Vog

It's time for another educational Hawaiian lesson :)

Vog is a term we've heard a lot the last few weeks.  Very simply, vog is volcanic air pollution.

According to Wikipedia:
"Vog and smog are different. Vog is formed when sulfur oxides emitted by a volcano react with moisture to form an aerosol. The aerosol scatters light and so makes the vog visible. Smog is formed largely from the incomplete combustion of fuel, reacting with nitrogen oxides and ozone produced from carbon monoxide by reactions with sunlight. The result is also a visible aerosol.

When smog levels are high the sky looks yellowish grey because nitrogen oxides are yellow. In contrast, sulfur oxides are colorless and vog looks grey. Once vog dissipates, grey spots in the sky may for a time remain trapped in the inversion layer."

 So there is your educational lesson for the day!  The main reason I brought this up is that we were on the beach earlier this week and the vog was very apparent so I tried to take a few pictures to show you all.  I was watching our friend's 7 and 4 year old boys for the morning, and the perfect place for 3 rowdy boys to be is on the wide open beach! They had plenty of room to run and play and could get away from each other when needed.  There were also several surfers out in the water for us to watch!

Noah climbing out of the whole Christian had just been burying him in

It looks kind of overcast in this photo, but the hazy grey-ness is mostly VOG

We made a new friend on the beach.  She was playing in the sand with her mom while her dad was surfing.

Noah and Ty

Making sand castles (Noah likes building them so he can destroy them!)

This broken surf board was laying on the beach and provided some entertainment for the boys

His new "cheese" face

Ty, Christian, and Noah

One of the surfers riding a wave :)