side by side in a single stroller. We have a double, I just don't like it to get sandy :)

Surfer Girl

For the longest time I've been trying to get Ashlyn to ride some waves on the Boogie board, but she always resists -- until this weekend at Kailua beach! This is Ash with Uncle Rick who made the first successful run with her.

And she actually let me take her too! (I guess I destroyed the trust the few times I put her on and just pushed her onto the wave...) To be honest though, she was done after the ride with me. But she did proudly tell her Mom, "I rode the big board Mommy!"

The cruddy part of the day was when I got stung by a Portuguese Man o'War. It was just a small guy put he stung pretty good, even sent my upper quadracep into a short spasm. Heather laughed. Nice huh?

Here' just a couple random pics from the day. We're slowly weening Ashlyn off the water wings, but not in the ocean.

Jax loves the feel of the water, and the taste of the sand. A post is forthcoming about him.

Super mom!

Happy Independence Day!

I never understood why people say "Happy 4th of July". It's Independence Day, is it not? You don't go around saying "Happy 25th of December" or "Happy 17th of March". It ranks up there with "Merry Xmas" in my book. The most important part of the holiday is missing!

Now that I got that off my chest, we did have a fantastic Saturday celebrating our independence. We started off the day sleeping in, which is always great. Then we were going to all go on a hike with our Abelmann friends, but sleeping kids ruined the plans. So Ashlyn and the dads went.

Goin' on a hike. When did my little girl get so big?

When they got back from hiking, we had a "tea party" and took some pictures of our patriotic-ness.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Abelmann's place for some swimming and bbqing. The food was soooo scrumptious.

The little boys: Kai Abelmann, Caden Hong, Jaxon Tang

Jason was so proud of his ginormous burger. And yes, it tasted as good as it looked.

Once it started getting dark, we headed upstairs to get ready for the show. They have a fantastic view of Ala Moana Beach Park where the fireworks were being shot off.

Fireworks pictures just never do them justice, do they?

All in all it was a great day, but I think Ashlyn's favorite part was eating ice-cream in her underwear!