Summer Adventures

And lately we've been on quite a few - trying new things, seeing new places, and hanging out with friends.

Since we're on summer break from school right now we're trying to take advantage of our free time and actually do some of those things you always mean to do, but don't ever get around to. You know, because when you live in Hawaii you tend to just say, "Oh, I can do that next week, I'm too busy" (or lazy, but you know - whatever). Anyway, we met some friends at church that are only going to be here on Maui for about a year - basically a very extended vacation - so we teamed up to motivate each other to actually go, do, and try the fun things on the island. It's been really good and I think we can all say that we're having fun. We usually try to do 1 or 2 things a week - the beach usually being one of them, and something a little "tourist-y" for the other one.

Usually I'm up for the tourist-y activity on Tuesdays. It's during the week so it's not as crowded, the real tourists are still a little jet lagged, plus Tourist Tuesday just sounds cool. Other weeks we've visited the Maui Ocean Center (an aquarium) and we went on the Swinging Bridges hike with our niece and her hubby (read about that here). Well last week I hadn't planned anything, but our friends asked if we wanted to meet them at the beach and that they would bring their paddle boards. For those of you who are going - What? Paddle Boards? - let me explain. Paddle boards look very similar to surf boards, but they are generally longer and wider and rather than using wave power to get around, you use a.....paddle! Really it's kind of like canoeing standing up...but not. Anyway - here are some pics I found when I googled paddle boarding (so it's no one I know in the pics):

Not everyone likes it or gets it, but I've wanted to try for a while. It's hugely popular here on Maui - I don't really remember seeing so many paddle boarders on Oahu, but I'm sure there are plenty there, too. Anyway- our friends have a couple of boards and so they brought them down to the beach Tuesday morning and we all tried them out.

I loved it! Isaac and Abi were both really into it. Cameron tried it out, but says he doesn't get how it would be fun. He thinks it's pretty boring to just paddle around. Danielle braved sitting on the back of a board for a few minutes, but as she's not a confident swimmer yet, I think she was more worried about falling off than enjoying the ride. Oh, and Juliana is still terrified of the "water getting me", so she usually sticks to just swimming at the pool.

Here's a few pics of the kids trying it out:

You start out kneeling up like this before you stand - normally one person at a time.

Abi in all her surfer girl glory. Seriously - she looks the part, don't ya think? (FYI - that's Lana'i, not Maui, in the back ground - we're not that far out in the water!)

This picture is from so far away, but I had to include it because Isaac is on the board on the right - totally standing up and paddling around on his own (our friend there behind him isn't holding on, just hanging out near by in case Isaac needed help - he didn't).

Abi is on the board to the left, kneeling.

And just because we didn't get a pic of Danielle, I will take the time to upload a super short video with her in it. (Seriously like 9 sec, I think.)

And lucky us - we got to go out again on Saturday morning, too - though the water was very choppy and made for harder balancing, but it was still fun.

I'm totally all for getting our own paddle board, but even used ones are a little pricey (like $300-500) and I'd have to get a roof rack to take it down to the beach. And while I would probably get out at least a few times during the rest of the summer, once school starts I don't know how much we'd use it. I'm still thinking about it.....but it might be better to rent one a couple of times:) We'll see.

Well, we've had a few more adventures I need to blog about - seriously last week was crazy because our friends are leaving for the mainland for a couple of weeks and we were trying to get lots of fun island stuff in before they go. So, hopefully I'll be on to tell you all about them soon, but we may be out adventuring some more:)

PS - Well, at least I got my background issues figured out, but I still can't get the font size bigger - sorry if you have to squint!!