Heating Things Up in Hawaii

Yesterday was Jack and Meg's birthdays.  Jack wanted to take surf lessons to celebrate his "golden" birthday (11 on the 11th) so we signed up with Hawaiian Fire. This is an AMAZING group of men and women, firefighters, who love to surf and are pretty dang good at it.  They took their passions (surfing and helping people) and combined them into a business.  And voila, we get the privilege of learning to surf by a bunch of able-bodied firefighters (who aren't hard to look at either, I might add.)  In addition to the surfing lessons, we've had a few other adventures this week.  We climbed to the top of Diamond Head (although I have no photos to show because my camera battery died.)  And we visited Kaimana Beach, Manoa Beach Park for Fireworks, and attended the "International Hispanic Celebration" in Kapiolani Park.  We saw the Palace of one of the former queens and the Kamehameha statue.  Pictures will better tell the story.  Enjoy!

Here's Amazing Amy, getting psyched up for her lesson.

Jack is going to miss Amy when she goes home (in less than two weeks) because she is his tireless playmate.

Amy is a natural on the surf board.  This was the result the FIRST time she tried.

The birthday crew

Daddy's girl!

Connor and his instructor, Sean

It made it a little easier to watch my baby being dragged off into the powerful surf knowing he was in the hands of a very capable surfer/firefighter guy! :)

Oops, almost a crash.  You can't tell from this photo, but Sean had his hand on Jack's board, avoiding being run over and at the same time, managing to keep Jack upright on his board!  Be still my heart! Almost lost two at once there! hehee

The Gun Show Crew

Oh have mercy!

Brian surfing on his first try....

Connor getting ready to stand up, Jack in the background

Liam about to stand up... check out the skills on this guy, he can surf, lean over to pick up a kid, and keep his baseball hat on all at the same time.

Liam couldn't believe he was actually surfing.  The look on his face is totally priceless!

The crew... they even let mama in the photo (even though I was the only one who didn't surf.)

Liam heading out to sea.

Even Meg got in on the action, thanks to the sweetness of the instructor.

You can tell from the ear to ear grin that she loved EVERY single second of it.  What a great 4th birthday memory!

King Kamehameha (Kah-may-ha-may-ha)

Super cool tree... not sure what Jack is doing here?

Something new in our fridge.  We're trying to be adventurous with our eating.  These are Rhambutan and they can be found at Costco.  :)  They taste something between a strawberry and a grape with the texture of a grape. 

Friday night pic-nic and fireworks... amazing! 

Sunset over Manoa Beach