Photos for the fair

One of the things on my list today is to decide if I will enter any photos in the county fair this year. I need to decide by Friday.

I have entered some the past two years, but have never won anything. It's not that I only care about winning, but when I look at the ones that do win, it makes me go "huh?" I can never figure out what exactly the judges are looking for in their selections. I want to be able to learn from the experience of entering photos so I can improve my skills.

Trying to pick the ones to enter is tough too. I am allowed six photos total, no more than two in each category. I was thinking of entering one of these sunsets from our Maui trip... which is the best? I would love to hear some opinions.

Here's some other ones I am considering...

The animal rights people might not like this one....

Do you think it's bad that we can't see the frog's entire face?

One of my favorites from the branding season this year...

I like how this one shows J.T.'s size relative to the tractor...

Here's one I might consider entering in the black and white category. I kind-of borrowed the idea from Gina though so I need to check with her to make sure it's okay with her! :)

I would love it if anyone wants to give feedback on if I should enter any of these.... leave me a comment or email me. Thanks so much!

We're home

Last day on Maui

We couldn't not go to the beach on our last day... both kids tried the boogie boards too!


And Andy too...

After we got loaded up and checked out we headed to the Ma'alaea Harbor for lunch. Then we went to Maui Golf and Sports Park to play mini golf. The kids were excited at first, but that didn't last long. Between the heat (without a pool to jump into), and the frustration of mini golf, they weren't too happy. Can you tell?

They did get to cool off a little with the bumper boats. They had these shooter things so you could squirt everyone else. By the time the kids and the dads got off, they were soaked!

Much to our amazement, both kids wanted to try climbing the rock wall! Neither of them wanted to go to the top, but that's okay.... at least they tried it.

After this we headed towards Kahului, which is where the airport is located. We did a little shopping to kill some time, but then decided to just turn our cars in and head to the airport. We had dinner there and waited for our time to leave. We left about 9:30 pm and took the "red-eye" flight home. We changed plans and had breakfast in San Francisco. We got home around 9:30 am. We were exhausted!

More beach time

This was the only day that we split up from the Victorines. They wanted to go snorkeling and we decided not to go. While Andy and I would've loved to go, we decided the kids probably wouldn't want to try it. We didn't want to go the trouble of renting the gear and driving awhile, if they weren't going to do it.

We went to the beach across the street for a couple hours. We bought some boogie boards a couple days ago, which has been fun. Andy got some pictures of me *trying* to do it.... It was so fun, and I didn't even wipe-out too bad!

We headed to Wailea for lunch. After that we drove as far as you can go on the south part of Maui. We ended up at La Perouse Bay. I know it's hard to see in the picture, but the dark spots are hardened lava, not sand.





What a day!

To the top of the world

On Sunday we decided to drive to Haleakala National Park to see the crater. It was a 2 hour drive each way, which wasn't much fun for the kids. The summit is over 10,000 feet in elevation. It's pretty amazing once you finally make it to the top!

This was taken at a lookout point near the summit. You can't see much besides clouds in the background, though.

I really like this picture of Andy and I. Thanks to Christina for taking it! I don't usually like other people to use my camera because it seems like the pictures never turn out. Christina did a great job with it though!

After a drive through Kula, Makawao, and a couple other small towns, we stopped at Hookipa Beach. It is known as possibly the best windsurfing beaches in the world. As you can imagine, it's windy! It was great watching. We even saw a couple wipe-outs. The kids liked that.

We walked down the street for mexican food that night, and saw this nice sunset while we were finishing dinner.

Even though we didn't do much besides drive, it was a long day! We were all exhausted by the end of it...

Beach bums

On Saturday we went back to the beach....

Evan sure liked to eat the sand!


Christina and I decided that is much less work to go to the pool.... but the beach sure is fun for the kids. I think that is when they had the most fun!

Happy 4th of July!

It's the 4th of July but we didn't do the traditional Independence Day activities. We took a walk in the morning and did a little shopping near our condo. We did decide to BBQ some hot dogs for lunch so we could celebrate the 4th a little bit.

Our big activity for the day was attending the Old Lahaina Luau. We got a little dressed up and headed over to Lahaina via a shuttle. We received leis when we got there. The kids didn't really like them because they were too itchy. I had to resort to bribery to get them to wear them for a few photos. The sun was so bright that some of these didn't turn out all that well.




This is actually a decent one of our family, thanks to Christina!

Aren't Isaac and Evan so cute!!

All of the kids...

Andy and I don't get very many taken of us together so it's nice to have a few from this trip...


This was the location of Clint and Christina's wedding last year. Here's the happy couple in the same spot where the wedding and cake-cutting were.

A few of the kids.... I don't think they were too impressed with the luau.

One of the show...

Abigail said this was her favorite part of the trip... getting her photo taken with the hula girls (and guy).

There weren't any fireworks during this show but the town of Lahaina did some over the water. We saw a couple, but not enough (according to J.T.). He wanted to see more. I am sure he would've given up the luau for more fireworks.

I thought the luau was one of the best parts of the trip... it's part of the experience! The food and drinks were great... the show was just the right length... the location was fabulous! We took a shuttle back to the condo which was such a great idea! The town of Lahaina was so crazy because of the fireworks show that I wouldn't have wanted to worry about parking and driving through town. We got back to Kihei around 10 pm.

Another day in Paradise....

Today we started off the day by heading to the pool around 9 a.m. The kids had a great time. It was nice because it wasn't too crowded or too windy. It did get a little toasty though....

For lunch we headed over to Lahaina, which is about 40 minutes away. We went to *Cheeseburgers in Paradise* for lunch. While we were waiting outside for our table, the kids not-so-patiently watched the waves crashing on the sand.... can you tell they aren't very happy?

We did some shopping after lunch and all picked up a few things.

Oh look, they've brightened up a little! They are sitting up on part of the enormous Banyan Tree in Lahaina's Town Center. It looks like a bunch of trees, but it is really one big spread out tree.

We came back to Kihei after the kids had a shave ice treat. We had dinner in Clint and Christina's condo. Clint BBQed some ono which was great. After dinner we walked over to the beach to let the kids use some sparklers. They thought that was pretty neat.

Abigail is having a great time. It's hard to tell with J.T. Sometimes he is, and other times he just seems out of sorts. Okay off to bed for me.... everyone else is asleep!

At the beach

Just a few pictures from our first day on Maui. We went to the beach across the street this morning and the kids had a great time....

Aloha from Maui

Well, we made it! Barely! After an almost two hour delay in Eureka and literally running through the San Francisco airport to our next plane, we made it to Maui! We picked up our rental cars, stopped at Walmart for a little food and some beach toys, drove to Kihei, got checked in at Kamaole Sands, and into our room by around 10:30 p.m. Hawaiian time.... yes that's 1:30 according to our bodies' Pacific time clock! You could probably say we were all a little tired and cranky!

Abigail and Isaac (7) did great on the 5 hour flight to Maui... they played "ro sham bo", colored, watched a movie, etc. J.T. was a little out of sorts, but he finally slept for a while on the plane. Evan (8 mos) did really well too. He took a couple naps and seemed happy.

J.T. got up at 5 am this morning so I am up with him. Abigail and Andy are still sleeping. I keep you posted on what we do today.... Aloha....................