webebloggers's posterous

Visiting Ashleigh and Giovanni

Today I got to meet up with Ashleigh, who's from Topeka like me (yay!) and who also went to Concepcion, Paraguay with AFS like me (hooray!) and who's also living on Oahu now (whoopee!). We caught up over yummy Brazilian berry treats in Kailua.

And it was a pleasure to meet Ashleigh's 2-month-old, Giovanni. What. A. Cutie.

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Giovanni was just adorable and very agreeable. In this picture I think it's clear that while I'm posing for the camera, he's deep in thought -- most likely contemplating the Iranian election situation. Don't you think?:


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No Road Trips Here

As I was listening to the radio in the car today, they played a Chevron commercial that said "Are you planning a road trip this summer? Maybe someplace exciting, like the mountains or the beach?"

Well. I would like to take this opportunity to reply: no, Mr. Radio, I am not. And let me tell you why. Because I, like many of the people who listen to your little radio station, LIVE IN HAWAII! If we decide to take a road trip, we are done in an hour, and then we have to turn around and come back, or else drive into the ocean. Unless there's a lot of traffic, in which case it *might* take an hour and a half.

Another option for us here is to drive in circles around the island for several days, thus *pretending* to be on a road trip. Let's say an average road trip involves 8 hours of driving for 4 days each. That means in our pretend road trip, we could cross the island about 32 times.

Which brings me to a very important question. If you see the exact *same* red Volkswagen Beetle several times on a single "road trip," do you get to claim multiple punch-buggy-red's, or does it just count as one? Personally I think that later sightings of the same punchbuggy should raise your total punchbuggy score exponentially.

In any event, No Mr. Radio, no Road Trips planned for this summer. But if anyone wants to join me for a Day Trip, come on over and we'll head to the ocean... way over on the far coast!

Surfing Lessons

Last weekend we took surfing lessons, and... well, let's just say that the Surfing won. Hungry rocks jumped off the ocean floor and attacked Jake's foot. My surfboard decided to get a little too friendly with my knee and something mysterious stung my thumb. Despite our best sunscreen efforts, our legs fried. The water threw us left and right and all over. I was so worn out that I wanted to curl up on my surfboard and take a quick nap (which, by the way, seemed totally doable except for the little problem of floating out to the great blue yonder). We finished so exhausted that we fell asleep as soon as we got home. At 3pm.

But deep down, we're really pretty proud: maybe the Surfing won this time, but we finished off fighting, and we've got battle scars to prove it!
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Unfortunately we didn't get photos because we were, well, busy. But y'all sent such positive feedback on my dolphin drawings, I drew a new picture to show you what we looked like surfing (that's our teacher, Carol, in the background, cheering us on; apparently Carol *won* 2 National Championships in surfing, and placed 2nd in the World one year, holy cow -- she claims she likes teaching newbies best, but I can't help but think she must have been very bored watching us!):

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The best analogy I can think of for surfing (and I hope all our hardcore surfer blog fans will forgive me here, but it's true) is sledding. It's reeeally fun for 10 or 15 seconds, and then you turn around and grunt and push (or paddle) and wheeze until you get back to where you started so you can go again. It's really hard, but those few seconds of flying are worth it.

So, we'll be back. Watch out Surfing, here we come.

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Sam Expresses Coaster Anger

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Samantha is a peacemaker. She always turns the other cheek. She is a friend to all-- living, dead, inanimate.

Which is why I was shocked to hear her exchange these harsh words with one of our coasters:

"Listen you, I don't want to be unreasonable here... but you're pretty much the worst coaster ever!!"

Such rage! Such terror! Coaster tensions were running high last night.


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Sam was referring to the fact that her favorite coaster has gone debunk. Somehow, it became soaked in water and shriveled up (see above). Of course, this effectively destroys any usefulness this poor coaster can provide.

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Sam had zero sympathy for this coaster. Not only did she verbally scold it, she saw fit to strangle the poor creature.

Coasters everywhere, beware the wrath of Samantha Crow!

More Dolphin Sightings

Ever since my blog post about the dolphins in our backyard, I've been trying to get a (real) photo of them. I took these from our balcony which is kind of far away, so unfortunately they're not very crisp, but I hope this gives you the idea. They're all over the place, and they just jump around like crazy, like they're dancing or celebrating or something! The one with the ship might help with size perspective, though I realize the ship itself looks a little like a toy here (!).

Anyway, this is the best I've got until I can convince them to keep jumping while I walk closer:

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Dolphins in the Backyard

Today Jake and I were sitting at our dining room table when something very exciting happened. Here's a photo of us getting all excited:

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What was it? Well, we looked out to the ocean with our binoculars and discovered... a dolphin doing tricks! Here's a photo of that:

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So we looked on longer, and more closely, and realized that there were actually lots of dolphins out there, all jumping around and doing tricks! Here's the picture I took of that:

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It was like our very own private Sea World! I knew that dolphins could do good water tricks, but I didn't realize that they do them just for fun, even without any training or any humans to feed them treats when they do well.

Sometimes they would coast along the surface of the water just bobbing in and out, other times they would jump all the way out of the water and do a pirouette and dive back in. Or other times they would just wiggle around like they were dancing. You know how sometimes when you look at a dog he just looks really happy? (Sometimes because he's out of breath and panting which makes it look like he's smiling, but still.) Well these dolphins looked just like that, but in a dolphin kind of a way. So energetic, so free, so happy!

It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. What a day! If they stick around tomorrow, maybe we'll go see if we can visit them...

ps. You know how sometimes when you look at a famous artist's painting, you think "holy cow, I totally thought that was a photograph at first"? Well in much the same way, you probably couldn't tell, but for the sake of honesty I have to admit... the images above aren't actually photographs. We tried snapping photos but the dolphins were a little far away for good pictures (and they are very quick!), so I actually drew the pictures above on the computer. Still, I hope they give you a sense of what it was like to actually be there.

Lizard in the Lock

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The other night when we came home, Jake turned to lock the door behind us and discovered a friend who'd apparently gotten stuck there. (It's a good thing lizards can regrow their tails when they need to.) We think he might be related to the little guy who lives in our garage and greets us every night when we pull the car in by scurrying under the lamp to make himself visible. Or maybe not. Anyway, Jake the Hero was able to liberate this little guy and send him on his way. We wish our little friend farewell. Hooray Jake!

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