Camping summer 2009

Here are some pictures of us camping at Bellows Air Force Base. My great friends, Amanda and Josh, allowed us to come to their ward camp out.
It lasted for 5 days. What ward camps out for 5 days? We were so lucky. Everyone helped us on our first family camp out. Josh and Amanda cooked the best food. The ward rented this slip and slid that the kids had a blast on. Just imagine camping with no mosquitoes, no dirt, no wet morning dew. That's camping in Hawaii. The kids did not want to come home. On the last night the ward buried meat and taro and other weird things I had never eaten. There was a dance and a karaoke night. Fun, fun, fun.

This is our Home School PE class at the beach playing tug of War. It was a very hot day. Our PE class meets every Tuesday morning at the gym or field. With PE, swim team, sports camps, and just playing outside the kids get tons of exercise.

Aloha. Alex and his friend Carter went to the beach to play while I waited for the other 3 kids to finish swim team.

Mongoose

The boys in the neighborhood found a cage with a trapped mongoose in it. He was a viscous little thing ,but starving to death. We fed it some canned beef from our food storage. We guess it was pest controls cage but it was fun for the boys to check it out for a while up close.

Sunday afternoon. We went out to our neighbors' daughters graduation party. The view was amazing. I took a few family pictures. I'm always torn about Hawaii. I love it for the beauty and tranquility. But, at the same time I feel not at home. I feel antsy like I'm counting down the days to when my vacation is over. Not really wanting it to be over, but anxious to get back to life. I don't know why I have never been able to just feel like I live here. We are most likely moving next year this time. I am sad to say goodbye and go back and forth about really leaving or not. One thing you can't beat in Hawaii is good pictures to make everyone think your crazy for ever leaving. They are deceiving. Maybe I should start taking pictures of the parts of Hawaii that are never recorded.

Amelia's first swim meet. She has been on the swim team for 6 months and swam in 3 events at the meet. She was so confident and did everything correctly. Gwen and George are also on the swim team, but they did not swim at the meet.