Dole

So before I get too far ahead of myself with this post. For the next little while it is going to seem like our family vacationed for about 3-4 months straight and well it kind of was like that but not totally. So after Christmas fun we had together as a family before Lindsay was going to be gone for 7 weeks....in Hawaii! And what do you do when your husband goes to Hawaii for over a month, you join along of course at some point, and not only that but you have family come meet you there and party with you. Poor Lindsay missed out on a lot of fun doing his course he was in but we enjoyed the fruits of his labors.

Now Erik and I went to Hawaii for 4 of those weeks. And while we took a lot of pictures we didnt take as many as I would have imagined purely because I didnt want to lug the camera around all the time. My parents and our family friends came first and we had a week before they showed up. Erik and I spent a lot of time playing at playgrounds on the base and he enjoyed having interaction with other children there. I also took him to the waikiki zoo on my own that week. Our accommodations were not real organized upon us arriving back in the states (wahoo!) so we spent our first week hopping from the base, to a hotel, to even spending a couple of nights with one of Lindsay's classmates at his home. Then things kind of ironed themselves out and we stayed on the base and then at the end we rented a house up on the north shore.

Before I get to far ahead of myself. The first big thing we did while my side of the family was there (and our friends just get thrown into that family category) was go to the Dole pineapple plantation.

 Erik and Grandpa whom quickly earned the name Grandpa Pooper Scooper (although he is still trying to rectify this by asking Erik to call him El Magnificent), hit it off right away. It was fun, because this was the first trip for Erik to really have any memories from. He has spent plenty of time with our families but he is old enough to start having actual memories so it was a great trip.

 we rode on the train to tour the fields. Coming from the middle of our Aussie summer, we Moon people were a bit chilled with the breeze and shade of the tram, but of course our parents coming from the dead of winter were loving the sun and the warm temps. It was fun to see this difference our entire trip.

 Erik and Pooper looking at the colorful bark of this beautiful tree.

That was the frist excursion and it was so fun. We of course did other things there but were busy catching up and enjoying everything to take too many pics. Actually there were way more pics taken as well but everyone had cameras so I only had the small portion from our camera.

But honestly as I catch up with the first portion of our 2013, please remember that our life is not one big vacation, ok it sort of has been, but to justify it- I still have done plenty of laundry, organizing things, planning things, taking care of my church responsibilities, cooked, etc.

Rainbow Beach and Tin Can Bay continued

So how can you really finish off your adrenalin rush of a morning skydiving? Let me tell you, the BEach of course. Thats the main thing to do in the summer here, it keeps you cool and its fun, its a workout if you play in the water, it wears you out and we usually pack our own food-especially on public holidays when everything is closed so you get good food in your belly. Usually lots of fresh tropical fruit and other things that wont spoil in the heat and humidity. 

So we headed down to Rainbow beach, here is the entrance for 4 wheel drive vehicles to drive the beach, which is a huge draw and many people camp this way. We have yet to experience it but maybe someday (we can't do everything right, just like we wont see all of the south pacific, or even all of Australia)....

 I found these two hits interesting. I dont know if you can tell ( just realized my pics are too small) but the one on the left is a massage hut. While the thought is nice, I wouldnt want to be doing that in that climate, maybe when its not the middle of the summer. And the ice cream hut. So very interesting to me, not sure why

 Giving Erik his first body boarding lessons. This child is fish and I am sure he will go into withdrawals when he realizes that not everywhere in the world has pools and beaches close, free, and easy to get too. However that will not stop us from taking it all in when we can.

 Then we went fishing. Erik has been dieing to go. We went to a sporting store that sold bait and Lindsay asked where the bait was and the cashier replied with an answer that neither Lindsay nor I could decipher with his thick Aussie accent (they vary a bit here, just as the accent varies in the states). We asked him to repeat himself and I got it that time but Lindsay still didnt. I directed us to the proper place we paid for our worms and left. We couldn't help but bust a gut as we got out of earshot. They man has said 'beach worms' but it sounded like a mottled 'beachwams' spoken quickly. Now we joke often about the beach wams up in rainbow beach. And long those suckers were...

 that was only part of one.

 The next  morning we were heading out and the one and only thing I was dieing to do up in Tin Can Bay was feed the wild dolphins. Its free other than you pay for your fish that you give them. They keep the dolphins wild by only giving them so many fish (up to only 10 percent of their daily diet). There is a pod of dolphins that come in regularly but each day they dont know which ones will come or how many. This day there were two...the alpha male and his female mate.

 The food

 Erik giving it a go

 And myself. It was soooooo cool! We couldn't touch the dolphins as they were wild but it was cool to be near them and know that through the years they had trusted these volunteers enough to come get a morning snack.

Mission accomplished. Christmas Holiday was splendidly awesome that will forever go down in our family's history books and one that may never be beaten. I am ok with that-it will long be cherished!

His 'once in a lifetime'

I must be quick, I have a little due who I am pretty sure is in a growth spurt or else I have become an expert mum at wearing him out who is napping again today. Perfect opportunity for me blog! You never realize the value of things until you dont have them anymore hey.

So Boxing day, we were staying up in Tin Can Bay and that morning we were to be somewhere fun by 7:30 am we will say. I dont remember now I just remember it was something like that. We packed our day's bags since it was a bit of drive and showed up for Lindsay's Christmas present..................

SKYDIVING!

Yep I was that cool wife this last Christmas, don't hate me because I only come up and do stuff like this about never, so sorry Lindsay I can't say I will be able to come up with something as equally cool ever again.  I had come across a great deal on one of those groupon sites and thought, 1-I never can think of cool things to give him 2- He has always wanted to skydive (even almost went when we were dating) and doing it in Australia would make it that much more cool especially because with this company you land on the beautiful beach.

So random side note. My family know I have a hard time keeping fun secrets like this from Lindsay because I get so excited about them and he only likes surprises when he can know what it is as soon as he finds out about it. Well my friends I failed again, Partially because I needed to let him know about the weight requirements and make -ahem- any adjustments as needed and partially because he is so darn smart and partially because I wanted to book it, but with his schedule being so wacky I needed his help. I let him know about the weight restriction shortly after I bought it s he would have the time needed to lose a few kilos. As soon as I said what the limit was he automatically guessed it because he had already researched it I guess since we have lived here. I played it cool for a while and thought I had him a bit deterred.He hounded me a bit, but then left it alone, then I needed to book it and I just couldnt contain it any longer and I knew we would need to get accomodation since it was a good 3 plus hour car ride and he would dive in the morning, so I spilled the beans and we  planned the mini holiday as a family.

 Back to showing up at 7:30. WE walk in and tell them we were there for the scheduled dive and they tell us we were 30 minutes late, my heart dropped, I had remembered the wrong time. There are no refunds....great. Luckily these guys are cool and they say "well it's been too windy this morning anyways and we couldn't have left yet anyways. phew. Then they see Lindsay and ask how much he ways (mind you he has been starving himself the whole week of Christmas and hadnt eaten anything for a good 12 hours prior to this. He responds and they say, 'it will be close lets put you on the scales........dun dun dun.....300 grams OVER....my heart sinks again. So now we have come late, and he is over the weight limit. Do they let him fly-why yes because they rock. They say that because he is a fit guy it will be ok. They worry about weight for the landing because you have to hold up your legs and land on your bum, you can seriously injure yourself if you are too heavy or out of shape. So On we go. They let Erik and I tag along (with Erik's new toy plane too) to watch it all. We get bussed out to the plane. Erik has his first experience in the pilots seat of a small plane-he has done this before on the big jets but not a cesna.

 He is in absolute heaven! We watch them taxi down the grass strip and take off...

 the real pilot

 the instructor that Lin will fly tandem with.

 On your markey's

 get your car keys

 GO!

 Safe at last! He was able to do a 60 second freefall before the big chute came out and enjoyed the view on the way to the big 'x' on the beach where we excitedly waited for him.

Both of my men were in heaven that morning and thus I was also. I am glad I didnt have to skydive, it doesn't appeal to me in the least and I am happy I could make my man's dream come true while fueling my little man's passion for planes. It was summing up to be one spectacular Christmas season.