10 Years

Sterling and I have been married for 10 years!

Our anniversary was Nov 6th and Sterling brought me these beautiful flowers!

He bought me a new camera that does all kinds of fun things!

(This is Panoramic View)

He also took me on a dinner cruise!

We tried hard to capture the amazing colors that were in the sky. The ocean was a deep blue the sky everything from white, gray, blue, purple, and pink. It was amazingly beautiful!


A view of Honolulu and Waikiki from the ocean!

Note to self: Tourists are not always the best photographers!
The wind was blowing pretty hard, but this was supposed to show the sunset as well.

The Vog is still lingering so the sunset didn't reach all the way to the ocean. The sun disappeared behind the cloudy Vog but was still beautiful.

While leaving port we passed this big cargo ship. We counted all the containers on the ship. It was 13 containers long, 14 wide, and 5 high in most places. Each container is 1 semi-truck load. We figure there were more than 750 containers on this one ship. It was pretty impressive!

The little orange and yellow things are people. The ship was massive.

Not carrier massive, but pretty big!

A picture of the whole ship!

Okay, the ship wasn't romantic, but the rest of our evening was!

We had a great 10th Anniversary!

We went to Hawaii for our 10th Anniversary!

It has been an amazing 10 years full of all kinds of adventures!

What will the next 10 bring?

I love you, Sterling!

Grandma and Grandpa Packer's Visit - a little late!

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit us from October 1st to October 15th. It was a lot of fun to have them here and to have the kids get to know them a little better. Grandma pulled out all of the stops and did some fun science experiments with James. James loves science and Grandma was willing to oblige. This is the volcano
We did it several times but with the delay on my camera I couldn't ever time it right. It exploded blue liquid. It was pretty fun!

Grandma also brought Daniel a great pirate costume.
Daniel loves to dress up!

Here is James and Grandma making blue putty. It was pretty gross. James thought it was great. They made several batches of putty and learned the more food coloring the better!

Yuck!

James thought this was great!

I was surprised that he would touch it but he was all over it!

The more you worked it the more solid it became, it was putty in no time!

Putty anyone?
(Note to self: if you smash it into your shirt it doesn't come out very easily!)

We took Grandma and Grandpa to the Zoo!

While we were driving there we ran into a friend (that lives right next door) so they joined us for the morning! The kids had a great time and Grandma and Grandpa seemed to enjoy it too! Our zoo is better than most arboretums so it was a fun, hot day!

Lots of turtles at the zoo!

Daniel looking at all the koi fish in the moat around the monkey house.

While Grandma and Grandpa were here Sterling thought it would be fun to go spend a few nights at the Hale Koa, a military resort down in Waikiki. I have to say I wasn't very excited about going but now I am glad that we did. Everyone has to have the "Waikiki experience" at least once!

We took Grandma and Grandpa to a Luau at the Hale Koa.

Hale, a firedancer, also happens to go to James' school.

He is only 9 years old and an amazingly talented fireknife dancer.

We hadn't been to this luau before, but it was definately worth doing.
(My beautiful arm tattoo is only paint that I got that night at the Luau. It washed off in the shower! Daniel was able to sweat his off that night, it was pretty hot!)

Grandma and I got pedicures, you can't see it very well in the picture but I have a beautiful hibiscus flower painted on my big toes and Grandma got plumeria flowers on her toes. I didn't get a picture of our feet together, Grandma has that one on her camera. We had a good time just talking and getting pedicure while Sterling and the kids took naps in our hotel rooms.

Sophia and Daniel thought this was great. This is the Hale Koa playground with my cute kids poking their faces through!

That night we went to Benihana with the kids and Grandma and Grandpa. The kids had some great "kid" chopsticks so they had a great time eating rice and "things" with chopsticks.

We went for a walk through the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

There were some little wooden statues. Daniel was very mesmerized by them. So when all else fails.... if your not sure if it is fake or real poke it in the eye!

Very confusing!

The kids were very excited that they got to take turns using the camera. On Monday we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and walked around the Laie Temple Grounds.

This is a pretty good picture being that either James or Daniel took it!

The temple is under construction so if you look closely you can see the scaffolding and the missing windows.

This one shows the missing windows a bit better.

On the temple grounds there are amazing flowers.

Yet another picture taken by a random son.

Grandma learning about all the different flowers from our tour guide, Sterling!

It had just rained, sprinkled really, so the flowers had water drops on them it was amazingly beautiful.

There were several colors of hibiscus flowers all over the visitors center.

After we were done at the Temple grounds we got back into the car and went to the PCC.

Sterling and Joel (our Friend from Ft Gordon) doing the Tahitian Dance!

Daniel had seen the palm tree climbing and was sure he could do it too!

He did pretty well, but it was much harder than it looked.

Once you get up, how do you get back down?

Sterling thought he would make a go of it as well, he didn't get much higher, and didn't look nearly as graceful!

The Packer Family with Cap the Samoan Ambassador for the center.

We had a great time, we love the PCC!

We had a great time with Joel and with Grandma and Grandpa while they were here to visit!

PCC with Grandma and Grandpa Packer and Joel

October 13th, 2009

We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Packer and Joel Bush, a friend of ours from Ft. Gordon, GA. We love the PCC so of course we take everyone there when they come to visit. Joel is in town doing a 2 week rotation at Tripler Army Medical Center and Grandma and Grandpa Packer have been here for a little more than a week. I have lots of pictures to post with Grandma and the the kids, but thought I would start with the easy one first. So, here it is!

Birthdays!

Sophia turned 2 on Sept 7th! We took her to get her pictures for her birthday. Of course she is such a cute girl I couldn't resist but buy all the pictures again!

Sophia also had her 2 year well baby check up that gave all of her mesurements:
Height - 33.6 inches - 85.5 cm - 50% percentile
Weight - 26 lbs - 11.8 kg - 25% percentile
Head Cirumference - 19.49 inches - 49.5 cm - 90% percentile

James turned 7 on Sept 10th!

This is James' school picture! But was taken the day after his birthday!

Hanauma Bay

You know you have been in Hawaii too long when you tell the kids to get ready to go to the beach and they whine and cry and say they just want to go to the swimming pool. This morning the kids took much more persuasion to get in the car than I have ever seen before. They had a good time once we got there but they weren't so sure this was what they wanted to do!

(I guess we will have to work much harder at not having so much fun at the pool!)

While we were waiting for our turn to watch the Conservation Video we took a family picture with the Bay as our backdrop!

Before we got in the water we went and looked at the treasures that had washed up on the rocks. The volunteer conservationist lady had told us that we could see crabs and things over there and to be sure and check it out with the kids. We had 3 of the 5 kids that were there today, so they were really good about pointing out things the kids would like. We walked over to the rocks and first thing James found a big black crab. It was much too fast to get a picture of but it was cool! All of the rocks had little ponds in them with water that had washed up in the waves and had little fish and things in them. The kids had a good time searching all the pools to find animals and fish. Some of the small fish could jump from pond to pond. It was pretty cool to watch.

Here is one of the ponds, pretty close to the bay. The coral had built up and the water would come in as the waves came in.

If you look closely in the picture you can see some fish!

This crab was just sitting on the rock, Sterling almost stepped on it! As we got closer it still didn't move.... it climbed up on that rock, who knows how long ago, and died! But it sure looked cool!

James REALLY didn't want to get into the water. First thing before you can get into the water you have to watch a conservation video and it tells about the reef and some of the fish and things. It talked about some of the fish that are in the reef and that some of them are predators. James was sure they were going to bite him! So, we drug him out there for a little bit, but decided it would be okay if he just played in the sand. So, Sophia and James played in the sand for most of the time. We started by covering James' legs in sand, Sophia didn't want to be covered but liked covering James. Once James was mostly covered she decided it would be okay if her legs got covered too! She is such a funny girl! She is so much like James!

Cute covered kids playing in the sand at Hanauma Bay!

They were having so much fun being covered by sand we decided to cover James even more! The only problem with being buried was the sun was right in his face!

Sophia thought it was so funny!

Sophia decided she had had enough!

She wanted to lay down, but don't worry she didn't fall asleep! (she might miss something!)

This is Daniel laying down too! He was the SNORKEL KING!!! He loved every minute of it from the minute he stepped foot into the water! He didn't have a mask, just his goggles from swimming lessons, but that was all he needed! He snorkeled for more than an hour! He would take turns going out with Sterling and I. He loved it! I think he may be part fish! After about an hour he decided he was cold and wanted to come back to the towels. Being the fair skinned kid that he is we covered him in towels and let him warm up out of the sun! He would peek out of the towel every once in a while just to check on where I was. He is still my Sunshine!

James was working hard building a moat, then a big hole that kept getting filled with water.

He had a good time, that was what was important!

James working hard!

Sterling leaving the water feeling ever so confident in his "mad snorkel skills!"

Right as I was cleaning up the towels and getting ready to go, James jumps up and decides it may not be a bad idea to get in the water. Sterling walked out with him to look at some fish, but James didn't want to put his head in the water. You could see some fish from above but nothing like you can below!

We had a good time! The snorkeling wasn't as amazing as the Snorkel cruise that we did, but this was free (because we are locals). This was still fun and we will do it again!

Grandma and Grandpa Robison visit Hawaii

My Mom and Eric came to visit! (August 28-Sept 4) We had a great time doing some things around Oahu! We went on a snorkel cruise, this time with all the kids too. It was a lot of fun, the water was pretty choppy so the kids didn't love being in the ocean, but they did love the boat ride and the flying fish. We went to the swap meet for all the fun Hawaii treasures and of course we had to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center. I wasn't very good at taking pictures while she was here. The kids had a great time getting to know Grandma and Grandpa a little better and hopefully Grandma and Grandpa had a good time getting to know Hawaii..

This was on the snorkel cruise. Once again we were the only ones with kids on a tourist activity, but they had a great time and everyone was pretty good with them!

Dolphin in the water!

The dolphins were pretty neat to see doing their own thing in their natural habitat!

Daniel stood in the same spot almost the entire boat ride. He loved seeing into the water and watching the flying fish. He loved the wind in his face. Eric stood by him most of the time. Daniel always has something funny to say, if you stand by him he will tell you a story too!

This is the Honolulu Tabernacle.

We went on Sept 3rd to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We had a lot of fun!

We are amazingly graceful. (Daniel and Sophia were just busy drawing in the sand!)

We were learning how to hula while in the "Island of Hawaii" at the PCC!

Daniel had found this nut/fruit thing on the ground and was determined that he could open it with this stick. He was working very hard at pealing away all of the soft bark. We had just watched the very strong Samoan man crack open the coconut with a rock and peel the husk and make milk out of coconut, so naturally Daniel thinks he can do it too!

At the PCC you can take a bus ride to the Laie Hawaii Temple's Visitor Center. The temple is closed for 18 months for renovations but the Visitor Center remains open. This is the first time we have taken the kids up there. They were pretty amazed at how beautiful it all was!

This isn't a great picture.. we will have to try again next time!

On their last day here Mom and Eric went to the Arizona, the Bowfin, and the Missouri. On the Bowfin you could get headsets that gave you a tour of things around the boat. James really enjoyed listening to all the information. Mom was interested in the submarine because her brother, Jim, was in the Navy and served on a submarine. I opted to stay home so Sophia could take a nap!

James is sitting at the anti-aircraft gun with a look of mischief on his face!

We had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa and can't wait until they come again!

Packer Barber Shop

It was time for Sterling to have a hair cut.. and the kids really wanted to help. Why not???

Sophia really wanted the clippers too.... but the dust brush was enough to appease her!