Polynesian Cultural Center

On Friday we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. The guide on the bus was great. He showed us a lot of places that were used in movies...my favorite one was Turtle Island where they shot Gillian's Island. Once we got to the Polynesian Cultural Center we went to the villages...New Zealand first. We played some games before the performances started.

Here is the stick game. Christian wanted to make a haku face for the picture.

Christian liked this game. Another guy would call out front, back, left, or right and we would go that direction without stepping on the sticks. The first guy to step wrong or on the sticks lost. I did fine during the practice, but when we started the game I lost on the second call.

This was the Samoan performer. He kept posing during his presentation. Here he is making fire.

This is a New Zealand performer doing the poi balls. When Christian was trying the pois earlier, he showed him some tricks as well. Another performer said that I should perform with them since I did them so well.

Fiji dancers

Christian is playing a Fiji drum. It was interesting to keep changing the beat between four rhythms.

Before the canoe pageant these students came by selling ice cream. Christian and I played war while waiting for the pageant to start.

New Zealand canoe

Samoa canoe

Tahati canoe

In Tonga it was a lot of fun. The guys on the drums were hilarious.

Christian loved watching the Tahitian dances - especially the fast hip shaking lady dances:) I learned how to do the dance

and Christian video taped it (but I can't get it to load, I'll try again later). During the video Christian did a typical guy thing. When it came to the part where we were suppose to move out hips very fast, Christian put the camera on the instructor so he could see her hips instead of mine. Then he panned back to me. Hilarious:)

Here Christian is trying to learn a Tahatian dance.

Christian got a tattoo at one of the villages. Here he is showing it off.

Here we are ready for our luau. I was excited to attend one -- it is one of the things I wanted to do.

They are unwrapping the pig. They wrapped it in banana leafs, burlap bags, and then plastic. The men who unwrap the pig are generally considered very brave as the heat is unreal. We could even feel it away from the pit. You can see the steam rising up.

Here is the pig before they carved it.

The purple roll is a taro roll. It's actually pretty good. I liked them. They are a sweet roll kind of like a potato roll.Christian and I both had a smoothie. Mine was strawberry and his was pina colada. They were served in these cool hollowed out pineapples.

After the luau we went to the Horizons show. It was spectacular. We show a lot of dances, but since we weren't able to use a flash I didn't get many pictures.
The Tongans were great with their drums. They were going soooo fast.

The fire dancers were amazing!!! Again, I couldn't get the video to load. I'll try again another time.

Wreck Dive

Here are the pictures from our wreck dive. I really loved it. We were down 105 feet and the visibility was 40-50 feet. I can't wait to do it again.

This is a sea turtle that swam around our boat for a while.

This is an eel we saw.

Check out the octopus under the stairs.

Check out the teeth on the eel!

Look closely at this picture -- there is a frogfish in all that coral. It is the big green thing. I also got a picture from the other side -- you can't even see the frogfish from that side!

Hawaii Scuba Dives

Christian and I did a total of four dives in Hawaii. Two at 40 feet - Turtle Canyon and Koko Crater, a wreck dive at 105 feet - Sea Tiger, and one at 60 feet - Deep Pipe. I got to use my brother's camera. I took some great pictures on the first three dives, but the battery ran out for the fourth so I have no pictures of Deep Pipe where there was tons and tons of coral; you couldn't even see the bottom.


Here are pictures from Koko Crater - our second dive (I can't put the pictures in order since I can't get the blog to let me arrange the photos): Look closely in the coral and you'll see a couple of fish.

Here are some of the pictures of Turtle Canyon:

Check out the octopus :) When he was first caught, he shot out a lot of black ink. I touched him; he was slimy and his arm suckers caught my fingers.

This is the first of the three turles we saw at Turtle Canyon. They were huge!

I've got to go so I'll post my third dive pictures -- the wreck dive later tonight or tomorrow. Check back in to see them.

Game Night

I had a game night with some friends last night. It was a lot of fun. We played Scum, but we had so many people playing we started to forget the order we were to sit in...so we got cards to help us remember. Then we stuck the cards on our forheads. Here are some pictures of us.

I just love the faces they made. Just so you know (those of you who left early) I FINALLY got to be president - twice! Of course the second time we stopped playing. That was my best game -- triples of 2, 3, Jacks, and Kings and doubles of 4 and 10. I had gotten rid of most of my cards in two hands.

See ya next time!

English Tea

On Friday a bunch of us librarians got together and went to an authentic English Tea. It was fun to get together and just relax on our first day of summer. There was a trunk full of hats and all of us put one on while we ate. We had little tea sandwiches, delicious scones, and petit fours. I had lemonade and the rest had different teas. Here are some pictures of us in our hats.

Here we all are in our hats.

This is Kelly (in the blue shirt and cream hat). She was my library assistant, but she was cut due to the budget. Luckily she will still be at our school, but I will miss her in the library.

Trying to decide which hat we wanted.

Advanced Scuba Diving Certification

Christian and I got our advanced scuba diving certification this last weekend. We took the class with David and Cindy. I was a little nervous since we would be doing a deep dive and I am not the best scuba diver. It always takes me a little while to get acclimatized to wearing the mask and breathing through my mouth. But the scuba instructor was very good. He taught me a trick to help me descend and ascend better. That helped me feel more in control so I didn't have trouble clearing my ears as much. (That is where you plug your nose and blow so it releases the pressure in your ears.) Since I could clear my ears easier and less frequently, my mask wouldn't fill up as often. So...I didn't have to try to do three things as once and start to panic a little. Thus, I enjoyed scuba diving a lot more than I ever have before.

Here are some pictures of all of us. Of course they are only the ones of us on land. You will have to wait for the underwater ones until I get Christian's film developed.

Our scuba instructor, Andy (he's English). He is giving us our first lesson before the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive.

Christian is putting a tank on his BCD.

David is helping Cindy out of her wetsuit. They can be difficult at times.

Christian is checking his underwater camera before he goes into the lake.

You have to make sure that you drink a lot of water. On our very first scuba dive a year ago we didn't bring any water. We learned really fast to make sure to bring some so you don't become overheated or dehydrated.

One of the chairs was a wobbly one. I almost fell in it a couple of times. Unfortunately, Cindy really did fall. And she got wedged between the fallen chair and another chair someone was sitting in. She could not get up no matter what. Finally Jim got out of his chair and helped Cindy get up. Christian took a picture of it.

After our last scuba dive, Christian and I went to David and Cindy's house for dinner and games. We played several games and during one of the games, David brought out some hats for us to wear.

Christian didn't mind wearing this hat -- that surprised me. He kept bonking the hat back and forth.

It looks like Christian is backing away from Merlin...and he is :)))

Christian retaliated on Merlin - he ended up upside down.

The game night was filled with laughter :)))