Almost done...promise

Okay, so I have a few more Hawaii pics to post, but you can pretend they are in Alaska. We have some Alaskan Native totem poles that kind of look like these Tiki idols. These were also taken at the "Place of Refuge" and I am sure we were being somewhat sacrilegious by having the kids pose with these sacred idols, but it made for some funny memories. Luckily for you, were were standing in front of the naked natives in the last pic.

More Paradise

Sorry Pep and all you others who are tired of all the Hawaii posts, but I have too many great pics and memories I don't want to leave out. Here are the boys at "The Place of Refuge". There were some great tidal pools here and Jaron quickly discovered 5 turtles hanging out. See the turtle the boys are looking at?

Here we are at the place where you can watch the lava flow into the ocean. Well, not really watch it because they don't let you get close enough to see actual lava, but you can watch the steam rise as the lava hits the ocean. Looks a lot like our volcano, Mt. Redoubt, has the last few weeks.

Here is a pic of all the family together. The lighting isn't great, but it is one of the few pics we have of everyone together. This was taken on the back lanai of our rental house. We had a great time with everyone that gave us lots of great memories for years to come.

Stay tuned for our last Hawaii post, playing with dolphins.

Is that the Geico Gecko?

One of my favorite Hawaiian critters has to be the gecko. They are everywhere! Every morning, we would wake up to about 6 of them sunning themselves on the plants outside our shower room. We could shower while watching these guys hunt for bugs and scurry from limb to limb. Aaron had a ball chasing after them, trying to get a good shot. The one that he is holding was actually hiding under a garbage bag on the porch. Needless to say, he freaked me out a little when I lifted the bag up, but Aaron somehow captured him for a quick cuddle. 

 

Notice how Aaron has his phone in his ears? That's the only way to do business, talking on your phone while bonding with native Hawaiian animal life.

Life's a beach!

One of our favorite things to do in Hawaii is, of course, going to the beach; mostly because going to the beach in Alaska consists of wearing mud boots and wind breakers instead of flip flops and sun block.  We were able to find a great boogie board beach with beautiful white sand at Hapuna Beach. Because the big island is still relatively new, many of the beaches are rocky and have course sand. Hapuna is awesome, and we enjoyed watching our kids play in the surf. Even Chloee tried boogie boarding a few times. Of course, Dad had to position her just write to hit the wave, but she managed to catch a few "sweet rides" into the beach. 

 

Even Jolee enjoyed being in the surf, as long as I was holding her. Don't mind the blurry spots due to the water on the camera lens.

 This little guy popped up right by our "camp". He ran so fast down the beach, it was hard to get a good shot of him, but Aaron drew a lot of attention from fellow sun bathers watching him chase after this crab.

 

These underwater pics were taken at our house's pool. The kids loved playing with Aaron's camera, almost as much as playing in the pool.

Al-O-ha!

We're back! Sadly, our Hawaiian vacation is over and it's back to reality, but we had a lot of great adventures we wanted to share. We went to the big island this time around, and took Papa, Grandma, Uncle Matt, and Auntie, Uncle Rizz, Abbi, and baby Kenny with us. We stayed in a beautiful, big house with it's own pool and scenic ocean bluff view. Kona is a beautiful island with a huge variety of things to do. This post will be our snorkel post, one of Aaron's favorite things to do. He was able to take Haylee, Brady, and Jaron on a kayak/snorkel adventure to one of the island's best snorkel spots and got some great underwater shots. Enjoy.

 

Like father, like son.

  

Aaron was able to get some great shots of the huge variety of fish and coral life.

  These turtles were literally this close to Aaron. It would have freaked me out, but he loved it. We went to the Hilton's pools one day to swim and they have a man made cove where about half a dozen turtles were hanging out. Aaron said swimming with these guys was the highlight of his trip. I'll settle for looking at the pics. I know, I am a wimp.

Blog Worthy Bruise

Okay, so if you didn't catch it from the post before, yes we are expecting Swanson #6 in October. We are thrilled to be adding our final member of the Swanson clan, half a dozen seems about right. Now, don't call CPS on us just yet. I had to post these pics of Jolee so we could document a double black eye. Aaron said that out of all the times he has hit his head (and it's a lot) he has never blacked both eyes before. This whopper happened when mom and dad weren't home, and let's just say that NO ONE is allowed in our room and especially on our bed anymore!! Jolee hit her head on the corner of our night stand, right in the middle of her forehead. When we came home, she was asleep in Haylee's arms with a HUGE lump on her head. You know the Clingons from Star Trek? Yes, I had a clingon baby for a few weeks. Here are some pics of what it looked like 2 weeks later, still a football player in training. It has since been almost three weeks, and she still has bruising, but she is almost back to her beautiful self. Now, hopefully I won't get horrified stares at the grocery store!

Don't freak out Grandmas, she is okay. 

family fun night