Feed on
Posts
Comments

Bon Dia!

Rainbow over Bonaire.

Which means “Good Day” in the local language of Bonaire (Papiamentu). It’s quite the mish-mosh of a language – Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French with a hint of African and some Indian tribe influences.

It was a great vacation! My parents convinced Derek and I to update our Scuba certification for the trip, and what a great call that was. It was awesome! The trip was planned through the dive shop my parents got certified at (www.gobedivers.com), so there was a large group from Colorado that all went together….which was really nice since that meant we got the boat to ourselves all week! Everyone was great! Peter from the dive shop did our final skills update with us upon our arrival in Bonaire. He was a very calming presence, which was great since I have to admit that I was a tad nervous that first time out after such a long time. Derek took right to it as you can see from his pose below. πŸ˜‰

Couple shot! Mission Impossible!

The resort we stayed at had a terrific kid program in the mornings and then Derek and I would hop on the boat and get in a couple of dives with the rest of the group until we needed to pick them up. The kids got to do all kinds of cool stuff. Snorkeling, playing in the pool, a trip to the Donkey sanctuary (yes, I said donkey) and for 2 of the days Theresa actually got to try out scuba diving!! She took right to it. Of course, at her age she stayed between 10-15 feet. She got all of the hand signals down and all of the important safety skills including clearing her mask under water and buddy breathing. Afterwards, she was better at naming all of the different types of fish and eels than we were!

In the afternoons, we took the kids on the boat with us and we took turns snorkeling with them. We saw all kinds of cool stuff – seahorses, turtles, lots of eels, tons of fish (of course), and some amazing reefs. One of the highlights was actually on our last day, where Derek and I got to see an octopus out in the open changing colors as it landed on various surfaces. Wow – was that cool! Theresa actually saw this same octopus when she was diving with her instructor. This particular octopus had it’s den not to far off the pier from where we were staying. πŸ™‚

Of course, we couldn’t spend the whole week diving. We took the opportunity to check out the island and do a little off-roading in the Slagbaai National Park there. The only roads in the park are dirt and it was very interesting in our styling Mitsubishi “van” (more like a small bus). First stop “Playa Chikitu” where the sand felt like fine sugar.

Theresa on the beach at Playa Chikitu

There were a TON of lizards running around everywhere, including some huge iguanas and some that thought they were brave enough to try to join our picnic lunch at another stop, “Boka Slagbaai”, where we spent the afternoon snorkeling and checking out the flamingos hanging out in a large pond on the other side of the road.

We found lots of great places to eat. It was interesting with the both the heavy Dutch and South American influences in the food. We wore out the kids so much during the day, James had a hard time actually making it to the end of the dinners…and if you know James, you also know it takes a whole lot to wear this kid out! πŸ™‚ We had to carry him out of a few places!

img_0593.JPG

As with any vacation like this, it seems to fly by way too fast. Ahhhhhh….well….I guess we’ll just have to find an excuse to go back. πŸ™‚ If you would like to see more photos from our trip, Derek has actually uploaded an album onto our site. He also included some fun little video clips he took during the trip: www.chickles.net/trips/2008_bonaire/

Last evening in Bonaire on the dock.

Go Sharks!

The kids joined the San Jose Sharks Kid’s Club this year and as part of being a member they were invited to special ice skating time with the team mascot – Sharkie!

img_0254.JPG

Derek and I were their “guests” for the day, so we all got to join in. They limited the number of RSVPs, so it was actually not very crowded – far less than when we go for normal free skate.

img_0244.JPG img_0259.JPG

Good way to kick of playoff season! Go Sharks!

img_0262.JPG

James is 6 years old!

Wow! Hard to believe our youngest is 6 years old already. James even has the first missing tooth to prove how old he is.

img_0218.JPG

We had a house full of boys to celebrate the occasion. All I can say is that at least the weather was awesome so we could keep them all outside! πŸ™‚ It was a fun birthday party with the theme centered around the cake that James wanted this year – “A Volcano cake! That works!”

To kick things off as everyone arrived, we let the boys make cave drawings in the entry way. They thought that was pretty cool getting to draw on the wall.

img_0182.JPG
Time to burn off some energy! Theresa and Derek hid 84 little plastic dinosaurs around the entire back yard for a big dinosaur hunt. James’ friend, Ryan, found the special one for a prize!

img_0187.JPG

img_0193.JPG

Then I found a idea for “Hatch the Dinosaurs”. We blew up a ton of balloons and sneaked a little dinosaurs into two of them. The 2 boys to pop the balloons with the dinosaur got a prize. I can’t begin to imagine what the neighbors were thinking with all of that LOUD popping! As you can see, the boys thought this was awesome! πŸ™‚

img_0196.JPG

After eating a bunch of pizza, it was time for the big cake moment! I found a sound bite on the internet of a volcano erupting that we started playing on the surround sound to get their attention. Then we poured in the water over the dry ice in the thermos in the center of the cake and let the eruption begin!! It was pretty cool. (Theresa even helped me decorate it!!)

img_0200.JPG

Everyone wanted a piece with lava on it!! (Marshmellow creme – yummy!) …and some of the chocolate rocks I used to write “Happy Birthday James” and of course all of the lava rock (Oreos!). It was a complete sugar fest!Β  Good time to send everyone home.Β  πŸ™‚

img_0202.JPG

Camping in February?

Yep – we did it! The kids had President’s Day off and the forecast for the weekend was 69-70 degrees, so we packed up the camping gear and headed down to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Actually a lot of people had the same idea, but luckily we were able to get an awesome open spot right by the river.

Putting up the Tent Campsite

After setting up camp, we went on a 4 mile hike in the park. The kids found this awesome set of fallen trees, that looked like a playground (the lizards like hanging on them too!).

Straight faces by the tree. Time for silly faces…. img_0118.JPG img_0120.JPG

At the end of the hike was Pfeiffer Falls. It hadn’t rained in a little while, so they weren’t huge but still very pretty. The falls were tucked back in through a trail of giant redwoods.

img_0132.JPG Of course, this was a good time for a cookie break before heading back to camp!

Even though it was nice and warm during the day, it definitely cooled off when the sun went down. We were ready to hover by the fire, eat some dinner and then just had to finish it off with some yummy peach-blueberry cobbler cooked on the fire – Yummmm!

img_0138.JPG

On that Sunday we decided to head further south. We stopped at another falls which I guess it the only falls in California that empty right out onto the beach. We then found a little picnic stop next to a beach where the kids couldn’t resist putting their feet into the water. Derek and I just watched – brrrrrrrr!

img_0142.JPG img_0146.JPG

After getting back to camp, the kids wanted to explore down along the river by our campsite. The kids found this great sitting tree on this little island in the river that was easily accessible. It was super comfortable!

img_0156.JPG

On the way back home, we stopped at one of our favorite state parks – Point Lobos. It’s a great place to hike, walk on really neat rock formations and find all kinds of cool critters in the tide pools. There were a lot of good sized crabs walking about on the rocks that day and we even got really lucky in seeing a family of grey whales migrating south! At first we could only see a few spouts, but then they actually started diving so we could see their tails as they headed down – very neat!

img_0173.JPG img_0175.JPG

We’re looking really good at this point too after a couple of days of camping. Time to hurry home and take a nice long shower. πŸ™‚

Elephant Seals

We got up early Sunday morning and decided to make it a bit of travel/adventure day. We set out early and went to Ano Nuevo State Park where we got to see a bunch of Elephant Seals on a guided tour. Normally you have to have reservations several months in advance, but we showed up early and took some no-shows spot. We set off…And we’re off to Ano Nuevo

And got up fairly close to a large group of them…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bohqsinxcnE[/youtube]

After that we had a good lunch (including sandwiches with cheetos on them), and went down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where clearly the best part for James was the sunfish…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAhKsafdySA[/youtube]

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »