I like to Ski!

Last weekend we went up to Truckee to go skiing and snow boarding with McKenzie, Uncle Kris and Aunt Kelli. We were pretty lucky all weekend. We headed up on Friday evening, and decided, at the last minute, to stay in a hotel rather than try to drive over the mountain in the snow. Turns out that was our first good idea. Truckee and Tahoe got about 30 inches of snow that night.

We got to Truckee by noon on Saturday. Mommy and Daddy decided to get a half day of snow boarding in. I took a nap. They went skiing at Northstar ski resort. Perfect weather, not crowded, they had a great time!

The next day, we ALL went skiing. We tried to go to Northstar, since Mommy and Daddy had such a good time the day before. But, since it was a holiday weekend (and it was 'ski week' where no one has school in the bay area and EVERYONE goes skiing), there was a lot of people. We waited for a bus in the parking lot for about 30 minutes and finally decided to go to Squaw Valley. It could have been just as bad, but turns out, it was MUCH better - good decision #2. There were some people, but far less than at Northstar. And very little waiting.


It was cold on top of the "big hill" as I like to call it!


Here I am in action. I kept telling daddy to take me further up the hill to the ski lift, but he said I wasn't quite ready for that.



The next morning before we left, we had some fun playing in the snow. Who knew a trash can lid on an icy driveway could be so much fun...

Here is our ice tunnel.



My cousin McKenzie, turns out, is training to be a stunt girl! Here she is jumping off the second story deck into the 4+ feet of snow below.

And Finally...The Big Island

Sorry for the delay, but here is what we did on the last island.

On the first evening at The Big Island, we went to a beach near our rental place to watch the sunset. It turned out to be a great idea, because it was the best sunset we saw during our trip.


Jonas liked playing with and collecting rocks, but he watched the sunset too.


Here are some more shots.


The next day we started early because we had a lot planned. First we went to rainbow falls on the east side of the island.

Next we went all the way to the southern most point in the United States. We went really far out on the rocks to get as far south as possible. The only problem, there were some big waves. I got a little wet.


It was pretty windy too.


McKenzie and I had fun.


Next it was time to do some off road time in the Jeep. There is no easy way to get to the green beach.


But once we made it to the green beach we had a good time. And it really was green!




The next day we went snorkeling, and Jonas liked looking for things in the pools.

What is that Jonas?


Don't pick it up!


Be nice to the crab Jonas. He has no fear.


Later that night we tried to see the lava, but it was not as spectacular as I thought it was going to be. It is not as easy to see the lava up close as it used to be. There is a big parking area and a 10 minute walk to look at the lava from a few miles away.

On our last full day, we took a drive up to Mauna Kea. It is one of the best places in the world to see the stars at 13,796 ft above sea level. We stopped one night going over the mountain to look at the stars. It was amazing, you could clearly see the brilliant Milky Way.

Then we went to try and see the lava again. We were determined to get a close up view 0f the lava.


We hiked for about an hour and it seemed like we were not getting any closer.


We found this tree trying to live in the middle of the black lava field.


This is as close as we got to the lava. Still a few miles away.


After the sun went down, it got dark quickly, we had to hike back in the dark with flashlights.

Jonas did not go on our hike, but he still had a good time on the lava with Grandma. This is a really popular thing to do on The Big Island. People write messages on the black lava, usually with white coral, but red lava seems to work too.


Jonas found this hippo to ride.


Our last day of sight seeing.



At the airport ready to go back to Oahu.

Maui - The Second Island

Day One:
The first day on Maui, we went whale watching, and it was AWESOME! We were in the middle of whale season in Hawaii, and by all accounts, we went out on the best day of the year. About 10 minutes into our trip we saw our first 'breach' - when a humpback whale jumps out of the water and lands with a huge splash. We were told that this was the grand-slam of whale watching. This must have been all star whale weekend because we were witness to about 50 breaching whales during our 3 hour trip.

These pictures don't do it justice, but they are still impressive.





Who knew 40-ton whales could jump this high?



After seeing about 40 whales jump out of the water, Jonas got a little tired, and took a little nap.


At the end our boat captain told us if this is our first whale watching trip, we should stop now, because it will not get any better.

We also drove around the island to get an idea of what we wanted to do for the next 4 days.



You can actually see the top of a whale in this picture just behind the tree.





Day Two:
Letha and I decided to try surf paddling. We saw several people doing it along the shore next to our condo the day before, and it looked pretty easy - on a calm day...

Not as easy when the wind and waves kick up. It was pretty rocky along the shore, so Letha and I started to paddle out past the rocks while laying, sitting or kneeling on the board. About 100 yards from shore we see this huge head pop up 5 feet right in front of us, Letha screamed. It was a HUGE sea turtle. Its head was as big as mine. It took a long time to get out past the rocks. Over the next hour or so, we tried to stand up and paddle - unsuccessfully, and you will notice that there is no video of this, because by the time we got back to shore, our video crew (family) was 3 miles back up the beach where we took off from. We were exhausted and we both had cuts on our feet from getting knocked off the board onto the rocks. Since no one knew where we were and we had no cell phone, Letha walked back on hot concrete to get the car and I stayed with the boards. Not as much fun as we had hoped. We will probably try again...someday - maybe on a lake.




Not sure why, but we could not convince anyone else to try out surf paddling.

Day Three:
Our big hike was in Haleakala National Park. It's about a 12 mile hike through a huge dormant volcanic valley, with cinder cones and lots of lava rock.

Here is our hiking crew:




A view from the top:

Here is a pretty large cinder cone.


And this is a rare species of Silversword that can only be found here.


Here is McKenzie hiking back up to the top.


Here is a small lava tube:


We stopped to have some lunch.


McKenzie and I went to check out a cave up on the hill.


We had a visitor for lunch, the state bird of Hawaii the Nene - Hawaiian Goose


Day Four:
On our last day on Maui we decided to do a little more sight seeing. We went to see the Needle in Iao Valley State Park. The needle is a 2250 ft peak in the Iao Valley.






Off to the Big Island...