First canoe "race" on the Wailua

Last Saturday, I got to participate in my first outrigger canoe race! Although it wasn't an official race, one of the canoe clubs on the island set the event up as a fundraiser, and it provided the perfect trial run for all the new paddlers.

Noah was very excited to get to come watch Mommy paddling and see the canoes! He was the best cheerleader out there :-)

Wailua River

I'm in the purple tank top in the middle

 (don't look too closely at our synchronization...we don't have it ;-)

Noah wanted to go out in the water

Checking out the canoes 

Hiking the canyon

My friend Heidi just started a hiking class on Tuesday mornings (provided free thanks to MWR). So on the mornings when there is an open spot at the CDC, Noah gets to go hang out with his friends at "school" for a few hours, and Mommy gets to go for a hike :)

Here are a few pictures from a couple of different hikes up in Koke'e (Waimea Canyon)

Stacey, Jen, Heidi, Heather, & Nella

 

Canyon Ridge Trail

Heidi, Heather, Stacey, & Marcy

Top of Waimea Canyon

Even though we've been up to the Waimea Canyon main lookout 3 or 4 times, we've never gone all the way to the top of the canyon. So last weekend, we finally went all the way to the top with the Hescotts!  The views were amazing!

Here's a little background on Waimea Canyon:

Waimea Canyon, on Kauai's West Side, is described as "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific." Although not as big or as old as its Arizona cousin, you won’t encounter anything like this geological wonder in Hawaii. Stretching 14 miles long, one mile wide and more than 3,600 feet deep, the Waimea Canyon Lookout provides panoramic views of crested buttes, rugged crags and deep valley gorges. The grand inland vistas go on for miles.

It was carved thousands of years ago by rivers and floods that flowed from Mount Waialeale's summit. The lines in the canyon walls depict different volcanic eruptions and lava flows that have occurred over the centuries.

***Our apologies to our parents for not taking you guys all the way up when you visited, we will have to correct this on your next visit!

Eli, Noah, and Olivia at the main lookout

On to the new lookouts!

Ocean view

It actually gets *kind of* chilly as you go up in elevation (upper 50's at the top on this day) so I convinced Noah to wear a jacket.  It didn't last very long!

The boys found a mouse and were having a great time watching it and trying to touch it. According to Noah, he actually did touch it?!? Good thing I had hand sanitizer in the car!

Noah wanted to go look for the mouse again, not pose for pictures with Mommy

Kalalau Lookout

Tebow Time

The other morning, Noah and I were outside riding his tricycle and following the lawn care guys around the neighborhood (typical Friday morning) when we saw Tebow up at the CO's gazebo.  To Noah's further delight, Jackie (the CO's wife) had a sprinkler set up for Tebow to drink from, which was right next to their outdoor shower...

 

Noah was very happy to see his favorite dog

 

Noah trying to get Tebow to stop drinking water and chase after the ball instead

Noah having some fun in the sprinkler

Such a silly boy!

Apparently, the sprinkler wasn't getting him wet enough!

I have some really funny videos of Noah throwing the ball to Tebow and then trying to chase him down the hill, but I haven't been able to figure out how to post videos on here yet so the pictures will have to suffice.



Noah decided that he needed to take his clothes off since they were all wet (I had to fight with him to keep his diaper on!!!) so this is how he rode through the neighborhood to get home ;-)

The brown spots are from Noah trying to slide down the hill...



 

Morning suprise!

This morning I woke up to the sound of Noah making a distressed crying/screaming noise.  When I went into his room to get him out of his crib, I found him with his pajama shirt covering his face with his arms all twisted up inside...and a completely naked lower half!

He had already taken off his shorts AND he had decided to take off his diaper in his crib  :-S  (Yes, he sleeps in pajama shorts all year round and most of the time he doesn't even want a blanket covering him)

The *best* part is that when I walked over to his crib to help him out, I stepped in the puddle he had made from PEEING out the front of his crib!!!!!


This disrobing seems to be a new trend that we may have actually contributed to...after bath time, we usually let him go find the other parent before getting dressed, and he loves to do this while running around the house yelling "naked boy!"

 Lately, he's gotten into the odd habit of pulling his shorts off at random times, but now it has progressed to wanting to take his diaper off, too!

I guess the upside to all of this is that it is really pushing us toward potty training, and today he actually went pee on the potty three times! Unfortunately, that means we are also going to have to move him out of his crib (aka containment device) and switch to the toddler bed...

Daddy's *other* office

Ely had to run back to the hangar the other night and I had to head out to paddling practice (my new sport, racing outrigger canoes with the locals!) so Noah got to ride along with Daddy! I'm bummed I missed it because Noah had a blast seeing Daddy's airplane up close and getting to "fly" it!

Luckily, Daddy took lots of pictures for us :-)

Ely's current aircraft, the C-26

Daddy and his co-pilot

According to Ely, Noah kept playing with the throttle and yelling "Blast off!" and he kept doing "pat, pat, pat" from Little Einsteins hahaha

He also kept asking if they could go fly :-)

Hmm...he might need a phone book to see over the dashboard ;-)

Daddy's office

One of the high schools came to base to launch rockets the students had built, and we were invited to go watch!  For a few minutes Noah enjoyed watching them "blast off", but there ended up being a lot of lag time while they were setting up and clearing up old rockets, so after about an hour and only seeing 8 rockets launched, we decided to go visit Daddy at his office :)

Out by the "launch pad" cheering for the rockets

Helping Daddy work