Paradise Found

I hate not being able to put up pictures when I post here! October 1 I will get do pictures again... I get 100 per month. I'll have to be a little choosier about what I put up, I guess!

Well, Elizabeth tried out at the gyms, and I was ready to write up descriptions and thoughts about each... but she's decided to not pursue gymnastics anymore. I can live with that, since she tried the gyms and met the coaches and girls. So we'll go back to the swimming plan, and see about becoming a part of the Schofield Sharks swim team.

The weather is basically the same - breezy, a few rain showers, mostly warm and sunny. My neighbor tells me it's going to be this way all winter long! Hard to imagine, even still. The only difference will be that the beaches along the north shore will be closed to swimming because of the harsh waves. Already they are getting rough!! We went back to Chun's Reef on Monday, and the waves were CRAZY... actually it was the shore break that was so wild. So different than South Carolina! Lots of surfers were out there, riding some nice size waves.

C is really busy at work doing pre-deployment stuff. He's been getting home after 9pm for several days. Still has to get up really early and go to PT, too, so we aren't seeing much of him. And the Company is fouling up Saturday too, by putting on a mandatory car wash that they all must participate in. I understand the Company and the FRG needs money in their account, but it's really irritating that they steal one of our weekend days, right as we're trying to make the most of our time because the deployment is getting closer.

The kids are on Fall Break, which lasts for almost 3 weeks. I really like the year-round school program!! Once we have 2 cars, it'll be even better. Right now either C takes the car to work and we're stuck here, or I drive him back and forth and if he forgets something, I have to drive it out to him. Not ideal for any of us.

We're working on plans to visit the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor and the Dole Pineapple Plantation. I also want to go to a real luau... turns out they're big productions and go on for several hours! And they're a little expensive, too! We get the military rate of $39 per person, I believe, and non-military is like $60! It sounds like you get a lot of food and entertainment for the money, though.

Today was the day we started gym shopping. She's been thinking about it, and talking about it here and there. I have just been waiting for her to really say something, and last week it sort of came down to the decision... are you going to start swimming, or go back to gym?

And she chose gym without hardly a thought about it. So I found what look like they might be the top 2 gyms on the island... hard to tell from only their websites. One is down in Honolulu, and the other is in Aeia (Pearl Harbor).

The Hawaiian Island Twisters was our first stop. It was in the strangest location! It's inside a HUGE, massive Japanese market. It was like 1/4 mall, 1/4 grocery store, 1/4 food vendors, and 1/4 seating. And then there's the gym. Really weird. This team has girls all the way up to Elite, so we had high expectations... and when I saw the place I was really surprised. It was pretty small, and pretty old. But E seemed to like it, and was upset there was no one at the desk for us to ask questions of. We sat out in the gym in some chairs for parents and watched... then we finally left, taking a brochure with us.

Rainbow Gymnastics was the second stop. This one we'd been right by many times, and I never realized it was back there. This place was even more surprising. I was turned off right away by it's facilities! It's in an industrial strip mall... all the businesses have green garage style doors and that's it. So we walk up to it, and the parents were spilled out onto the pavement and the gymnast's cubbies are RIGHT there, and the beams were RIGHT there inside this huge door. SO strange. No tumble track. 2 sets of bars. One elevated vault runway.

I felt like turning around right then, but E wanted to check it out... the owner or head coach (or something, I really can't remember) came out to speak with us. After telling her about E, she told us that their team has 15 Level 5's and 4 Level 6's. She was all happy we were there, and was really sweet about engaging E in conversation... so we agreed to do their free trial practice TOMORROW from 4pm to 8:30pm.

E is all excited... we came home and she went and pulled out her grips and stuff (saying, 'EWW! These stink!') and choosing a leo.

An interesting thing about the gyms in Hawaii... they compete TWO seasons per year. Fall Season and Spring season and there are TWO state meets! So a girl could compete Level 5 in the fall, and move up at the midyear point, and compete Level 6 in the spring, and finish up w/ a second state meet.

So we'll do Rainbow's trial workout tomorrow, and unless she's comepletely in love w/ the place, I'll take her to do a free trial at the HITS gym, too. I wish one of these were closer to home.... but at least I'm not working now to get her there myself. But what a lot of driving. Ahh well, if she loves it, that'll be good enough!

More tomorrow night after we're back.
Aloha

Friday night we did buy our first surfboard! In the end we decided that it didn't need to be anything super special, so we bought it on base for a really good price, and tax free to boot. Had to buy a rack at the same time... so we just got a soft one that's not permanent.

From a previous visit to local surf shops, we were told that Chun's Reef was a good place for beginning surfers to go. It's very close to our house and on the North Shore, so we readily agreed to that plan! In hindsight, now that we've done it, I'd say it's not THAT perfect because of all the rocks just off shore!! OUCH is all I've gotta say about that.

So we arrive at the beach, get all our stuff and the board and head on down. The board is an "Island Creations" if that means anything to anyone.

And there it is, with it's proud new owner. Actually, we've all agreed that it's a family board. We got a 7 foot funboard thinking that we could all use it. It's a little on the short side for total beginners, but C and I hope to overcome that little detail.

A quick scenic view of Chun's Reef. There were several surfers out in the water, but we had the sand to ourselves!

A cute shot of the Boy... he had a nasty run-in with some rocks at the water's edge early on that day. A wave took him out; he went under, and was knocked against the rocks! A very good, memorable lesson for him. He has two big scrapes from it, but otherwise is fine.

I don't have any pictures of E surfing because she never made it out there. The water here, and the waves, are SO different from South Carolina's that she never went out past the big crashing waves near the shore. You have to get thru those to get to the big, calm area.... and then passed THAT is where the surfing waves are. So no E pics to share.

I have a couple of me... one rather humorous, but it sums up my first surfing experiences. =o)

It was all really fun, even tho we actually accomplished very little ON the surfboard. C didn't do any more than I did on it.... just rode some waves body surfing style, and paddled around alot. I have bruises in the insides of both biceps from paddling, and I got hit w/ a fin on my calf... so I have a nice scrape and bruise there. hehehe

I'm out of space to upload pictures for the month!! I am allowed 100 pictures per month, and that is 99 pictures I've uploaded. I think my new month starts later this week.... so I will have to wait until then to post up the pics from the rest of our awesome weekend.

Just one quick note for right now... but OMG. I thought I'd left hurricane land when we left South Carolina........... Not so, apparently.

I'm told that Hawaii gets hit once every 10 years or so. It's been much longer than that, and they say we're due.

Look what's in our near future... those things are moving left, and you can see Hawaii, the Big Island in orange on the far left:

That's Hurricane Jova, Hurricane Kenneth and Tropical Storm Lidia. And one of the lifeguards at the pool today told me to hope they don't combine together to make one super hurricane. Geez!!!

C's unit had the day off today, with the stipulation that everyone attend this company-wide picnic. It was held on the very south end of the island at Nimitz Beach. We had some rain at the beginning, but the rest of the day was good. Windy and a little overcast.

The water here is amazingly light and clear blue!!! The sandy bottom must go out for a long ways... but it's beautiful!

Eventually a volleyball tournament was started up, and C played. He used to play a lot, so I think he had a good time playing again.

Nice back drop to play volleyball against, eh??

It's late afternoon now... and I need to go because we're finally going surfboard shopping! I hope to have surfing pics for Monday's post!
Happy weekend!
Aloha