Hawai'i in August: The Place and Departure

On Saturday a bunch of us hiked to The Place from Anna Ranch. Ever opted to stay home with the other littles. Mamo had her hands full entertaining all the little people for hours.

Man, I love being up in those hills. That's one of my favorite places.

Jim was the first to jump in.

Dustin followed.

Coco and I were luxuriating in the pool when intense rain and thunder started. We had to get out to avoid potential electrocution. Jim headed upstream to explore, followed by Anders, and the group fractured. 

I went after Jim but couldn't find him, although I did run into Dustin. It took a while, but we found Jim, who had hooked up with Anders somewhere along. The group eventually reconstituted except for Pod. No one knew where he was, and we started searching. I started getting really freaked out that he had slipped off the dam or down a cliff or something. Somebody finally reached him on his cell phone, and I ran up to tell Jim (who had gone off searching). I was crying uncontrollably. Jim was like, "But they found him and he's OK, right?" I said, "Yeah, but I was so scared." Pod had headed down the hill. He waited for us, and then we tried a way down to Anna's Pond to take a peek at it. It's so different from how it was as a kid, when the waterfall was big and the pond full. At least we still have all the fun swimming holes up above. 

We found Toots working her magic with the kids when we got back.

That night we had a last hurrah at Christian and Shandra's. The pool was absolutely perfect for Tiny, who loved going back and forth. I was so very proud of my little swimmers. Tiny had just turned three, and look at her go!

There was a lovely sunset that night.

Tucker and Anders did slideshows to show us their pictures from their recent wilderness trips with NOLS.  When I got Wren out of the pool, I discovered that she had gone diarrhea in her swimsuit. It was a total disaster. I can't remember the details, but I think Tiny may also have gone, or Wrenzy had to be cleaned up twice. All I know for sure is it was a total nightmare, and Jim was in there showering people off forever, and we missed all the pictures. I don't know why in the world Wrenzy has to have diarrhea in all the pools, but it seems to be her thing. So awful. And somebody had to inform the owners of the house, who had been so kind to let us use the place, that we'd pooped in their pool so they could send somebody over to deal with it. Maybe by this summer, Wrenzy will have grown out of this problem?  

We went to church Sunday morning and then flew out that afternoon. Anson, Wrenzy, and Tiny had quite the time on Mamo's keyboards. 

We wanted to make sure we got to the airport in plenty of time. Then our flight was delayed, and we had to hang out extra long in the extreme heat. The littles engaged in their typical wrestling on Jim's lap. He was tired and did not seem to enjoy it. 

And that's a wrap. It was a great time in the motherland with the family.