We started off the summer with some visitors from GA, they were mainly here for B but we enjoyed their visit, too. They brought Grandma with them and I think she had a good time as well.
Among their many travels here, they took a day and went to the Water Park and this ride called the Tornado, a big funnel that shoots you into it on a 4-person raft and then you see-saw up and down the sides before draining out the end under a heavy waterfall, had pictures and the girls posed after they had figured it out.
They seemed to like to do a lot of posing, the camera-phone was on, non-stop.
They did most of the usual things ... Pearl Harbor, a submarine ride, the North Shore ... oh, we went snorkling one day and they happened on a pair of giant sea turtles. Now these are endangered so you can't go hunting for them, but if they come to you ... well, you don't have to run away. They hollered for us and we went out and all enjoyed the view for about 10-15 minutes. They were awesome. It was a great day at the beach.This week, we had our own little 'stay-cation'. I started off the week with a helicopter ride ... we went up to the North Shore across to the east side, then backtracked to the west and all down that side towards Honolulu, then shifted back north at Pearl Harbor and finished there at Wheeler Army Air Field. It was excellent. Sorry, no photo ops for that one.
The next day, we got up very early and headed south to the Kahala Resort where they have Dolphin Quest, a dolphin training center. I underestimated the traffic delay because, since there were so many of us in the car, we were able to use the 'ZIP' lane and we cut about an hour off of the trip. The girls were exhausted and spent that hour that we had to wait sleeping in the hotel lobby.
The hotel is VERY nice and would be an excellent place for anyone, bit pricey, but nice.
G got to go on her excursion first. She was with 4 other kids and they spent the first 45 minutes showing them about sea turtles, petting a sting ray, and checking out a bunch of tropical fish in their lagoon. Here, they were immitating a turtle crawling up onto the beach to lay eggs. G really got into the act.
They then went to the dolphin lagoon and got to mess around with a really large dolphin. They had him doing tricks by doing things like waving their hands, spinning around, or marching ...
I was wondering who it was that got trained that day. The kids had a blast. They had the dolphin lay on its back, on its side, rest in front of them and it was absolutely docile. They took them over to a dock and got the dolphin up out of the water for a 'big hug' picture. 
They took a break for lunch and before B and H got to do their thing, we took a shot by the hotel waterfall. The whole area was just beautiful.
B and H got to go in the afternoon and because they were a bit older they got into the accelerated program. They did the stingray and fish thing ...
but then spent most of their time with the dolphins. They did the 'big hug' shot and all the tricks ...
G got really jealous because they got to do so much more than she did ...
then they got in the water and had a blast swimming and playing around with them. The trainers had them doing all kinds of stunts with the animals including some cool jumps (without the girls on board of course).
They also got suckered into a pose that L wanted ...
and I promised that I would put it on the web for all to see. Luv ya girls.
In the end, G came around enough for a picture with other girls and they had the dolphin doing tricks in the background.
All-in-all a pricey day, but as the commercial says ... "Priceless"!!
On Wednesday, we went on a submarine ride with our friends from my second undergraduate years who came out from Delaware. The sub is pretty nice, seats about 64 people and is basically like an underwater bus. They take you out on a large boat and you embark out in the bay looking back at Honolulu.
We reached a depth of about 105 ft and then circled several man-made/artificial reefs that were just teeming with fish.
The colors were really off because of the water, but they choose not to use artificial lighting to make it a more real experience.
G's shirt was actually bright red, but underwater it turned first purple, then maroon and then brown ... this was early on.
Our friends seemed to enjoy themselves, however I am not sure whether it was the views or just him being the clown that he is ... Good thing she was looking the other way, she might given him the what for.
On Thursday we went to the waterpark ourselves and we all had a pretty good time. After some emotional steam-letting at the beginning (pent up from spending the entire week with each other), we all chilled and had a good time. G did a bunch of rides that momma was a bit scared to watch, but she just hopped on and got right to it. She had a blast but the sun and the excitement took it out of her. She came home and hit the sack ... hard. We barely got her out of her swimsuit.
As usual, G got hold of the camera this week and as I was downloading the pics, I noticed that she had had one of her fingers over the flash while she was taking the pics. The result was a shadow across the photo ...
Of course, we took some time to go out and eat, we went to 'Cheeseburgers In Paradise' a franchise that has a place here. The burgers were excellent and they had THE best Onion Rings ever. And we had a great cook-out (thanks L) with shrimp and chicken kabobs and all the trimmings.
Yesterday we picked up the next group at the airport, friends from our restaurant days in from Illinois. They're here for a couple of weeks and we'll be sharing some time over the 4th with them. We then headed over to my bosses house and had a nice outing to meet the new Residents for this year. It will be a bit this year strange as one of the residents that I will be teaching is a full-bird Colonel.
We just chilled out on today, getting ready for going back to work. We met our Delaware friends for dinner (their 3rd time at Cholo's mexican this week) before taking them back to the airport. They had a great time and I think we all agree that we did too.
As we always say, the door is ALWAYS open. You too could be enjoying a fun-filled week on O'ahu.
Hope you enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed making them.
Aloha
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