Thursday, February 14, 2008

5:52PM, Thursday

I had the best intentions of decorating our room for Valentine's Day...I brougt streamers, tape, & heart confetti to decorate with while Rusty slept last night. Didn't happen though...Rusty woke up at 5:45 and was up for the morning! I guess we're still adjusting to the time change...

I did bring along some Valentine's gifts from Rusty's homeschool buddies & a few gifts from Mommy & Daddy. He was really excited to open his gifts...this picture was taken about 6am and Mommy is really, really sleepy still!

After putzing in the room for a few hours, we showered & got dressed. We decided on McDonald's for breakfast. On the way downstairs, we shared an elevator with Chris Mortensen from ESPN. The Pro Bowl was held in Hawaii last weekend, so he must have been in town vacationing still. It took Clark a minute to place his voice, & it didn't click until we had parted ways. Too bad! I could have been an obnoxious fan!
After breakfast, we went to check out the Maui Ocean Center. It opened at 9am & we arrived about 8:45, so we did a little shopping while we waited. Rusty found a ukelele that was the perfect purchase, & he had fun entertaining us while we waited.
We can never escape field-trippers I guess! Today was field trip day at the Maui Ocean Center for some middle school kiddos. Luckily we missed them most of the time, but it sure made the Ocean Center much more crowded. We've gone once before with Audrey & Chuck and it was almost empty when we were there last time!
Since Rusty (and Clark) woke up SO very early today, Rusty was pretty tired by the time we started walking through the aquarium. I think if we had a bit more sleep, we would have stayed longer. Here, Clark is helping Rusty check out some coral.
One of the neatest parts of the Ocean Center is their touch tank. They've got starfish, urchins, & sea cucumbers that you are encouraged to touch.
It was so neat to feel the puffy, hard starfish turn softer in your hand!
After the aquarium we headed back to the hotel for lunch & naps. At Safeway the other day, Clark picked up a pack of bologna & we ate bologna sandwiches for lunch. So what, you say? Rusty has never had bologna & Clark & I haven't had it in many years. Oh, it tasted so good....

We all crashed for a two hour nap together & after waking, put on Rusty's bathing suit to head down and check out the ocean.
We went to the beach on the opposite side of the hotel as the day before. As we rounded the corner to enter the beach, check out what we found:
On top of so many rocks, people had built cairns that were preched just so...I found this to be REALLY cool & couldn't believe some of the cairns were standing.
Aren't these cool???
I wanted to leave our own cairn, so Rusty & I set out to stack our rocks.
It was much harder than it looked. But we found out the white "rocks" were actually light weight coral pieces that had been tumbled into round shapes & would stack well.

After our rock stacking, Rusty spent the rest of the time frolicking in the water. Clark & I stood at the edge of the beach trying to give Rusty some room to explore without getting into danger.


By the time he was finished, Rusty had more sand in his suit and hair than I ever thought possible. It took two rinse cycles in the tub before I could even begin to bathe him!

We cleaned up after the beach & headed out for dinner and came back to the room to relax. Another fun day in paradise :)

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