January 16, 2010 - Waimea Valley

After we left Electric Beach, we drove up through Waianae to the end of the road and then back just to see what was there. Lots of homeless camps, but not much else.

We headed for the North Shore and had chicken for lunch at Haleiwa.

We then decided to go to Waimea Valley and see what there is there. It is a pretty expensive entry fee, but we did spend a very enjoyable afternoon seeing all the flora and a little fauna.

Pretty amazing tropical trees.


Caleb would have loved this area of the garden. There were dozens of different kinds of hibiscus!








These vines are amazing! Completely taking over the trees they grow in.



Huge philodendron!

Waimea Falls.

January 16, 2010 Spinner Dolphins - Electric Beach

This morning we headed out with no particular destination in mind. Our first stop ended up being at Electric Beach, more correctly known as Kahe Point.

As we were looking at the snorkelers and kayakers, we discovered a pod of Spinner Dolphins playing around on the surface within photo range of Lauri's new camera. They weren't jumping and spinning as their name indicates, but they were where we could see them.







Look closely and you will see a snorkeler on the left of this photo. They were all around him!



While we were watching for the dolphins, we also noticed a few other critters scurrying around on the rocks near the edge of the water. These are Thin-Shelled Rock Crabs.

As we were getting ready to head on up the road toward Waianae, this little Green Sea Turtle came up and floated on the surface for a long time breathing and looking around. Much longer than normal, in fact. Usually, they come up, take a breath and go back down. He spent a couple of minutes!

Friday Night Lights

I guess you could say Lauri and I have several "favorite" activities here on O'ahu. It is hard to say which is the absolute favorite one, but tonight we managed to enjoy a couple of the top candidates.

I try to get "home" from the office early enough so that we can get down to the beach at Waikiki in time for the sunset. So the first of our Friday Night Lights is the setting sun!




We went over to Ala Moana Beach Park on Magic Island for the second of the "lights," the night skyline of Waikiki.

The finale was also from Magic Island!





Thanks Hilton!

Happy Anniversary!

I completely shocked Lauri today for our Anniversary! That is hard to do, but I pulled it off.

I got her a new laptop computer! She has been struggling with her old one for some time now and this one is much nicer.

She wasted no time in getting it set up and ready for use!

Our Anniversary dinner at Eggs 'n Things.

Happy 31 Years!

New Year's Bowling

New Years Day we decided to go bowling - not the football kind, but the real thing at Fat Cats.

The Instigators!



A Spare!

Of course, we could not just bowl straight up. We had to use a number of creative ways to get the ball into the gutter! Sitting. . .

Backwards. . .

Two hands between the legs. . .

Backwards, upside-down, between the legs. . . Standing on your head. . .


A good time was had by all and by at least one account, it appears it was tiring!