Swimming with turtles

This morning, Scott took us down to Hickam AFB to visit where he works. After spending a couple hours at a beach on base, we grabbed a quick lunch (and a quick car nap for Keaton), and met the Swisher family at Ko Olina resort to visit the famous Ko Olina lagoons. The lagoons were perfect for Keaton because there are hardly any waves. It's like a giant salt water swimming pool with sand! We even got to swim with a few sea turtles!! Thankfully Joe has an underwater camera, so we were able to snap a few shots of the turtles up close and personal. Keaton is my beach baby, and absolutely loves the water and the sand! He had such a blast swimming in the ocean and being loved on by the Swisher girls all day. It's great that we are finally feeling settled enough to enjoy the benefits of living in Hawaii! It was a little overcast today, so the water wasn't as blue as it normally is... I promise it was much prettier in person!

Spring Break Part 3: Ko'Olina Lagoons

We spent not one but two whole days of Mia's spring break at the lagoons at Ko'olina. 

The kids had so much fun swimming with the sea turtles, exploring on the rocks and playing in the sand. 

Mark was no so sure about the turtles!  

One of the turtles was missing his front fin. Mia named him "Finn." This turtle followed her around all day!  

Mia and Grandma

Gorgeous girl!  

We even spotted a monk seal lounging on the rocks. 

Tide Pools at Baby Makapu'u

Scott and I are always on the lookout for the perfect beach. I'm worried we are ruined forever when we return to the mainland with so many amazing beaches to choose from here. Lanikai we love because it's beautiful and relatively calm most of the time. Ko'olina lagoons are also beautiful and very kid-friendly, but is not as convenient (a whole 35 min drive) and parking is usually an issue. North shore beaches are fun to watch surfers, but the water is usually to rough to really swim much with kids. 

On Saturday, I was excited to try out Baby Makapu'u after reading about it on one of my favorite local blogs, Oahu Mom. During low tide, the ocean leaves little tide pools that are perfect for kids. 

Mark loved splashing around in the water. This also kept sand out of his mouth, which makes Mama happy too.

We were having such a blast, we decided to call the Heaths and see if they wanted to join us for some beach time.  

Keaton loved jumping from the rocks into the pools. 

A local man and his boys were there collecting sea creatures with nets. They caught an eel, a starfish, and some other really cool tropical fish in a big pretzel jug. They let us take a look before they let everything go.

Hooray! I think we may have found a new favorite beach!

Long overdue beach day!

Because of the wind and rain on our side of the island, it had been weeks since we had some time at the beach! Yesterday, we headed out west to the Ko'olina lagoons.  There were seven sea turtles swimming in the lagoon with us, including Mia's old friend, Finn!

The boys hung out on the boogie board, and loved when the turtles would swim under them.

Keaton liked naming all of the turtles.  His favorites were "Up-head" and "Panther-y." :-)

Keaton even tried snorkling for the first time yesterday and did so great! Sorry no pics of this, but I'm happy that it's because I was enjoying the experience with him instead of ALWAYS behind the camera!