bula!!!

(and aloha!)

we are headed to fiji for a few days...bear is flying the island hopper to hawaii today, where he will get in very late and then meet his mom tomorrow to head to fiji tomorrow night...palmer and i will leave tonight for fiji and spend the day at the pool tomorrow waiting for them...

not sure what we're gonna do there, but maybe zip-line!...there is a turtle club child care at the hotel that bear has checked out and feels comfortable with (our friends have used it too!) so we would leave the tot there and check out zip-fiji...we are staying in nadi which is not one of the premier diving locations so i don't think we will be doing that...in fact, bear said the beach at our hotel is not even that great...(but really - who cares - we have our own here!)...

there is a big hindu temple and a garden that may need checking out too...and definitely on the list is partaking of a cava root ceremony!...

we'll be there a few days then all fly back to hono where bear's sister and kids will be staying...we are only there a very short time (36 hours or less i think), and we will mostly be shopping so we can send stuff back to guam, but it will be fun to see the kids and for palmer to meet them at least!

truly...i'm drooling at the thought of walking around target, costco, and the like!...we have a list of stuff we need to get while we're there (MUST HAVES: bear is getting a half and half ice blended from coffee bean, and i'm getting a decaf grande nonfat mocha from starbucks!!!)

oh, and palmer went to her very first movie the other day - "how to train your dragon" in 3-D...very cool...we had the theater to ourselves (1:30 showing) and it was nice and cold so we got to wear sweatshirts and palmer was very good and stayed in her seat very well (the popcorn may have helped there!)...the glasses were a bit big on her so she only wore them half the time!

open water divers!!!

since we weren't able to make it back to the states for bear's vacation, we decided to put the time off to good use and go get our open water certification...("what is open water certification? - i thought you guys were scuba diving?"...open water certification means we are qualified to go on our own...scuba certification means you know how to dive but still must go with a divemaster to supervise you)...

so we started by getting the best instructor out there...perfect blend of cool guy/jokester/laid back, while still being knowledgeable, safe, thorough, and trustworthy...we had two days of classwork and tests, then we got in the pool...

at first i wasn't sure i would be able to go under the water...it took me a couple of tries to psych myself up to submerge...but finally i just closed my eyes, focused on breathing and didn't open them til i was underwater...from there on out it was smooth sailing!

here is rodney having bear do the free-flowing regulator skill test...

and here is me doing it...it looks really violent in real life...the air is blowing your head all over and it almost makes your mask come off, but it is very easy to do really...when he demoed it, it looked like his head was gonna blow off and i admit i was like "holy $h!t!!! - how are we gonna do that?" - but it was easy as pie...



(a little shout out to jeff and becky who watched palmer that night so we didn't have to worry about her, and were really great when we were late picking her up cause we weren't allowed in the pool on time!)

the next day we headed out for our first open water dive...the fish were swarming the second we got in...it was great! (we even saw a lion fish)


we did two dives that day and did different skills in each one, both surface and underwater...here we are doing an alternate air "ascent" (bear is breathing from my second regulator - then we hang on to each other and swim)
the next day we did two more dives...we saw a sea turtle which was really cool and got to pet a pufferfish!...we also did underwater compass navigation which had us swimming through pure blue water where you could not see anything around you...no point of reference (well, the surface 50 ft up but you would have to look straight up)...no floor no wall of reef, nothing...eerie, but cool...
then we came up to this really great massive flat reef...AWE-SOME...really cool stuff to see and touch...(gently of course!)...we didn't have our camera for that one though cause it's only rated to 33 feet and we had already pushed it the day before in the 40 ft range...didn't want to take it to 60!...

but then we grabbed it off the float again before we came in so we could feed the fish! (they love vienna sausages!)(another shout out to kelly and alyson who watched palmer for our second day of open water...she had a great time at their house! - we had a babysitter from our gym for the first day)

it was really cool...i would recommend trying it to everyone...i thought i would be all panicky and anxious...but really doing the reading and knowing what to do made me feel really prepared and not a bit of anxiety...




i think we have a new hobby!...(we really ought to find cheaper hobbies!!!)

there's a PARTY in my tummy!...

so yummy! so yummy!

fresh mozzarella, fresh spinach, and prosciutto...now that's my kind of grilled cheese!
kind of makes me wish i had a panini press...

tiny dancer...

shark's hole...

so this weekend i went on a little boonie stomp with the girls...the big girls...we left the little girls and the little boys home with the big boys!the boonie stomp was less of a hike and more of a walk along the beach that included just a few instances of crawling over sharp rocks or waist-deep water walking...we parked at tanguisson beach and headed north to shark's hole...tried one opening to see if it was the path to the lost pond, but since none of us really planned on swimming in the murky pond anyway, we gave up and turned around after about two minutes!

we passed neat little rock islands, sort of like mini-mini-mini palau...
do you think this line is where guam will break off and capsize?
it rained while we were in the water so the visibility might not have been ideal, but it was still great...(well, besides my mask fogging up incessantly)...we even saw a few guys spearfishing and got to see them diving underwater...they can hold their breath forever!on our hike we saw a gazillion butterflies...really, i counted...you can see them here!

the tank farm!

so i've been mountain biking up at nimitz hill four times now and this is the first i've seen or heard of the tank farm!

i'm not sure how many pieces are up there - i'm pretty sure there's only one intact tank, but we saw other pieces scattered around...pretty cool!

here's amanda, ali g, and i...

also, i came up the other day with the laceys and they showed me where you could see upper sigua falls from the bike trails...so we tried to find that again...and failed...

but really, when this is your view - can you consider it a fail???...i love the green lushness of the valleys...

then we spent some time riding up and down this hill that the 4x4's and dirtbikes like to ride...i think this is where they flip over when they flip...it's short but steep! and a little different every time you see it depending on how many trucks and how much rain it's seen lately!

coming from ohio, the mountain biking is very different...but the most profound difference is the kind of trees you'll find!!!...yeah, i miss the shade our ohio trees provided, but come on - we ride among palm trees!!!

i love my dog....BUT...

large dog + white tile + red dirt + guam-style rain = mom's worst nightmare...

almost EVERY time we take that dog out to potty it seems to have just rained...doesn't matter that it only rained for 2 minutes...the red dirt is now mud on 4 paws and laying tracks in our kitchen...

the entrance rug is always filthy and i'm going through paper towels like i'm on a personal mission to destroy the rainforests!

*sigh*

but i do love my dog!