Hikes, T-Ball, Paddleboarding, Sunsets, Cougar Cub Challenge and St. Patricks Day

Well this happened!  Rylan received an electric razor for Christmas and I captured a picture of him using it for the first time with Scott near by to offer advice.  Our little boy is going up.  He only needs to shave about once a month, but when he does he has a manly razor to use. 

 We thought our kids were ready for a longer hike so we took them on one of our favorite ridge hikes, Kuliouou.  It's a 4.5 mile trek through the Hawaiian forest and then up along the ridge. The views at the top cannot be beat.

Our kids did fabulous!  We had only expected to go about half way, we packed a lunch and stopped for about 30 minutes and we asked them if they wanted to go back or hike more to see the pretty view on top.  They all wanted to finish the hike.

Our family got a Go-Pro camera for Christmas so we could better capture our water activities. We went to Kailua Bay to paddleboard. Madelyn is quite the paddler, she rarely gets tired and we love to have girl chats on the board away from our boys.

Ian did another season of t-ball, this time he got to play with his good friend Jackson.  They were on opposing teams but they got to play against each other every game.  Ian loves t-ball and he has learned to hit the ball without the tee and can hit it pretty far!

We took the kids to Lulumahu Falls. Scott and I had done this hike without kids and we thought that the kids would enjoy climbing rocks and playing in the waterfall.  Apparently everyone else on Oahu thought the same thing, because it was crowded, but still fun.

We had some crazy rain in January and February.  Jake and his friend Preston came down for a weekend and we were all cooped up inside because we couldn't go hiking or snorkeling like we had planned. Even our pool was being repaired and was empty! Finally Madelyn announced that she was just going to go out and play in the rain, so everyone joined her.

We found a sunset watching spot near us, since we live on the east side they are hard to find but there is a spot where the land sticks out and you can look over to the westside.  We love lazy evenings where we can just sit and watch our kids play.

I volunteered to help at Maddy and Ian's elementary school for their Cougar Cub Challenge.   They asked for monetary pledges for their school and they ran laps earning silly band for every lap. Madelyn is quite the competitor and had been preparing for this for weeks.  She really wanted to run more laps then a couple of her boy racing rivals at school.  While the other kids were dancing and doing Zumba with an instructor before the race she was stretching and doing high knees to get herself warmed up.  I was one of about 10 parents that were handing out the silly bands, it got pretty crazy. 

Madelyn and Ian were so cute with their little friends.

Towards the end I think she had forgotten she was trying to beat those boys, and she just ran along side Ian.  I even caught them holding hands.

And then there is this kid who dressed up for St. Patricks day.  I was waiting for him in the car wondering what was taking so long when he came out like this.  I just had to take a picture! He even had green knee high socks! I love that he doesn't care quite yet what others think of him and he is just himself.