Father Daughter Campout

Sonya and I went to a Father/Daughter campout to Champoeg State Park with a few other dad's in the ward.  Despite the Father's not actually being in any of these photos, we were there!

Leaping Lamb Farm Stay

A few weeks back we did a Leaping Lamb Farm Stay with our friends the Barkers.  It involved staying in a cabin for the weekend and helping out with farm chores every morning/evening.

You could tell Sonya enjoyed the fresh air and free run of the farm.

Here Sonya is collecting eggs and feed the sheep with Sydney.

These little bummer lambs needed to be bottle fed.  Sonya was scared because the nipple kept falling off.  I kept thinking of the poor mothers who were nursing babies capable of ripping nipples off.

I think everyone fell in love with farm life.  Here Sonya and Talmage are gambling with the lambs.

This is Cam with hay fever.  He loves hay.

I fell in live with #24, my beloved baby sheep.  (It's a perfect name, think Seven of Nine, R2-D2, or Agent 707.

Talmage fell in love with this nice and willing chicken. We observed an unconventional romance between this goose and tom turkey. The goose kept this guy on a pedestal and protected him from other feathered male farm competitors. 

This less comely Tom Turkey looked for love wherever he could find it.  He did the mating dance repeatedly for Sonya and was swiftly rejected.  We think it was Sonya's hair that was so enticing.  She kept screaming, "I'm not a beautiful turkey .... I'm not a beautiful turkey!"

Overall it was a great weekend with lots of new animal friendships born.

Memorial Day 2010

For the third time in 4 years, we went camping over Memorial Day weekend with friends.

This tradition started in 2007 during Karren's morning sickness with Sonya. We went with the Barkers to Cape Lookout State Park.

In 2008, we camped with the Barkers and Bowdens at Silver Falls State Park.

In 2009, the Barkers were on sabbatical and we decided not to go for some reason.

This year, we camped with the Barkers and Evertons at the Valley of the Rogue State Park. This campground was fun, but really loud due to its proximity to I-5. I don't think we will go back.

We embarked on our 4 hour drive down to Southern Oregon and met the Barkers in Grants Pass for a scenic jetboat excursion of Hellgate Canyon. It was a lot of fun and we saw quite a few birds, but the best part was seeing Sonya's reaction on the boat. The following picture and video says it all:





After the fun on the boat, we bought groceries for our meal. Each family prepared a meal for the rest of the camp and we had Sunday breakfast (Dutch oven stuffed banana French toast ... mmmm). The weather was a welcome respite from the constant rain we've been having. Sunny!

Sunday was a restful day. Cameron went with the Everton family to see Crater Lake (or what little of it was open) and Karren stayed behind to hike.

The 5 kids all had fun (even Lucas who is crying in the photo).


As always, the best part of the trip was the company. We feel that we know the Evertons and Barkers even better now.

On Monday, we broke camp and came home. In the evening, our family went to visit Miah's grave. It was sentimental for the entire family. Sonya put some flowers from our garden on Miah's grave. We miss her dearly and hope she is doing a lot of good in heaven.

On Thursday we said goodbye to Hawaii. We said goodbye to the cool trees and warm rain drops...

We said goodbye to our new friends and showed them a few 'mainland' tricks (here Sonya demonstrates the art of olive fingers)...

We said goodbye to the sky, and grass, and ocean...

and we saluted our little paradise with one last dance.

goodbye Hawaii...until we meet again:-)

Wednesday, we took a chartered boat over to the small island crater of Molokini. Is was a fantastic fish sanctuary and snorkel haven.


We then boated over to an open water area with large numbers of green sea turtles. During our one hour in this location, dozens of little turtles bobbed to the surface to get a breath. We didn't do much snorkeling here...it was more fun watching Sonya swim. "I'm kicking in ocean!", she screamed. Everyone thought she was soooo cute!

The last part of our trip was a little whale watching tour. It was REALLY cool! We saw lots of Mommy/ baby combos with 'an escort' (yep, a male whale who protects the mommy and baby in the hopes that the Mommy will reward him with a smooch or two at the end of their trip. Oh, and he's almost never the baby's daddy. Monogamy is an unpracticed art in whale culture.)
We didn't get any good photos of the whales because we were too busy watching. We saw a 2 minute tale slapping display, lots of breaching, and countless blow hole thingys. Sonya kept pointing them out to us to make sure we didn't miss anything....

Saturday and Sunday were kicked-back days of just staying local and mingling. This photo is of Sonya on the Keiki Express, a homemade tractor train made for the school fair fundraiser in Hana. Sonya LOVES trains, and rode this contentedly around the school grounds countless times. Cam and I did our part in support by purchasing kid made chili dogs (a bowl of rice with a hotdog and chili on top) and dancing to the live music (like yodeling harmonica player singing about broken down trucks on the windey Hana road). We had a great time, and people are actually starting to recognize us as those 'vacationers who just won't leave.' I'm trying to talk Cam into moving here after all of our kids are born (there's no way I'm having a baby at home like most of the people around here! I want drugs, doctors, and doting nurses!). Anyway, Cam would make a great school teacher, and Hana has NO BAKERY at all. I could set up a road-side shop and make a killing off tourists.

Sunday was a church day. After services, we were invited over to dine with a family of visitors to Hana. It was a huge house overlooking the ocean, and the food was fantastic. Sonya ran around playing with kids, while Cam and I enjoyed a private concert with Peter Breinholt (a very well known folk artist, apparently). It was soooooo pretty. He has a whole collection of his music on line if you want to take a look: http://www.peterbreinholt.com/

On a separate note, we took this beautiful picture. It is either a photo of the surface of Mars taken at the Volcano astrological observatory, or it's my peeling skin from my back and shoulder sunburn. Your choice...

Friday, we explored Wai'anapanapa (did you know the Hawaiin language only uses 7 consonants) State Park. We hiked a fabulous trail along the coast. The area is known for it's black sand beaches from recent lava flow, blow holes, and the fresh water caves like in this picture.




After all this prettiness, Sonya was actually most excited about some outside showers she found by the bathroom. She played in these for an hour or so, giggling like crazy. Simple pleasures, I guess.

Wednesday, we woke up at 4 am to catch sunrise on Haleakala, the tall mountain in the center of Maui. It was a two a half hour drive from Hana, so we had to leave early. When we reached the top, a huge FREEZING winter storm was blasting and we could barely see a rock infront of us, let alone the sunrise. After a quick stop, we made it a beach day. Sonya was happy to play in the water again, and Suzi and I did some snorkeling. Finally, we played at a fun little luau. Sonya was HILARIOUS dancing with the girls! I have a cute video to show, but our internet connection is far to slow to download. I'll send it out later:-)

Thursday, we took Sonya to the aquarium to see the fishies up close. She made friends with a particularly curious crab and loved touching all the see stars. We stayed so long that we actually got kicked out at closing time!

We wrapped up the evening with a sunset stroll on the beach by the hotel at which I used to work. Soooo purdy!

Haleakala National Park

Tuesday, we hiked to Waimoku Falls in Haleakala National Park. It was a gorgeous sunny day. We started out with Sonya in Daddy's backpack but she started screaming "my walk!" three minutes in. She proceeded to walk a significant portion of the 4 mile hike while holding dad's hand. Passers by were VERY impressed by her stamina.

Along the way, there were tons of hidden caves, alien-looking trees, and smaller waterfalls. You can't see it in this picture, but behind Cam and Sonya, there is a huge load waterfall gushing out of a lava tube and into an underground cave.

Half way through, the hike morphed into a wild bamboo forest. It swayed as a single entity in the wind (a storm was beginning to form by that time...the rain forest we're staying in has huge storms for a couple moments, then goes back to sunshine). Just look at Sonya, still happily hiking the trail.

Here's me, Sonya, and Suzi at the falls. They had to have been well over 120 feet high. There was no where else to go after this point...we were surrounded by cliffs.

Here's Cam and Sonya in the bottom left corner to give you an impression of the view. This was one of the Wilde Family's favorite hikes ever! Pretty, pretty.

oops!

So, did you know that large amounts (not minimal spraying) of sunscreen can actually protect you from unbearable pain and suffering? Yep, Sonya (who was doused in said product) has been the only one over the past 3 days who hasn't been groaning under the blistered purple skin of a sun worshiper. Needless to say, we've been taking it easy...snail hunting in our yard, perusing the local art galleries, and complaining.

Our back yard:-)

Last night we were invited over to a "small" family home evening with some Hawaiins. The family consisted of only 45 or so kids, aunts, uncles and grandparents. It was AWESOME...by far our favorite outing on the island so far. We ate venison shot and killed by one of the sons that week. We were also laughed at as we attempted to choke down some Poi (a sour purple root vegetable with the texture of horse glue. MMMMM. Sonya, of course, kissed and hugged every child 14 times, as if her week long pergatory of 'playing with grown-ups' was finally over! We were invited to play with our new friends next Sunday and Monday also.

Saturday was our 'Beach Bumming' day...it was sunny and fabulous. We made many attempts at boogie boarding. I took one hard spill that folded me into a backward pretzel and filled my suit with about 12 lbs. of sand. Sonya made tons of friends, played in the sand, and was fearless in the water.


Next we went caving in a lava tube. Sonya love the stalagtites and didn't seem to be scared of the dark at all.


At the end of the day, we stopped by a road side hut for some fresh ice cream. Mmmmm...Sonya had obviously missed this diet staple.