Beach and Boat Bums

I think when I last left off, we had spent Saturday morning at the beach, so here are a couple shots of my beach bums . . . as you can see, Zander is lounging in true bum style, while Charley is hard at work building a sand castle . . . always the productive one.

Early Monday morning, Brian left for a two-week deployment to Rarotonga and American Samoa, both of which are supposed to beautiful destinations, so hopefully he will enjoy his trip. Meanwhile, Heather invited us to try out the ferry, which goes from Barber's Point Harbor (near us), to downtown Honolulu, at the Aloha Tower. Here we are getting ready to board . . .

On the ride over, we decided to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery.

Here is the view from our departure point.

Zander fell asleep in my arms about half way through the 50 minute ride.

Here is the view as we arrived near downtown . . . if you look off in the distance, you can see Diamondhead Crater.


After we arrived, we shopped around the Aloha Tower area for awhile, and before we knew it, it was time to head back home. On the way back we sat inside the ferry, which the kids thought was pretty fun too. Overall I think the ferry was a pretty big crowd pleaser.

This afternoon I was so excited because I got to sneak away from the kids for a little while to go meet my friend Andre's new precious baby boy, Charlie James. Not only is he adorable, but obviously I LOVE his name. Andre has two other beautiful children (you've seen them in previous photos on here before), and her son, Liam, was not quite comfortable with the name "Charlie" at first because he told his mom that there was already one Charley in the world (my Charley) and there just couldn't be two. Andre had to explain to him that there were MANY Charlie's in the world, so at this point, he seems okay with it. I got to hold little Charlie for quite awhile today, and I had forgotten how small, light, and fragile newborns can be. He is such a sweet little baby, and I look forward to many more snuggle sessions with him. :)

On a completely different note, Brian and I were able to sneak away this past week to go see a couple movies in the theatre, which is a luxury that we rarely get to enjoy. First we went and saw "Tropic Thunder," which I had heard mixed reviews about. I actually enjoyed the movie, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit that one of my favorite characters was played by Tom Cruise, who has not been on my favorite actor list lately. I also thought Robert Downey, Jr. did an awesome job, and he historically has not been one of my favorite actors either. Some people didn't like the movie, but I think it was worth watching. We also saw "The Dark Knight," which I also thoroughly enjoyed. I'm normally not much into comic-based movies, but this particular movie felt more realistic to me than any of the other Batman movies that I have seen. Plus, Heath Ledger does such a phenomenal job, it's not surprising to know that in his last days, he was haunted by his character.

So those are my movie critic thoughts . . . has any one else seen these movies? Thoughts?