Water Water Everywhere

First, I want to take a moment to say THIS is really cool. I hadn't heard about it before I read it on the Sub Report. Man, I feel old. That kid getting his dolphins looks SO YOUNG!!! He has some big shoes to fill following in his dad's footsteps - scuttlebutt I hear on the waterfront is that his dad is a superb naval officer.

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Second, congratulations to the new mommy that lives on our front porch. There's a bird's nest in one of LW's hanging plant baskets. Tonight as I was cleaning up the front porch, I heard a little peep-peep-peep noise from the basket and could see a little bit of motion just over the edge of the basket. I went and grabbed the camera, and this was what I found:


LW wants me to be sure to explain that the plant died while we were on vacation in Maui, and she didn't want to disturb the bird's nest when we got back, so it stayed as is. The other two hanging baskets have some lovely flowers in them.

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Okay, so getting back to supporting the local Hawaiian tourist industry...

After church today, we put on our bathing suits, grabbed some lunch, and headed to Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park. I wrote about my previous trip to Hawaiian Waters in this post. Like Waimea Falls, we also bought annual passes to Hawaiian Waters. LW and the boys need to go one more time in order to get our money's worth on the annual passes, I need to go two more times because LW went once without me while I was on shiftwork.

Immediately after arriving, we were very disappointed that the section called Waterworld was closed for cleaning or renovations. Waterworld was the boys' favorite area and where they spent most of their time on previous visits. It has some medium-sized water slides and obstacles like that floating log with the cargo net. Not only did that put a big damper on our activities, it severely cut the amount of water-side recliners and chairs for us to set up camp. Plus, it's right smack in the middle of the park, so it made getting to things around the park a longer walk to go around the closed section. The Keiki Kove was open, and we managed to grab the last few open chairs in the back row there.

YB had a pretty good time playing in the Keiki Kove.

YB on the blue and orange Keiki water slides.

Then again, as long as you have Daddy's legs to swim through, who needs fancy water playground stuff? Both boys entertained themselves for a while swimming back and forth between my legs, with me periodically closing my legs to catch them writhing and wiggling and giggling.

Traditional Blunoz Self Portrait in Keiki Kove

While LW and Grammy stayed with YB at the Keiki Kove, I took ES around the park to the bigger waterslides like the Waianae Coaster and the Big Kahuna. This was the first time I got ES to try the big waterslides with me, and I was a little worried he'd be scared by it and just want to go back to Keiki Kove.

Prepare for Launch

If you click on the image above and look at the hi-res version, you can see Diamond Head on the horizon in the distance, just to the right of my foot.

WHOOOOOAAAAAA!
Check out that angle!

But did he LIKE it??? Was he having FUN??? Check out THIS Blunoz Self-Portrait:

Not-so-traditional Blunoz Self Portrait
taken as we FLEW down the Waianae Coaster

The still photos are cool, but we decided to try taking some video, too. We actually had a lot of fun doing runs on the waterslide and then watching the video after each run to see how it turned out. When we got to the pool at the end, ES liked "disappearing" through the innertube by putting his hands out straight over his head and sliding into the water.

Video 1: Forward view going down the Waianae Coaster.


Video 2: Self-Portrait view of ES and me going down the Waianae Coaster.


Video 3: Forward view going down the Big Kahuna.


We spent most of our time going down the Waianae Coaster. Toward the end, I finally convinced ES to TRY the Big Kahuna. The main differences I found were the Waianae Coaster is faster and you don't climb the walls as high in the turns. On the Big Kahuna, it's slower, and you go up on the walls a lot farther, plus there was a big dip at the end that shot you out into the pool. ES didn't want to leave. He kept saying, "PLEASE just ONE more time!"

Aside: We were pretty annoyed by the Waterworld section being closed because we had just checked the Hawaiian Waters website before we went, and they didn't mention ANYTHING about it on the website (and it's closed until May 1st). If it had warned us our favorite section was closed, we probably wouldn't have gone. Then again, we still had a lot of fun, so I guess it ended up being a good thing they didn't warn us on the website.

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Dinner at Bravo's

We went home to get cleaned up and changed out of our bathing suits and went to Bravo's for dinner. Ever since I discovered Plantation Iced Tea at Zia's, I've been trying it everywhere I go on the island. Some places have better P.I.T. than others.

Tonight I tired the P.I.T. at Bravo's for the first time. The good news is their P.I.T. is actually really good. The bad news is, I'm discovering it is a common thing for waiters and waitresses to forget you had PLANTATION iced tea and refill your glass with plain old icky dry unsweetened iced tea when you still had a decent half-glass-full of the good stuff left to drink. In other restaurants, I've complained and they've apologized and brought me a new glass of P.I.T. I just didn't bother tonight. I didn't want an entire 'nother glass of it that late in our meal, and our waitress was so infrequent in visiting our table, it would have delayed our departure by half an hour or more. I also thought about asking for 50% off my P.I.T. since I didn't get to finish it before she ruined it, but I dismissed that course of action for the same reason as previously mentioned.

Overall, we still love Bravo's. We were just disappointed with the service tonight. To make up for it, we went to Cold Stone to get some ice cream. :-)