Kole Kole Jam II

So, the military life can sometimes be hard, but we have to admit that there are also perks to be military. For example, the FREE concert that MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) put on for the Familes as well as the community.

Montgomery Gentry was the cover band with Bowling for Soup and Katie Ray Davis opening for them. It was a fun family night and Austin really enjoyed being out with all the activities. We had a great spot where we could bring our cooler and had a few friends that stopped by and hung out with us all night long.

Kaena Point

There is a place on North Shore that you can only get to with a four wheel drive vehicle...at least part of the way! The last little bit is a walk, but is definitely worth the energy to see! Kaena Point....the western most point on the island of Oahu is one of the last intact dune ecosystems in the main Hawaiian Islands. It is the nesting site of Laysan Albatross as well as a great site to see Hawaiian Monk Seals (a picture below). We usually just go out to the part of Kaena Point where you can 4 Wheel drive through mud and find a couple of secluded beaches. However, our main focus of this trip was to walk out to the Nature Preserve and see what we find. A little folklore...Hawaiians believed that it was a jumping-off point into the otherworld for souls of the recently dead.

Brian driving through the rough terrain

Where we stopped at the end of the driving trail....we have to walk from here...
Picture of the Jeep where we stopped...

This is the trail we are walking on....
The Albatross birds I talked about above...

A veiw of the western side of the island toward Waieanae

A Hawaiian Monk Seal on the beach

Austin in front of the seal

Professional Pics from November...

When our family went on vacation in November, my mom had a great idea to get family portraits taken while we were in Missouri. She got everything set up with a photographer that was new to our town. I actually went to school with her and am VERY happy that St. Clair finally has a wonderful photographer in town now! She was excellent with Austin and the biggest bonus was that she had an awesome John Deere Tractor for Austin to take pictures with. So, here they are...the pictures that I have needed to get up on the blog, but haven't until now....

Family with the Grandparents

4 Generations on one side

4 Generations on another side

Our little family
Another Family Picture...

Austin looks like a true 'country boy' in these pictures....

He had a BLAST taking the pictures with the tractor....

The other animals....

I actually remembered to take my bigger lens for my camera this time, so I got some pretty good close ups of some of the animals...

Have you EVER seen a bird this WEIRD??? Brian described it as having an eagle head, a chicken body and ostrich legs...

Here's one of the chimps...they were just sitting there today instead of banging against the glass. We were there about 15 minutes before feeding time, so I guess they were just waiting for food. We couldn't stay to watch it though because Austin was tired and getting a little cranky.

Here's a rhino that we saw....thought that was pretty cool...

One of the elephants...we thought he looked cute with the straw on his head.

Last, but not least, a razorback....for all those AR family and friends out there...

Lions, Tigers and Bears...OH MY!

Ok, so we didn't see any bears since the one that they had wasn't out, but we saw all kinds of other animals! Austin had been wanting to go to the zoo for a couple of weeks now....and it's been so yucky and rainy that we haven't been able to go, until today!

Austin had a blast and loved being able to tell us where to go. The map had little pictures of the animals, so Daddy helped Austin with the map and we trekked our way through the entire zoo!

Flamingoes....they are located at the beginngin and he just didn't know what in the world they were for..."Mommy, what are those birds for?" They do look odd when you think about it!

Looking at the map to see where we want to go first. TO THE ELEPHANTS!

Well, this elephant was more fun than the real ones because you could climb on him....

The monkeys were next....we liked how there were two that were fighting each other...they were funny.

Daddy and Austin looking at some other monkeys...I liked this picture.

Austin liked the giraffes....oh, and wiping Daddy's sweat off his forehead! EWWW!

This peakcock let Austin get REALLY close to it...but he was really careful not to scare it.

We made our way around to the Keiki Zoo (Keiki means children in Hawaiian).

Austin wanted to pet the goats....he was so gentle!

It was a good day and all three of us were exhausted! Austin did great though...he was so happy to be there and was so good...even when he was getting tired he was being good!

A Swell at North Shore....

The waves weren't as big as we thought they were going to be....I think the swell was more for the morning/afternoon. In fact, it seemed like they were dying down a little as we were leaving and driving back to Haleiwa. It was still pretty cool though and it looked really rough out there where we were (which is probably why there weren't any surfers). Austin thought they were cool though and this was definitely a time when I am thankful that he is scared of the water and wouldn't get near it!

Valentines Day....

Brian was off early on Valentines Day, so we headed up to North Shore to watch some bigger waves and then go out to eat. I grabbed my camera on the way out in hopes of getting some good pictures....

We ended up at Sunset Beach, but didn't stay for the sunset since we were all three starving. We had fun though just running around and finding some shells. Obviously, we weren't getting in THAT water!!!