Latest pictures of the grandkids.......

I stole some pictures taken around Christmas of the grandkids that I loved and wanted to share..

First is Micah up in a tree.......I think that Daddy must have helped him get up there.
This is Dean and Kiya on Christmas morning.......
Here is the crew Caiden, Kiya, Dean and Micah         Where's Alex?
Kiya and Caiden opening presents...
Spiderman..... It doesn't get any better!
Kiya at the beach.....

Last stop in Hawaii

Well I got the first three pictures out of order.....Sorry

This was a school of fish that we saw on our way down to the reef.
Here is Jim getting into the submarine.....
On our last stop we decided to take a submarine tour.  It was very exciting!!!!  The best of the trip.   It was a real submarine and we went down to a depth of 130 feet.  It kind of looked like the submarines at Disneyland and we each had our own porthole for viewing the depths.
This was at about 100 feet down we saw lots of fish, coral and ocean bottom not very pretty.
Here is a shark on the reef. This was soooo much fun to truly see under the ocean.
This is a Morey Eel.   We also saw some manta rays but I couldn't get a picture.
Last a sunken ship...........
Maui was a wonderful day. We have been here before so after the submarine excursion we went into LaHeina and had some lunch and then went shopping.  We found all the grandkids matching outfits and relaxed on the beach remembering last time we were here. 

Our Third Stop

Our third stop was a more rural island.  We opted for a day of off-roading.   It wasn't quite what we expected. But we did have a relaxing day.  

This is a gorgeous view from the top of an old volcanic crater.



In the afternoon we ended up at the beach as usual.  It was  a gorgeous beach.

Our Second Stop

We spent the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  It was a beautiful place.

It was set up like a tropical theme park.  The grounds were lush and tropical.  Each of the different sections were one of the eight cultures that make up polynesia.  There were historical displays of each culture, such as types of huts they lived in and music and dancing etc... 



These pictures display each of the tribes ceremonial costumes and their style of dancing.  This was Samoa.
This tribe had face painting and did a tribal war dance.
The different tribes were interesting and we learned  alot.



Last but not least we saw demonstrations in building fires and how to climb trees to get coconuts........Hmmmmm  Think I'd be ready for Survivor?

Hawaii at Christmas

First I want to let you that the first two days of our cruise weren't as wonderful and relaxing as the rest.  In fact the ocean was soooo rough ( 18-20 foot swells) that I spent Christmas in bed.  I didn't even get up to go eat.  Then the ocean calmed down and we had a wonderful time.

This is our first stop. It was gorgeous! We took a tour of some of the island and learned the history.
This is one of the interesting trees that live in Hawaii they spread for hundreds of feet. On the beach you can see our ship in the background.

We bought some colorful ponchos to keep dry.  In this picture we were getting ready to go down into a lava tube.  It was interesting we were walking through water and the lava tube was about 12 feet high and many miles long under the ground.  Good thing we took flashlights.
As always Hawaii is full of streams and waterfalls.  A truly tropical paradise!

Our BIG storm!

We came home to quite the storm just before Christmas! It was truly beautiful but Jim had to work soooooo hard shoveling snow so that we could get to the house!

It doesn't get any more beautiful, new white fluffy snow......