Olympics here we come

This was only a practice run, since all of our video during the meet was blocked by timers...., but she did this well during every event. She was 1st in 25 meter freestyle with her time being 19.94. She ended at least 3 seconds before everyone else!!! Wow, she totally amazed everyone!!! She also got an A time (that is the times you need to qualify for national recognition....like go to statewide and national events) in 50 freestyle and ended with a B time in Butterfly! Have any of you tried the butterfly? It is the hardest stroke and she did the 25 meter in 26.45 seconds :)

Kaneohe bay sand bar

This is the sandbar in the middle of Kaneohe Bay. You can see a little island in the middle of the picture. This is called Chinaman's hat.

Eli happy as can be!

And his sister is pretty happy too!!!

Emersyn is such a fish and scares us sometimes because she thinks she can swim! Thank God for life jackets.

Turtle Bay

On the way to Turtle Bay, Emmy was eating mini M&M's and she decided to shake the little container they were in. As she did it, somehow one stuck to her forehead, which we laughed at all the way to Turtle Bay and she had no idea!
This is the scene from the beach at Turtle Bay. It looks even better with two beauty queens digging in the sand!!! We decided since Randy had been gone and we hadn't been to the beach in a while that we would spend the whole day basking in the sun. There is nothing more relaxing than sitting on a beach in Hawaii!

Emmy sat in a sand hole for almost 30 minutes, along with being covered up to her neck! She was so funny and even the tourists were being entertained!

This is so far our only large sea shell from Hawaii. Sadly, I found it while snorkeling and it was inhabited by a critter. But since our love for sea shells is much greater than our love for slimy critters, we took it home and now own a beautiful sea shell!!!

Swimming

Here is Ella practicing her dolphin form. She will be competing in November in a B meet and then will be tested to swim in the A meets after she turns 9. The swim coach tells me she is going to go far with swimming, considering she could barely do these strokes in July! Within 2 months, she moved up to the "strong swimmer" class!!!

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!

Saturday was a huge day for Eli. He achieved yellow belt! I don't think he knows how much work comes with moving up in belt status, because we watched older kids and couldn't believe how many moves they have to memorize! Eli has truly surprised us and grown so much over the past year!

Another day at Hale Koa

We can't get enough of the sun! We don't hit the beaches as often, since sand is hard to clean up, so we hit the swimming pools! You almost can't tell the difference though, because the pools here use salt instead of chlorine in their pools!!!

Just Emmy

Shhh, she said. I'm tired, mommy!

Dancing with chalk. She loves chalk, but not to draw, just to eat! She still eats all things colorful!

Hmmmm, what should I do?

Look at those lips.....MMMUUUUAAAAHHHH, I just want to kiss them all day long!

The airshow was a couple of weekends ago, and as the crow flies, we are just a couple of miles from the base. She couldnt stand the jets flying overhead.

Emersyn has been in the dress-up mode lately! She took me outside and told me to take pictures of her, so here is what we came up with. She is such a ham! I think the one with the wind blowing is a baby portrait of Marilyn Monroe!

Dress up time (and not just for the girls)

Okay, Ella convinced Eli to dress up and boy he makes a cute girl!! As you can see, Ella is not in these pictures, but only because she thinks she is too "old" for such a thing. Well, the younger two are so cute and they made us laugh!!! Oh, and this is great black-mail material for when Eli gets older :)

Finally a couple date nights!

After whining about not having any alone time, we found a couple of great babysitters that watched the kids for us last weekend and yesterday, on our anniversary! The AF Ball was a blast, but our anniversary dinner was so much more enjoyable. We took a dinner cruise on the Navatak 1, a SWATH boat. It was very smooth and I never felt sick once (which is a good thing since I get car and air sick). Now, we are waiting for those family members to show up so we can take a couple days next time!