Fun Day in Hilo

Today was an awesome day! Let me set the stage by telling you how it started. At approximately 7:00 a.m. I am woken up by Aidan talking in his crib. I decide to go to the bathroom before I go get him and the bathroom is right next to his room so I'm sure he heard me go in. Anyway, yesterday he had pooped in the potty and we made a big deal about it. So while I'm in the bathroom I hear him sort of chanting "Poop in potty, poop in potty, poop in potty" then "I did it! I did it! Yeah!!!" It was hilarious!

Later in the morning we headed to Walmart where we picked up a couple of snorkeling masks for the kids. We went to Onekahakaha beach park which is the other beach we usually go to besides Coconut Island. We swam for about and hour and half and the kids had a blast learning to use the new masks. Then Matt wanted to go to a different beach down the road a bit so we headed to Richardson Beach State Park. It runs along the edge of the water and most of it is lava rock but there were small areas where it was black sand and you could wade in. Jackson snorkeled for about 45 minutes and was in heaven. He kept coming in to tell me the cool things he saw. He was sure he saw a humahumanukanukaapuaa which is the state fish. Aidan was happy to play in the sand. The black sand is pretty cool.

We finally went home and after lunch the kids and I watched "Ella Enchanted". We had just finished reading the book so I thought we watch the movie. Very different than the book, I wish they'd stayed truer to the storyline but still cute. Then we took off for the County Fair. Matt had gotten free tickets from a colleague. We wandered around and I took Jackson and Abby on the ferris wheel. Jackson just begged to go. I have to admit that for the first few minutes while I was reassuring the kids, I felt serious butterflies in my own stomach. But after a few minutes, I got used to it and it was pretty fun. Jackson felt pretty much the same although he kept saying how freaked out he was. Abby just kind of clung to me and closed her eyes most of the time. She said it was afterwards though. I was kicking myself that I hadn't brought the camera. It would have been so fun to have a picture of us up there. As we were leaving we passed the bandstand where a reggae band was playing. I made Matt stop and listen for a few minutes. It was fun and I was so tempted to join the few people up front who were dancing. Matt would have been horrified though and probably my kids too so I refrained. I'd probably be too embarassed myself anyway.
We left and went to Kosmic Cones where we had coupons for slush floats which is basically like a rootbeer float but with slushy instead of rootbeer. It was really yummy.

So we're all exhausted and a bit sunburned but we had an awesome day. I can't wait till we get our fan fixed so we can actually go somewhere outside of Hilo, we've been too afraid it would die on us so we've stayed close to home. My parents are coming next month for Abby's baptism and we can't wait. It's really giving us something to look forward to.