Forces....

Hurricane Lane was headed our way. Most hurricanes you get the warning about then it either hits or it doesn't. Lane took her sweet little time....so much time that Buddy got 3 days off of school because she was moseying so much no one wanted to make the call to possibly endanger the children. Little did they know that leaving them at home may have been more endangering. I mean Buddy had to suffer through some singalongs.....

 World domination.....

 and ladder climbing classes....

Thankfully he has survived, and will be returning to school tomorrow. So all in all a super fantastic, we're all good.....even if one of us is building an evil world dominating empire, day!

To each their own....

There is a category 5 hurricane headed this way, Buddy even has the day off of school to celebrate the occasion!  I'll commemorate the occasion with a few recaps. Saturday, Buddy went to the park to play with a friend....

 Not sure if this will want another playdate if this is how the boy treats him.....

Sunday, Buddy decided to get real fancy for church....

 If he weren't so darn kind, I'd really be worried about that kid.....

Monday, we went to check out a spot Shane will be flying into next week....

 Have I ever mentioned Shane has a really crummy job. While we were out and about we picked up a new friend for Twinkie...

May I present Ding-dong! Today, Tuesday, everyone got fed! 

 So all in all a super fantastic, doing our thing, day!

Growing up....sort of!

Buddy started 8th grade two weeks ago! He started the first day by answering some really tough questions.....

 and then answering them in typical teenage style. To celebrate his new grownup style I took him to a playground....

I think he was well celebrated!!!!! In other news, Kevin left us last week to go visit his mom for the month. We decided to replace him with a much more cuddly, cleaner and quieter version..... 

Kevin, never lets Buddy do that to him....although I've smelled Buddy's morning breath, so maybe that's for the best. So all in all a super fantastic, school is cool, day! 

Last day of freedom!!!

Buddy restarts school tomorrow, I tried to smarten him up real quick by taking him to our local library (that would be the book mobile)......

 It didn't work out so well, so we went to go play with a puppy instead.....

Much better plan! So all in all a super fantastic, ugh school tomorrow, day!

The best things in life are the cost of a mountain bike and a free ride up the hill.....

There is only one official road into and out of the village that we live in.....which is normally not a big deal, until there is fire right beside of your ONLY ROAD OUT.  Turns out, there is an emergency exit road, with multiple padlocks and covered with gravel. Buddy and I decided we should totally check out our emergency exit like good citizens.....

 Of course, we decided as good citizens we should do it on our bikes.....

 Turns out, we are really, really, really good citizens since we road down the emergency road that leads all the way from our village to the ocean 4 times today. I dare to say we might even be model citizens since we did it once in the dark. Since we were feeling all daredevily afterwards, we decided to go geocaching in the dark.....

Probably the best day ever!!!! So all in all a super fantastic, I really wish school weren't starting in 3 days, day!

Fire and Rain....

Buddy and I were supposed to hike Waimanu this weekend....the last weekend before school starts. To refresh your memory, Waimanu is quite a vigourous hike with traversing through 9 miles of valleys after you have entered Waipi'o valley. You have to pack EVERYTHING in and bring a water filtration system, because there is no fresh water source....but,  at least there are some waterfalls for obtaining water while camping. It's pretty hardcore, just like us. To prepare for the final countdown, Monday, we went on a 7 mile hike....

We ditched a few non-hardcoreites on the way....and picked up some geocaches.... 

 and some poles....because, who doesn't want to carry unnecessary heavy poles whilst hiking????

Thankfully, we finally reached the top and 

 apparently, Tyler and I are very enthused, while Buddy is.....well, Buddy is just Buddy!

 Wednesday we did a 25 mile bike ride, which included Buddy perfecting this......whatever this is....

 We even started riding through tunnels just to up our coolness ante....

 Somehow, our ride kept cycling back to Shane's work. I'm sure it was to say hi to Shane, because we are a nice loving family (as far as anyone knows, that is)....or maybe it has something to do with the puppy that the base manager keeps in Shane's office....

We may never know, the real answer!!!! Wednesday night, however, we decided to not do Waimanu afterall, since it was going to be heavy rainfall for 2 of the days....we did that the first time, and although we survived, crossing the waterfall fed river and ocean meeting spots would be slightly dangerous (they were pretty scary the first time around), so we opted to cancel our fantastic hike and try again with Buddy's next school break and hope for better weather. Then Wednesday, night a brush fire started near our village.....so that's pretty awesome, it's still going strong and our house has a thick layer of soot and smells like campfire....so it's almost like we went camping. To make our experience complete, we went on a hike away from our village down south at the Kona Cloud Forest Sanctuary....sounds cool and clean airy, right? Not so much... although they aren't under immenant danger of fire (like my house), the lovely tradewinds just reminded me that we need to pick up some marshmallows for s'mores later!!!

We had a blast, stench and all....afterall, you can't live with a Buddy and not welcome the campfire smell when you're used to certain other, more toxic stenches..... So all in all a super fantastic, not sure if we are sad or not about missing Waimanu, day!