Last Gasp of Summer

Here's another picture from Hawaii. This is at the aquarium on Maui. Apparently Tucker posted one of the aquarium pictures of him and his brothers on his My Space and somebody wrote back wondering who the unhappy, round-headed kid was and what was up with the sandal on one foot and the shoe on the other. They must have thought he was some strange kid! This is how Cooper had to walk around for a day or two to keep his foot wound from getting infected and keep the bandaging on. As I mentioned, we had to make a trip to the emergency room because he cut his foot on some coral within hours of our arrival in Hawaii. Luckily it did not keep him from having fun!
This picture of Spencer and Cooper is from the last day at the beach. They spent a long time playing together in the ocean. We spent about 3 hours at the beach (hence the sunburns we all got the last day). They raced each other on their boogie boards, swam, floated and lastly had a contes to see whose tower of sand would disapper in the waves first. They would build a tower then race back to the water to watch the waves pound their creations. It was amazing how well and long they played together! Gotta love the beach for brotherly love. Tucker spent the day in the shade with a t-shirt on because he had burnt his torso to a crisp the day before. Tanning Lotion 4 just isn't the protection you would think?!

We got in late Friday night. Saturday we had an extended Chandler family get together in Port Townsend which lasted the whole day. It was great to see Dennis' cousins from California. They are a great group of people. We didn't get home until after midnight. That left Sunday for doing laundry and getting ready to head for Idaho on Monday. At least Spencer, Cooper and I. Dennis and Tucker stayed in Seattle because they had to work.

We had a great time visiting my mom and dad. Cooper spent alot of time out in dad's woodshop. The cut and sanded, painted and had a blast. I love this picture of dad in his apron. We also went on a four-wheeler trip with dad up into the hills. It was wonderful to enjoy fresh veggies out of the garden every day. Who doesn't like new red potatoes and peas straight from the garden in cream sauce! We had it twice. We spent alot of time in the back yard under the shade tree just visiting. It was a lovely, relaxing visit. It was nice to see Allison and girls and Roberta and Gordon.

Cerese and I took the boys out fishing one evening. Or should I say casting. That's all it was. It wasn't that there were no fish. They were jumping like crazy! They just weren't interested. Well not in the hook anyway. The took plenty of bait. The boys thought it was great though and were actually pretty good at casting. We got bit by lots of mosquitos though.

We left Mackay a little early so we could spend time with Randy and family at Redfish. We wanted to see the damage done by the big wind storm. It was amazing how many treess were taken out by the wind! (See Celiacs blog for pics). We were only staying Thursday night so the boys and I slept in the back of the van. Amazing how much room there is with all the seats down! Well not quite as much as I thought when the boys started to heat up. I made Cooper sleep at the other end after only about an hour. It was cozy but it worked. It was nice to be able to hang with Randy and family. His grandkids are lots of fun. The boys had a good time with them all. The weather was not so hot (thunderstorms Thursday and overcast again on Friday) on Friday so we left early for Riggins and the river rafting expedition.

I think this picture probably looks similar to the one from last year. Not much changes from year to year but that's great because it is always fun! Cooper came on the raft trip for his first time. He thought it was great. We had a great trip downriver this year. Tucker made his first venture at going through a set of rapids in just his life jacket! Ah youth. Or should I say youthful boys! That's not anything I would have ever wanted to do--even when I was young.

So back to Seattle on Sunday and back to work on Wednesday :-( I guess it has to come to an end sometime. These past two weeks were awesome though!

Maui Memories

This will be a quickie as it is already 9pm and we are leaving early tomorrow morning for Idaho. This is one of cool things we did while in Maui. It was a 5 hour snorkeling trip to Molokini which is just a very tiny, horseshoe-shaped, uninhabited island just off the south end of Maui. It's a popular snorkeling spot so we were in the water with a few hundred snorkeling "buddies". Crowds nevertheless it was still really cool. We were in about 30 feet of water and could see all the way to the bottom. Once I got over not wanting to put my face in the water (which really is an issue for me) it was major cool. It is kind of freaky at first realizing that you are breathing under water. There was a lot of different types of tropical fish visible. Not as many as we were expecting but cool enough. It took about an hour to motor out to the island and we snorkeled for an hour or two. Spencer and I work wetsuit tops to help with sunburning issues--the water wasn't that cold of course. Then we took another boat ride to an area called Turtle Town--for the apparent plethera of turtles to be seen. Unfortunately it seems that the turtles are smarter than the tours. As soon as all those bodies hit the waters the turtles head for deep water. We did see one way down at the bottom. As soon as everyone got back in the boat, up pops a turtle about four or five feet from the end of the boat! Smart turtle. It was still really cool. Nobody got sunburned on this outing despite all the fears of sun glinting off the water making it likely.

We rented an underwater camera so we could get some cool pictures. They gave us a CD at the end of the cruise with all the pictures we took (so these are the only pictures we have right now--I haven't had a chance to download our camera yet and won't until we get back from Idaho). These next two underwater ones I took are from Turtle Town. I had finally gotten over that whole stick your head in the water phobia by then so my big thing was to try and get a picture of everyone under water. The first one is of Spencer just floating along on the top. It took a few tries to get it since just when I would get a good one he'd be too close or move the other way. Tucker was the only one who went all the way under however. He was the only one to swim the whole time with out the aid of a flotation device! (I didn't even get in the water without the float belt they had available.) All and all it was a pretty cool experience.

We had a great time in Maui. A cool family vacation which included a trip to the emergency room, a crazy lady and Mentos, sunburns on the last day, boogie boarding, a luau, watching the sun set and lots of relaxation. A trip we will all remember for sure. It's good to be home, even for a day or two. Will document more next time, plus the trip to Idaho!