Our Rootin' Tootin' good time at Schnepf Farm

We went to "the farm". Hee haw! This was a little disappointing after spending a week in Hawaii - it was dusty, dirty, a there was no beach. But hey! We still had a great time. Lincoln enjoyed being with his Grandparents, cousins, aunt and uncle and of course us. =)

The goils. . .and Lincoln


The boyz

BulleNoseks

Lincoln took a face-plant into the dirt. Hence, the red scrape on his chin.

Lincoln calling VERY loudly for Mom!

There was a little kid who was freaking out about the goat. Lincoln stared at him for a minute and just dove in to pet "goatie". What a courageous stud!

Grandma and Grandpa Bullen were excited to help Lincoln pick out a pumpkin.

As usual Lincoln is looking anywhere but directly into the camera lens.

As usual Lincoln is looking ANYWHERE but into the camera lens.

In case you were wondering, that IS dust in the air!


On the Merry-Go-Round


We think Shawn had more fun on the Merry-Go-Round than Lincoln did.


We had a grand ol' time!

Hawaii: Day 6

Sadly, this was our final day together here in beautiful Hawaii. . .Happily, we made the most of it and had another awesome day!

We started early and went to Pearl Harbor. We took the tour which started with a short video documentary about the events leading up to the attack on December 7th 1941. Afterwards, we boarded a small Navy Ferry that took us out to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial that sits in the water directly over the sunken ship. It's a really somber, special place to be. It's pretty impressive to be at ground zero of the start of World War II and also have a view of the ship, the U.S.S. Missouri, where WWII effectively came to a close with the Japanese surrender on September 2nd 1945. Hope you enjoyed the mini history lesson. It's a really impressive place to see.

The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the sun on Waikiki beach. We played in the surf, Shawn did some more snorkling, and Monica and Emily worked on their tans. It was nice to just relax since we've kept ourselves pretty busy the past few days.

And that just about wraps things up. I (Shawn) just dropped Monica off at the airport and am getting my stuff together for work tomorrow morning and then I'll be heading home tomorrow. As we were leaving for the airport, the sky turned all pink and beautiful, a nice Aloha farewell and a great ending to our awesome trip.

We had such a great time here! We've been really blessed with Shawn finding not only a job that he really likes and is pretty good at, but also one that has given us the opportunity to do this trip. together.

Hawaii: Day 5

Polynesian Cultural Center

We think the pictures speak for themselves. We had an AWESOME experience!
We want to thank Charlene Lum from the Olomana Ward in Waimanalo, HI for hooking us up!

Hawaii: Day 4

Today was very relaxing. After Shawn got done working we kind of lounged around the hotel room, watching tv and doing the People magazine crossword, and finally decided to go do something. So we went with Emily to hike Manoa Falls. Which is really not that much of a hike but more of a muddy nature trail up through the rainforest to a high waterfall. It's super pretty and kind of amazing how different this trail was compared to Koko Head yesterday. You'll see from the pictures what we're talking about. At one point we heard some crashing off in the jungle somewhere and Monica instinctively called out that it could be a polar bear. If you've watched Lost, you'll see why this was an absolutely hilarious thing for Monica to say right at that moment. We never actually saw what made the noise so for all intensive purposes it WAS a polar bear. We heard a polar bear in Hawaii!

Unfortunately, the Hawaiian mosquitos took an extreme liking to Monica's legs. Shawn can't really blame them but they left them in an awful state and Shawn CAN blame them for that. Monica counted at least 25 bites! She's so sweet!

We wanted to get a good view of the sun setting over the ocean so we stopped by Bubbies for some more Mochi ice cream and then headed back out to the Koko Head area and walked down to some cliffs overlooking the western horizon. The water came crashing up everywhere and we had fun guessing which rock star's moms lived in the houses whose balconies overlooked the view. At one point we nearly got drenched by a wave crashing against the cliff.

The cliffs were covered in small hermit crabs camped out on the dry rock waiting for the water to come in. So, naturally, Shawn had to pick them up and play with them.

We finished off the day hanging out with Emily and her roommates Maggie and Ciello, enjoying strawberry ice cream and high brow conversation. Emily psychoanalyzed us. Apparently we both have high ambitions, deep passions, and for some reason, our relationships (represented by red Dixie cups) are disposable. We don't fully buy into it all but it was interesting nonetheless.

We're tired. Monica said so just a few moments ago. G'night!

Hawaii: Day 3

Today started out with a good omen. We woke up, got ready, and looked out our balcony window and saw this huge rainbow. We felt pretty good about that :)

Monica came to work with me and acted as my "observer" and made sure I haven't been coming to Hawaii under false pretenses. She's now satisfied that I actually do some work when I come here. Ha ha!

After dropping by the Wal-Fart for some hand sanitizer and lunch at the L&L BBQ, we headed out east to hike Koko Head. It's a pretty steep (severe understatement) hike directly up the side of an old volcano. During WWII the US heavily protected the Hanauma Bay area to prevent the Japanese from invading there and consequently built a bunker and other protection on the overlooking Koko Head.

You hike up an old railroad they used to cart supplies to the top.

After doing our best not to tumble down Koko Head, we went to Hanauma Bay to do some snorkling. We self-educated ourselves on the fine art that is snorkling. Here are the 4 main rules:

1. Stick tube in mouth and breathe continuously.
2. Don't breathe through nose.
3. Don't swallow salt water.
4. Don't drown.

Snorkling was pretty cool. We saw all kinds of tropical fish like the kinds you see in doctor's offices . . . and Finding Nemo. I think the real piece de resistence was when we saw a green sea turtle (Huna) feeding on the reef. It was really hard for us to not reach out and touch it. It's against the law to do that. I don't know how those guys on the Discovery channel always get away with it!

All that hiking, snorkling, and hanging out in the sun got us all hungry and stuff so we decided to go for something really authentically Hawaiian. Hurrah for Subway! After we polished off our subs Shawn did introduce Monica to a dessert delicacy you can only get at a little place called Bubbies. Yeah, Bubbies. It's an ice cream shop that does something called Mochi (mo-chee) Ice Cream. It's ice cream wrapped in different flavored chewy rice shells. Yeah, it sounds totally weird and maybe not that good but this is what Monica had to say about this stuff: "We'll get some EVERY day we're here Shawn!" If our description didn't put a good enough picture in your mind, go check them out at here. Yay!

Guava Mochi ice cream and the rest of Monica's strawberry cheesecake waffle cone.

As if the two ice cream cones and bowl of mochi ice cream wasn't enough, Monica went to town on the giant ice cream cone displayed in front of the shop.

Tonight's final activity was Shawn and Monica going to the movies with Emily. We saw Eagle Eye. Call it low expectations, severe exhaustion, or maybe a little bit of a Shia LeBoeuf crush (Monica's crush, not Shawn's) but we totally enjoyed this movie!

Mahalo and Aloha!