Pictures from Hawaii

We have been back home now for a week and have been wanting to post pictures, but our Internet has been down. So here they are! Keep in mind we spent 10 days in Hawaii so you will see a good handful of the the hundreds of pictures we took! Josh's friend from high school, Lora, and her husband Mike were kind enough to let us stay at their house, feed us, and let us use their car to drive around the island. They live at Schoalfield Barracks, an Army base on the island of Oahu. They have two children Haley who is 8 and Mathew who is 3. We sure are grateful for their hospitality. A quick note to keep your thoughts and prayers with Lora and her family...Mike will be making his third deployment to Iraq in November and will be there for a year. These pictures are in no particular order although I will try to keep the same places together. Enjoy!

The one group picture of us all smiling. The man to the very left for those of you who don't know, the kids call Gunka Joe, Josh's brother, he also went on the trip with us.

Here is the scene of fourth of July on the Army base. The big American flag in the middle of the picture is the stage where Billy Ray Cyruss is performing. I did not get to see much of the concert because I took Gunnar and Wylie to the carnival that was also at the celebration.


I was worried that the kids would get sick or scared on some of the rides, but they loved it! They were so proud of themselves after going on this ride. I was proud of them too!



This is a picture of Gunnar playing in the waves, he loved them. This is his first time to swim in the ocean.


Wylie is not quite the water dog that her brother is, but she did like playing in the sand. Here is a picture of her and Mathew.



Another time at the beach! This is Gunnar snorkeling at the North Shore. We not only saw huge Sea Turtles, but Gunnar actually touched two of them! Gunnar was awesome at snorkeling!

Here is Wylie playing the sand at the North Shore. By the end of the vacation she was really getting used to being in the ocean and playing in the waves with me.


After the a day at the beach we stopped to get shaved ice with a scoop of ice cream at the bottom. They are delicious! This is Wylie, Haley, and Mathew.

Now we are at Waikiki where we ride on this boat that will take us to our submarine ride.


Here is a picture of the Atlantis XIV, which we are about to board.

Here is a picture of the kids looking out the window of the submarine. Our lowest depth was 112 feet. I took some pictures of the fish and man made coral, but they didn't turn out all that well.

We toured the USS Missouri, which is where World War II was ended

We also went to see the USS Arizona Memorial.


Here is a picture of us before the Luau. Thanks for the picture Joe!

Josh and Wylie with a couple of the Hula Dancers. The girl to the left helped Wylie to get on stage where she did a fabulous job hula dancing front and center of the group of girls! We were so proud of Wylie! There were hundreds of people watching in the crowd. Joe actually has the pictures of her on his camera.

Here is the pig that they pull out of the ground that they cook with lava rocks. I actually ate some of the pork and it was really good!

Just a picture to give you and idea of the stage that they performed on. One guy even came out and danced with the baton of fire when it became dark.
This is the boat we took three miles out to see and swim with the Galapagos Sharks.

Here is the cage that Josh, Joe, Gunnar, and I got into. We have it all on video! What a great show and tell for Gunnar!

Here is a picture of one of probably fifteen sharks that were around. The males were around 10 feet long and the females get up to 14 feet long! They were awesome! Definitely one of the highlights of our trip. On the way back to the marina we got to see around 50 spinning dolphins, the captains said it was a rare treat to get to see them.

One of the days we took a road trip around the north shore. We would stop and get out every so often to enjoy the views at the beaches.

We ate at a Shrimp Shack along the way. Right across the street from here is a beach, so we set outside and watched to ocean while eating fresh shrimp and listening to island music. Very fun!

Another nice stop along our road trip down the north shore. The mountains were also great to look at.

Another stop...and I have to pat myself on the back for this picture, I think it looks like a postcard. By the way, I have no idea who those people are in the picture, I just liked the view.

Josh and I also got to celebrate our 11th anniversary on this trip, so Joe and Lora were nice enough to watch the kids while we went to watch the sunset together. I have to say it wasn't as romantic as it looks, there were homeless people in the trees about 15 yards next to us. Ha! Ha! Once again Mahalo to Lora, Mike, Haley, and Mathew for making our vacation a great one!

Aloha!

We are into our 4th day here in Hawaii! I will post some vacation pictures when I get back to Kansas in 6 days. Got to run we are getting ready to go to the beach!