Porpor's visit

Leo and Porpor at Sea Life Park, watching the dolphin show. They have this whalfin animal here. Its mom was a dolphin and its dad was an orca whale. The whalfin is a sort of halfway in between the two species, in terms of color, weight, number of teeth.

The Willows Restaurant for Sunday brunch. Lots of tuna poke, king crab and more Hawaiian seafood.


The boat ride to the submarine. We had a blast on the Nautilus submarine, going down 110 feet to see a bunch of boat wrecks, plane wrecks and other habitat for marine life. Lots of turtles, and pretty fish that aren't so colorful at 100 feet deep.
Porpor and Leo at our fave Indian restaurant. Porpor's last night in town. Leo celebrated by photographing all the art in the restaurant. Bye-bye, Porpor! Come visit us again!

Weekend outings pix

We finally did the train ride at the Dole Plantation, just for kicks. Lots of pineapples, a real squeaky train ride around the plantation, and coffee bushes, banana and mango trees!


For Father's Day, we hiked up Koko Head. It's an old cable car track that goes straight up a very very steep hill. No one in their right mind would design a trail like this. Leo hiked up most of the way himself and tired himself out. Since we've now lost the midday nap, he got pretty cranky and was quite a challenge the rest of the evening. And a day after this hike, I can hardly walk.

Kung fu with the pop jet fountain

Leo practicing his kung fu on the pop jet fountain

Kauai trip

Leo, in his "I do all my own stunts" t-shirt at the tide pools.

Kauai was full of these 'baths'. Sheltered (somewhat, you can see the wave breaking over this rocky shelter) pools of relatively swimmable, calm water. We'd swim and snorkel and sometimes get really scared in these baths. There were also many tidepools, little pools full of fish, tadpoles, hermit crabs, and bigger crabs, living in their mini ecosystems set up by a big wave.






Over Memorial Day weekend, we went to Kauai for a little jaunt. We hiked the Alakai swamp trail, the highest swamp in the world, with boardwalk covering most of the 8 miles that we covered. Leo hiked about half of this, making it his longest hike. There was a LOT of fog rolling in and obscuring the great view that we were supposed to get of the Na Pali coastline.

We saw many little green speckled geckos. While these are ubiquitous in Kauai, apparently, they are a rare gecko and not found in many other regions.

The trees have funky bark!

A big highlight of the trip was a catamaran up the Na Pali coast. We were lucky to have mellow seas (the previous days would have resulted in a barfy ride) and clear skies (most of our time on Kauai was in full rain gear). It was gorgeous. We all want to do the 4 day hike, but can't figure out how to do it together.

Turtle Beach

On 5/31, we went to Turtle Beach on the north shore. Big waves, lots of surfers and intimidating to get into the water. But once in, there were turtles everywhere. We hung around turtles until we got bored and then went to find another turtle or get pounded by waves. Leo got to see some even though he wasn't snorkeling then.

Where did Leo come from?

We were discussing whether Leo would be like mommy or daddy. Paul said, you're a lot like mommy, you came out of her belly, right?

Leo replied, "No, I came out of her...butt crack!
I came out of her fingers.
I came out of her blood.
I came out of her shoes."

Leo at his first real swim class

Real, cause I wasn't allowed to go with him!