Monday, August 18, 2008

A brand new week...

Feeling better than last week!! My ear is healed, my sad mood is gone, and it's back to business.

Had a really busy weekend. Friday was Hawaii Admissions Day, celebrating the day that Hawaii became a state. (Hawaii, being the strange state that it is, has a lot of state holidays that they celebrate.) The kids and Jon were off from school and work, so I took the day off too. It wasn't a major day, but Jon and I ran some errands together and had a nice lunch with just the 2 of us. (We invited the kids to come along, but they like errands about as much as they like doing chores.)

Saturday was more running around the island - Abby's last dance class for summer. (She starts again in Pre-Ballet I in a couple of weeks...) Alex's monthly DEFY day - they went to Sea Life Park, which is sort of like Sea World but smaller and more touristy. Alex enjoyed it, though (and it was free because the Dept. of Defense pays for all of the DEFY activities.) Then we went to Costco and ran other errands. Not the most fun, but it has to be done, right?

Yesterday we went to Ko Olina. What a beautiful place. As I've mentioned before, Ko Olina is a Marriott resort community. They've carved out 4 "lagoons" and made them very family-friendly - soft sand, no rough rocks to step on in the water, no waves to speak of, and lots of places for families to sit on the beach and enjoy the day. In Hawaii all beachfront is required to be open to the public. So, you don't have to be staying there to visit the lagoons. The last time the kids and I went to Ko Olina, it was February and unusually rainy. Yesterday was sunny and beautiful. We got up early (if you aren't there by 9:30, you don't get a parking space), packed our beach bag, and off we went. Bellows is still my favorite, but Ko Olina is closer, and we knew we were only going to stay for 3 hours or so (Alissa had homework to do and I had some stuff I needed to do at home).

It was such a beautiful day, very sunny, and no one got sunburned! Alissa didn't go in the water yesterday, so she took pictures. Some of them turned out really great. Here's a few:


Ko Olina view #1:


Lagoon #4, where we swam:


View from the sidewalk:

Me, Alex and Abby:

A Japanese lady getting wedding photos taken:
Abby is making me "hide" her rocks in the sand under the
water so Alex won't see them and take them from her:

The waterfall at the entrance:



1 comment:

Cindy @ Marriedtothemilitary {dot} net said...

Ko Olina is my favorite place to go to the beach there. No waves= a great place for the little ones to play :-) That picture almost makes me want to go back "almost" lol.