Tide pooling 2014

Tide pooling was a can't miss activity with Richard.  I wish that we could have done more of it.  Sure it is fun for the rest of us, but when you tide pool with Richard you are sure to see something awesome.

Can't be getting sunburns.  We heckled Richard and Ben plenty while taking this picture.  It was so good to see Ben and spend some quality time with him.  I adore his brother and sister and so it was no surprise that I liked spending time with him too.  

This was the strangest, fastest moving starfish I have ever seen.  Looks like it came out of the movie Aliens.  Tyler says that when they were snorkeling later he moved a rock and found two of these about a foot across!

Tyler found this guy and showed us.  "I found a cone snail!"  Richard looks in the net and says, "Good identification Tyler!"  Cone snails are poisonous and so you can't touch them.  This guy was trying to sting the net and it made me nervous.  About 10 minutes later I found something I thought looked interesting.  "Hey what is this? Oh, it's a rock." Tyler:  "Good identification!"

A sea cucumber that has spit its gross white stuff out and an urchin

Kids love to pull Richard over and show him things that they have found and they love to see what he has.  He is always patient and tells them facts, lets them touch it if it is appropriate, he is a good teacher.

Hermit crab

This is a box crab.  They look just like rocks!  Richard caught this one.  It was my goal to catch one as well.

Look at how weird he looks all opened up ready to fight

After seeing the box crab Tyler and I went to looking with much more purpose.  We found this little black rock crab and spent like 5 minutes catching him.

We were so proud we turned to Richard to show him

"Nice job!"  He says without a hint of irony as he has 3 box crabs in one hand and is going for a fourth.  It was like a scene from a movie.  The crabs were perfectly content just sitting in his hand.  When Tyler tried to hold one it got away.  Just add crab whisperer to Richard's many talents.

Tyler caught this guy but he (the crab) also looks kind of dumb.  

Tyler tried and tried to net a fish so I had to catch this Sculpin just to show him I could.  And that is Richard's box crab next to him.  

I finally got my box crab!

The Honolulu Zoo 2014

Richard volunteers at the Honolulu Zoo every Sunday in the reptile house.  So most of what I have picture wise are reptiles.  We walked to the zoo from our hotel in Waikiki (only about a 15 minute walk).  On our way we saw this genius idea:  rent space in an alleyway for your board for people who don't have cars with racks on them so your board is already at the beach when you want it!  Smart.

And more Banyan trees.  They are just so darn pretty.  I can't help myself. 

This guy was big, at least two feet across his shell.  

This guy down below is "Tank".  I can't remember what kind of lizard he is but if you don't believe that reptiles have personalities you should meet this guy.  He was a macho kind of guy, likes to strut his stuff and boss people around.  

As we left the reptile house I spotted Richard.....walking a lizard.  Not something you see everyday. 

This guy's name is Chopper and he is a Savanna monitor.  He was super cool as well.  Very sharp claws although you wouldn't know it looking at Richard.  I think he may be impervious to pain inflicted by animals, he is always too calm when being bitten/scratched/etc.  

Look at that huge tongue!

And here is Tank getting walked.  Apparently he likes to pick on Chopper (macho tough guy I tell you).  One of the great things about Richard volunteering and us visiting is that he can tell us about some of the animals and their habits/stories.  See the tortoise in the area on the left?  Well there are about 4 tortoises in there and one of them is George.  George is a big jerk and tries to flip the other tortoises.  When he fails he proceeds to hump them.  Eventually all the other tortoises get fed up and flip him over.  If he gets flipped 2 times in one day he gets put in time out.  It was 10:30 am and he was already in time out.  What a jerk. 

One thing I found surprising were all of the cacti growing in Hawaii.  They grow all over in the drier wild bits and the zoo had this beautiful display of them.  

Here is Richard looking so happy!  Is anyone else this happy to do work for free in the heat?

We were sure to not miss the feeding of Bounce, the Ball Python.  Richard feeds him every Sunday.  

After Bounce grabs the mouse, Richard gives it a little shake like it is alive and Bounce gets really excited.  Abby says that makes her so happy that Richard goes beyond just feeding the snake and enriches his life by giving him the thrill of the kill.  I happen to agree.

This is just a fun statue and I thought about how Josh would insist on having a picture with it.  I like it because it looks like it is half skeleton.  

This is the frog Richard found in the reptile house.  He FOUND it, then gently CAUGHT it to relocate it to a more appropriate location.  Found it. Some times I wonder how much more is around me and I don't notice it. I am telling you, he has super powers. 

Ko-Olina 2014

We took the shortest plane ride ever to get to Oahu.  Richard was taking a later flight and Abby was working but she was able to pick us up and drop us off at Ko'Olina until Richard got in.  After seeing so much untamed wild of Maui, our first look at an Oahu beach seemed disturbingly manicured.  Luckily, not all the beaches are this manicured and once you get used to it, this beach does bring a nice almost Stepford wife-ish vibe.  After all, how can you  not like perfection?  These beaches are actually four man-made lagoons next to a handful of huge resorts.  The nice thing (well one of the many) about Hawaii is that all beaches are public.  This means that none of the beaches get very crowded/noisy/polluted and the resorts/hotels near beaches feel the need to keep them nice but understand that everyone is invited.  

This is the Disney resort next to the lagoon we were swimming in.  Shhh!  We took a little dip in their pool, only a few minutes.  They really know how to do it.  Everything was beautiful and they had music from all of their ocean movies playing as well as general ocean sound effects.  They pump in ocean water and get it to the most perfect temperature.  They had a pirate ship splash pool and a lazy river as well as infinity pools and even a pool with a reef and real tropical fish kids can snorkel in.  Genius.  If we bring Josh, that would be the place to stay.   

At another one of the resorts they have an outdoor lounge area sandwiched between the pool and a shark pool with 4-5 foot long hammerhead and grey reef sharks.  Many places in the pool were just shallow enough to require the sharks to let their dorsal fins come out of the water which was pretty cool but probably kind of annoying for the sharks.  

This was a "crowded" beach on Oahu.  Not too bad, especially considering that it was just outside of the Disney resort.  A high reef keeps most of the large wildlife out of the lagoon, it was shallow enough and small enough to warm the water well, and they constructed breakers to keep the worst of the waves out so it was just about as safe and comfortable as you can get swimming in the ocean.