ALOHA!

we're leavin on a jet plane. north shore of oahu here we come! before we take off though we thought we'd drop the mother of all blog posts on you to keep you busy while we're away.
those with weak constitutions should bail out right now. this is a big one.
(insert your "that's what she said" here.)
seriously, here's a crud-load of photos, most of which were taken by kim, from our previous hawaii trips. part of kim's pre-hawaii-trip preparation includes having one of our cameras surgically attached to her hand. it's in her hand 24-7 as soon as our feet hit island soil. i get my fair share of shots there too, but she's a straight up island paparazzo.
if you're still reading that means you're down for a heaping helping of hawaii.
fyi: this post is best viewed while at work. take a little virtual vacation right from the confines of your cube farm. if your boss catches you, just tell 'em you're doing a little retirement planning and invite 'em to join in your research.

this is one of kim's personal favorites of rain and i.

what's in that hole?

humuhumunukunukuapuaa!
(pronounced HOO-moo-HOO-moo-NOO-koo-NOO-koo-AH-poo-AH-ah)
we saw little humu trapped in this tide pool on the first day of our last trip. kim thought that he was going to be trapped forever in there and that the tide would never come back up high enough to set him free, so we made a vow that every day for the rest of our trip we would drive to the local market and buy a little squid and go back to the hole to feed little humu. we faithfully went back everyday and made sure humu was taken care of. fyi: humu LOVED squid. about the 5th day some pretty big waves rolled in and when we were able to see the humu hole again he was gone. be free little buddy!

april was 13 years old when she set up and took this shot of rain. 13!

while april does take photos with us, this is her true passion. she painted it as a mother's day gift for kim.

some of our friends might remember this next set. it was just before the tv show LOST started. we pulled the ultimate prank and told everyone our plane crashed on hawaii and these were the pictures of it. of course it helped that the show hadn't started yet and nobody knew we were not flying on american airlines (or oceanic). how our cameras and computer survived the long swim to shore is still a mystery.
of course we came clean and let everyone know they were actually pictures from the super secret set of a new series called LOST. little did we know the awesomeness this set waas about to bring to us all.
all pranks aside, i pray this never really happens to us, or anyone for that matter.

this was supposed to be rain's scared face.

remember that movie "open water?" the water right here was actually only about 2 feet deep. we were on a sandbar in the middle of kaneohe bay. interesting side story here. i had to drive us all in a small boat for about 45 minutes to get to this sandbar. it must have slipped my mind, but somehow i failed to mention to kim and the girls that kaneohe bay is a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks. needless to say, they were less than happy when they discovered that fact after we got home while watching shark week on the discovery channel.

rain and noah were pretty stoked when they got to meet andy irons during the sunset beach leg of the triple crown.

sunset was goin off that day.

andy shreds.

mick fanning and ocky helped parko to the winner's stand. parko won at sunset, but jordy ended up taking the crown.

i so had a better spot in the lineup than the official photographer for the event. here's his shot.
they should have hired me.

hatin'!

groms

here's another kim gem. she really does get some cool people shots while i'm out surfing.

THE bridge

and now for the best concert of all time! U2 with pearl jam and that billy kid from green day at, wait for it, aloha stadium. it just doesn't get any better than that. oh wait, yes it does. we were up front on the floor next to the stage in the vip section. pardon the name dropping, but this is one time i have to do it. as we're watching U2 on stage i take a quick look around. to my right i see kid rock (hammered drunk). standing right next to me is jack johnson. to my left i see laird hamilton and his beautiful wife gabriella reese. standing next to them is cindy crawford. then jeremy piven comes walking by, and if all that wasn't enough to make us feel like we had snuck into some place we weren't supposed to be, we met Jorge Garcia (hurley) and Terry O'Quinn (locke) from LOST. (both of them were cool enough to stop for a quick photo).
we've been to a lot of U2 concerts, but this has to be my favorite.
there's more pictures of the celebs in the slideshow.

here's rain on my shoulders. that guy to the left of us is super cool jack johnson.

this is one of my favorites of rain. we had this pristine beach all to ourselves. so awesome!

look at the cute little baby pineapple. awwww.
i almost got beat up taking this shot. a truck load of local farmers drove by and thought i was swiping pineapple from the field. luckily, a quick wave of my canon was all it took to save my bacon.

moving on.

all it took to get this shot was a little ice cream bribe.

i still laugh every time i see this shot of mine. this was toward the end of the day and noah was getting a little tired of modeling. he dropped to his knees in hopes that God would tell him when the session would end.
i instantly thought of the end scene of platoon.
photo gold.

the girls with their uncle mark and noah hiding from the galloping galamimus behind the log from jurassic park.

rain's first time paddling out.

we had fun trying to teach rain how to balance on the board.

rain's first wave. (the beginning of stoke)

no trip to north shore is complete without a stop for some shave ice. yummo!

april was not down with my display of bubble gum wizardry.

here's rain sizing up her first cliff dive attempt.

yep. she went.

meet spike. he's april's travel buddy. from the looks of him, april's been to a lot of rough places.

apparently the awesome weather in hawaii is to much for santas reindeer (and april).

shave ice take 2.

yikes!

ariel?

the sea was angry that day my friends. cluster bomb!

snack time!

footy prints

stick wars!

wolverines!!

hitting a trail through the rain forest.

lots of green and lots of wet.

last time we went in december was a bit of an educational vacation.

we took the kids to the pearl harbor memorial on December 7th.

we got to talk with some of the survivors and hear their first-hand accounts of that terrible day in 1941. we got rain a re-printed replica copy of the newspaper from 1941 that broke the story of the attack and she had some of the survivors sign their autographs on it after hearing their memories.

another awesome beach that we had all to ourselves. not another footprint in sight.

lava! this place smelled like a road flare factory from all the sulfur, but it was such a rad spot to shoot.

kim shot this out the window as i was driving up near waimea bay.

the raddest tide pool ever!

this was just before the sun went down over pali. rain said it was God's nightlight.

aloha oi, until we meet again.