Fore!

Watch out Great Grandpa, he'll be ready for Pebble Beach any minute.......They let you wear monster truck boots on the green, right?






Wait for me! Wait for me!

Blah, blah, blah

8 years

We just booked a yurt at Cape Disappointment on Friday the 13th.
Sounds more like a horror movie plot than an anniversary weekend getaway.

Ewan loves Grace

But his approach could use a little fine tuning.

Prepared

Headlamp?...check
Boots?...check
Snacks?...check
Backpack?...check
Milk?...check

Yup, just the necessities; all set to go out to Happy Hour with Baby Gracie-bean.

Mr. Fix-it

Drake's Garden Boat

Drake's Garden started life as Dad'ns first boat building project, but due to some minor stability issues, has been repurposed and is now much less likely to capsize.

The Milk Lady makes funny noises

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Funny Ocean

This is something I meant to post while we were in Hawaii. I took these photos about 12 hours after the tsunami hit Hawaii. You'll have to look pretty closely to see the difference, but in the top one, the reef is exposed like in an extreme low tide, and in the lower one, the water is all the way up the beach like a high tide. But I took the pictures 10 minutes apart. The first time I saw it happen, I reached down to grab Drake and run, but a surfer playing a ukulele stopped me and said "no, it's cool...I've been watching it all day".

It occurred to me just now how silly it is that I believe everything's cool when it's coming from some stoned strumming surfer, yet when the Hawaiian government tells us we're safe, we run for high ground.

Hmmmmmm........

Anyway, surfer dude was right; the tide went in and out on a 20 minute cycle all day. Very strange.

Look back to Hawaii, where we evacuated to for the tsunami

This was considerably higher than where they told us to go.

Home

Oops, I didn't realize that we forgot to say that we're home safe (or at least 3000 miles farther away from tsunamis, earthquakes and nuclear meltdowns).

I got Elan's awful flu bug, so now I understand why he wanted to be in a hotel instead of in Rosie.

I've been trying to convince the boys that it's really fun to sit in bed and watch cartoons all day, but so far no dice. (I guess I have a few years until they really get it.)



We came home to soggy Pacific Northwest springtime -our cherry tree is blossoming, so hopefully that means we'll see the sun sometime soon.



Our seed starts are ready to go in the ground, but some little helper took out all of my markers, so we'll have a surprise garden this year.

Shave Ice

Last day; time for one last shave ice:






One last trip to the beach:



One last swing in the hammock:



It's been real.

Sheepish

In the dark of the night with tsunami sirens blaring, and the wave from the largest Japanese earthquake EVER recorded racing toward us across the ocean, we suddenly decided that our cargo of very important little boys was not nearly far enough above sea level.

Even though we were in a designated sheltering area; a cow field of cars full of people who felt perfectly comfortable with the situation (there were grills smoking and ukeleles playing), clearly these people had become jaded by too many false alarms, and didn't understand that they were about to get REALLY wet, right?

So Rosie turned her skinny bald tires uphill, and we slid, revved and smoked our way up to higher ground.

In the bright light of day, with no sign of tsunami devastation, and completely unable to get ourselves down off of our perch, we felt slightly sheepish about our 3:00 am decision making skills.

Much ado about nothing

Well, there's still no All Clear, but they're letting us leave our little hill.

It seems like there's just a little bit of flooding in spots.

From up here I can see humpbacks frolicking in the new little speed bumps they just found in their ocean

More later.

Tsunami

It's hard to describe the adrenaline rush that you get when you are woken up to a tsunami evacuation alarm...
So I won't try.

We packed up Rosie at about 11:00pm and followed directions to a ranch on a hill on the windward side of the island. We found some locals who were going up higher than the designated gathering place (a cow field). Now we're perched on a hilltop with the boys snuggled back in bed their bed, waiting for the wave to hit.
Predictions are around 8 feet at about 3:15 am.
So we wait.....


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Rosie Sandwich

10 points to German Engineering; quirky but STRONG!

Rosie was the crunchy filling in a 3 car sandwich yesterday....Both boys slept through the whole fiasco, so don't panic, Grandmas.



The cop literally did a double take when we said "rental".

The couple that we got pushed into was on their honeymoon and had met because of a car crash. I told them to stick with horses on their anniversary.

The better part of the day:

Clear as mud

Today we figured out why we've had such a hard time making heads or tails of the camping permit rules around here.....

It's illegal to sleep in your vehicle in Hawaii.



Breakin' the law....



Breakin' the law....

(Mahalo for the heads up, van rental dudes.)

Leeward

On Monday we headed to the crowded, I mean, Leeward side of the island and in a weak moment, totally lost our adventurous spirit and checked into a hotel.

Elan has been trying to shake some nasty flu type bug that was a gift from someone he worked with last week.
Apparently the chickens joining him for nap time weren't very restful, and thoughts of a shower and real bed proved to be too tempting to resist.





Luckily the hotel I picked (the cheapest one on hotels.com) reminded him how good we had it with Rosie The Rivet-less, so now we're packing up and heading back toward the North Shore.

The excursion to Waikiki wasn't a total loss though, because somewhere along the way Drake spotted a "Dragon-Whale" and a "Bear-cuda"!!!!!

The rest of us were looking the wrong way and missed them both.

Windward Side

Rosie

Meet Rosie, our home sweet home for the next week or so:


A few days ago I used the word "beauty" to describe her.
I hadn't met her yet.

Maybe interesting is a better word.

She has had a long and adventurous life.
And it shows.

But we're used to having a lot of duct tape in our lives.



Luckily, this is the view from the pop top.



This is our rooster. He's an early riser.



Ewan at the wheel. I have a feeling this won't be the last Volkswagen in his life.
When he's not behind the wheel, he's spending his time marveling at his bare feet and the sand that's stuck between his chin folds.



This is the guy from the rental place replacing a seatbelt for one that works.

Big Brother is taking his job very seriously and keeping Little entertained after a looooong plane ride. (I always forget to turn the phone, sorry - 5 years of film school......)

Blastoff!!

We're on our way to the sunshine!
(or the flash flood.....whatever)



Airport picnic breakfast.