Selfish? Or Not Selfish?

15 11 2023

Today I was a little bit selfish. I actually thought to myself, ‘I wonder if this is selfish?’

We spent the morning at the ‘not so secret’ Secret Beach and with the help of the full face snorkel mask, I spent a really long time exploring all that there was to see underwater.

At first I didn’t see anything except cloudy water and murky rocks, but as my eyes adjusted, everything came alive. I saw these really cool rainbow fish, a couple of puffer fish (which I haven’t seen before), this creepy slithering white and brown snake like thing, lots of those yellow, black and white fish (Gill from Finding Nemo), this really long silvery fish that had a long bill and just kind of hovered above the sand, and so many other spotted, striped, yellow, blue, silver, and white fish. And then I got kind of startled because there was this big something swimming in front of me. You guessed it, a SEA TURTLE!

So at this point, after we discovered Secret Beach last year, we have visited many times and I’ve seen sea turtles almost every time we’ve come here. It is a regular occurrence now to see the shimmering dark circles from the shore, see the cute little heads break the surface for air, and to wade through the shallows with all of the other fascinated beachgoers as we marvel at the sea turtle sightings and the fact that ‘We ARE SWIMMING WITH SEA TURTLES!!!’

And as amazing as these experiences have been, it definitely takes a lot of effort to get photos or video of these sea turtles without someone’s legs in the shot. It gets a little crowded.

So today, as I was admiring all of the fish, and giving my ‘non-swimming’ self a little pat on the back for snorkeling pretty comfortably, I saw this sea turtle swimming in front of me.

And. I. Told. No. One.

I just watched this sea turtle as it swam around, snacking on the algae on the rocks, swimming up to the surface for a breath, and then diving back down. It was amazing. I would pop my head up and see if there was anyone else around, and there really wasn’t anyone that close. I told myself, that I would really have to do a lot to draw anyone’s attention to the fact that there was a sea turtle with me. And so, I just enjoyed this experience to myself. And at one point I had TWO sea turtles swimming with me.

I’ve been waiting to come across sea turtles resting on the beach, and I thought that was the sea turtle experience that has been alluding me. But I didn’t even realize that the most special experience is to be able to observe a sea turtle in its natural habitat, to watch and wait, and be patient, and not feel like you’re chasing it with half a dozen other people.

Today was such an unexpected special experience.

So was I selfish to keep this experience all to myself? Maybe. But I don’t care.

I did tell someone that there was a sea turtle in the water…..eventually.


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Categories : Hawaii, Oahu

The Secret’s Out

24 01 2023

As the story of my constant need to find sea turtles while in Hawaii continues, I will admit that I have only dragged the family up to the North Shore twice. And once, I let everyone stay in the car. BUT the first time, we actually did see sea turtles swimming in the water. And as I tried to get a photo of some turtle heads popping up in the water, I asked Nathan if what I saw down the beach was a turtle….to which he responded, ‘no – that’s a rock‘. So I continued to take photos of swirling water with murky shadows, hoping that I would luck out on some rapid fire shots. Then the girls came over to me, and I tried to point out the turtles swimming in the water to them, and Lucy very nonchalantly informed me, ‘mommy – there’s a turtle right there’ and pointed to the ‘rock’ that I had asked Nathan about!!!???

So, it FINALLY happened! We/I saw a sea turtle on the beach – more on the rocks eating algae, and more his butt than his face BUT finally FINALLY after 4 years!

The next day we made a point to get out early and check out the “Secret Beach” that is down the street from our hotel. Over the weekend, we spoke with our new favorite local photographer Shane Myers, who was like, ‘you don’t know about Secret Beach?? You don’t have to go all the way up to the North Shore to see sea turtles and monk seals!’. I don’t know if he’s supposed to tell everyone about it, BUT, he is my new favorite person, and has elevated my sea turtle expectations and goals.

We’ve gone to the Secret Beach 4 times and have seen sea turtles THREE out of the four times we’ve been there! Even if there weren’t sea turtles we would have been happy since it is absolutely gorgeous. Still a protected lagoon although it gets some fun waves in there and you can see some really cool reef fish in shallow water. But on our first trip there, I was just telling the girls what types of fish I saw in the water when I looked down and there was a sea turtle swimming right beside me!! Brooklyn told me after that it was so close that she could have touched it with her foot! Exhilarating does not even describe the high of this experience. And then, once the sea turtle took a lap around the lagoon and headed out, we saw something else popping its head out of the water. It took us a minute to figure it out, but then we realized that what we were seeing was one of Hawaii’s endangered monk seals checking out the lagoon. WHAT???!!! We made sure to give the monk seal a wide berth as those little girl limbs waving in the water may have looked a little tempting. But seriously, WHAT?? 5 minutes from our hotel we are swimming with sea turtles and monk seals?

It felt like our trip had reached its peak 4 days in, so it completely surprised us when we visited a few days later with the hopes that we would see a sea turtle, to then end up having SIX sea turtles chilling with us in the lagoon for hours. They were having a late breakfast and as much as I tried to give them space, they surrounded me. A little unnerving, but oh so cool! I tried to back up to give one space, and then ended up with one right behind me. Apparently they gather around pregnant people (surprise! 6 months pregnant when we were there).

So on this 4th trip to Hawaii with the girls (yes I realize how spoiled they/we are), this is officially THE trip to beat. This is our official Sea Turtle Trip! Yes, I am extremely happy and oh so satisfied, BUT I will say that I am still holding out for the experience of coming across sea turtles resting on the sandy beach, so Sea Turtle Chronicles NOT COMPLETE!


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Categories : Hawaii, Oahu

World Views

13 11 2022

The majority of the photos I take of the girls are from behind.  I follow them around like their little photographer, taking photos of all of these moments as they navigate their world.  It wasn’t until recently that I thought about what that meant.  Since the majority of the time I/we are following them, their worldview is wide open. 

These little girls (at 5 and 4 and 3 and 2!)  are experiencing a world where they are the leaders of their journey. 

They are experiencing their world not following behind myself or Nathan, or holding hands and relying on us to make them comfortable, they are already subconsciously forming their sense of self, their independence, their confidence in their abilities to understand and navigate through life, on their own, and with their sister by their side. 

I hope they always walk with the confidence and sense of purpose that I see at age 5.  I hope that they remain confident in their place in this world with the knowledge that they will go through life with the support of their sister beside them, and the safety net of everyone who loves them behind them. 


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Categories : California, Canada, Hawaii, Lake Havasu City, Miscellaneous, Oahu, Oregon, Seattle, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Washington, West Seattle

I’m a Mom

14 05 2021

2021 marks my 5th Mother’s Day and I have to say it felt more….not more important…but… more impactful. It felt like I finally understood the value of motherhood as an experience – the selflessness that it entails – but also the value of the experiences that my mom has given me. Being a Mother. Having a Mother. It’s important. It shapes who we become and who we want to be for our own children. It shapes the kind of experiences I choose to create for my daughters. It’s not the easy choice, but I choose to bake homemade cookies late at night after the girls have gone to bed, so that they can bring homemade cookies to share with their class for Valentine’s Day. I choose to spend their nap time figuring out how to draw a giant cornucopia so that when they wake up they have a giant coloring picture taped to the window at Thanksgiving. I choose to use my hand as a child headrest on the airplane for much longer than is comfortable, so that Lucy’s head is supported and doesn’t bob around as she sleeps (and I also have chosen to buy a travel neck pillow for the flight home!)

On the flight to Hawaii (our 1st night flight), I sat in between the girls as they slept for almost 4 hours. Before you wind up for that high five….it took a lot of rearranging of limbs on my part, and so, I clocked about 30 minutes of sleep around 1am. I divided my time between keeping Brooklyn from stretching her legs out into the middle of the aisle and trying to rearrange a ‘too long to fit comfortably in the seat’ Lucy who is a classic ‘Head Bobber’. But as I sat in the dark, with my daughters’ heads in my lap, I thought to myself, THIS is what it is all about. This is where the love and the selflessness shines through.

On Mother’s Day, I came across an old blog post that I had written up on my phone, that I never got around to post. It was from when the girls were just over a year old and even though it was more than 3 years ago – it still resonates with me, and it felt very relevant to how reflective I was feeling that day. And so I share it now:

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You spend so much time building up to the 1 year mark. It is an incredibly emotional time and you think that time should stop at the One Year mark and let you take it all in and adjust to having 1 year olds. But time marches on and just like that, they’re 13 months old!

It took me a while to adjust to having babies, it didn’t sink in to me that I was a Mother until I said it out loud…’I have 2 daughters!’ (and that was a couple of months in). And now, my mind is grappling with the idea that I no longer have babies, but toddlers.

In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People it talks about how adjusting your title adjusts your perspective on the world, the way you interact with others and your actions. I don’t think there is a bigger title adjustment than ‘Mom’ that adjusts your every thought and action more – at least it hasn’t for me.

I feel like I hit a Motherhood milestone very recently. The first time one of my girls was feeling like crap (turned out she had Hand Foot and Mouth 😦 We were out of town and all of a sudden at 10pm, Brooklyn was crying in her crib and could not be consoled. For babies that were sleeping through the night and able to soothe themselves at 5.5 months old…this was unexpected at the 12 month mark.

Between not feeling well and a strange environment, the result was Mom getting maybe 1.5 hours of sleep and spending the majority of the night soothing a sad baby. In the past (and even in the present), if something prevented me from getting sleep (my husband, my cat, my own insomnia, etc), I would be so angry in the morning. Frustrated, definitely bitchy, and wanting to take it out on others.

But, after my 1.5 hours of sleep and a night of baby snuggles, I emerged with so much energy, and a mindset of ‘we will just make the best of the day’…. and also, that it would be a caffeine day.

There was no frustration or anger, it was a feeling of acceptance and understanding, that I was there for my baby when she needed me, and I was happy to be there for her.

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Now, don’t think that this is all about motherhood bliss, because, man oh man, do I get frustrated, and tired and stressed. But I am trying to feel more of the bliss than the frustration, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But I am definitely trying to make it MY choice instead of being swept up into the vortex of Motherhood.


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Categories : California, Canada, Hawaii, Oahu, Seattle, Vancouver, Washington, West Seattle

To Pack or Not to Pack

11 05 2021

As we approach the halfway mark on our family trip to Hawaii, I am realizing that everything that I painstakingly decided to pack for our trip, wasn’t just about sunscreen, swimsuits and what/how many shoes to pack. When I packed for this trip, I was imaging the type of trip we would be having and the experiences that I hoped to have on this trip.

For instance, I packed myself two magazines, a book and my journal. I imagined lazy afternoons at the beach flipping through magazines that I never had time to read at home, uninterrupted time to delve into a book I bought specifically to enjoy on this trip, and time to myself to self-reflect. I mean, I’m not saying that I haven’t had time to myself, BUT, hahahaha. The reality is that I haven’t cracked open my journal, I’ve read a couple of intermittent chapters in my book (which with mom brain, means I don’t really remember what I’ve read), and I have in fact finished one magazine in a week’s time. The reality is that when we’ve been at the beach, I’ve been spending time in the water with my girls as they experience the excitement of the water and the waves, and the magic of water wings and their own buoyancy.

My intention for this trip was to finally make use of the water wings I packed, since they have been packed on several trips in the past and have never made it past prancing in front of the mirror in the hotel room. And this imagined vacation experience has come true! We have spent more than half of our trip at the beach and in the water (we have yet to step foot into a pool). The waves are calling to the girls, and for someone who has never been that comfortable in the water, I couldn’t be happier. I see how proud Lucy is when she walks right into the water without hesitation, trusting in her water wings, and starts paddling off into the waves. (I also see the looks of concern of the people around us, when they see a four year old, paddling around by themselves without seeing us watching close by). I am in awe at Brooklyn’s comfort level and fearlessness as she frolics in the surf, pretending to be a mermaid and twists and turns as she lets the pull of the waves toss her around and has figured out the instinctual pull of the water as she rides the waves onto the beach. In fact, yesterday, the girls gave us step by step instructions on how to swim and paddle and how to ride the waves.

Other random things that were packed: Nathan was adamant that he wanted to bring our small egg frying pan, with visions of making egg sandwiches for breakfast. I packed a bag of chia seeds and two small containers to make fruit and yogurt chia seed parfaits for breakfast. Happy to report back, that breakfast sandwiches and chia seed yogurt parfaits have in fact been eaten for breakfasts!

I packed my runners and a travel yoga mat with the hope that I would go for walks/runs and continue on with my streak of workouts on my workout app. Super surprised and impressed, that YES, I have in fact gone on a few runs this trip, and found some time to do some sort of workout on my app every day of our trip. Proud of my dedication, but I do acknowledge that in part it has to do with my obsessiveness to keep my streak alive.

And so, as we round the bend on our trip, and I realize that we have worn our bathing suits 3 times over, and have yet to wear half of the clothes that I packed, I’m taking a moment to reflect, to appreciate what our family trip has become, to enjoy the memories that we are creating, to be grateful that we can spend this time together as a family, and to kind of laugh at myself for what I thought this trip would be.


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Categories : Hawaii, Oahu

ummm…should we or shouldn’t we?

10 11 2019

Today we had a lot of magical moments that took place after I thought we had one of those epic fail moments on vacation when you realized you probably made a bad vacation decision…

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Waimea Falls Park

This morning would make the 3rd time I have convinced Nathan and the girls that we should go to Laniakai Beach to look for sea turtles.  We went twice last year, and this year I was convinced that things would be different, and that I wasn’t just dragging along 2 toddlers across a busy street, onto sand that was hard to get a steady footing on, to be almost hit by oncoming crashing waves.  Today…we would see SEA TURTLES!  This mantra carried us through all morning, it got us in the car by 8AM, and it got us back in the car after breakfast.

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But alas, NO sea turtles…again.  The lifeguards actually apologized and said that usually they are out….but not today.

Last year, we carried two scared and crying girls back to the car, but this time the girls wanted to take their shoes off so they could have their toes in the sand (their words, not mine).

And so we ended up enjoying our time at the beach, despite not seeing sea turtles, and got the sweetest photos.

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We had decided that today was going to be the day that we packed in a road trip type day and drive the North Shore and then down the windward side of the island, seeing key landmarks like the Crouching Lion and Chinaman’s Hat rock formations, the Banzai Pipeline, enjoy the grounds at Turtle Bay Resort.  Well, the girls fell asleep, so we skipped Turtle Bay, breezed past the Banzai Pipeline after I took a quick look, and the rock formations…well, they’re really just rock formations.

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We contemplated stopping at Kualoa Ranch for lunch, but after parking looked busy decided to move on…..but I hadn’t given much thought as to what would be after that.  It was either fast food…or Honey’s…..

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We found ourselves driving down this intensely green jungle-like road on our way to ‘Honey’s Restaurant’, supposedly a restaurant on the Koolau Golf course.   We drove through a gate that said First Methodist Church, and I thought I saw another sign about a golf course, but I didn’t know if it was a gate, or another road….(turns out it was a gate with a bunch of chickens, roosters and cats hanging out at it, which is also weird).

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Finally we can upon a building amidst these towering green cliffs, and it was the weirdest feeling….like, is this right?  Did we/I make the right decision?  There are no people around, are we sure we’re in the right place?  We walked into this quiet and empty building, walked down the stairs (still no people), into what appeared to be a restaurant, and saw a sign to seat ourselves.  Finally we saw some people (two tables).  So, yes – we were indeed at a restaurant, but what were we getting ourselves into.

Turns out we stumbled upon this perfect, quiet, empty, amazing setting to have lunch.  The girls fed fish at a koi pond, walked over this picturesque bridge and were these two little spots of red and blue amidst a sea of green.  It was so surprising and unexpected.  But it was enough for us to stay awhile, get out the big camera and go a little crazy with the pictures.

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Loving the random memories and photo ops that we are finding here…


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Categories : Hawaii, Oahu

To Sink or Swim

6 11 2019

I grew up on an island, 10 minutes from the beach, and never officially learned how to swim.  And although I have since gone snorkeling (with a life vest), gone scuba diving (and landed on the bottom of the ocean), and fallen off of a sailboat (while still in the marina), I have never really found myself very comfortable in the water.  I wish I did.  But my preference is to keep myself in water that I can touch the ground in and never open my eyes underwater.

And so, I do my very best not to extend my water discomfort to my two girls who are just discovering what water is all about.

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Today I pushed down my own fears as I watched in awe as they body surfed in the oncoming waves in the shallows of our beach cove and shrieked with glee when the waves splashed them in the face, spun them around in a circle and did not care one bit that they were my babies who have practically no beach/water experience.  They pushed me way beyond my comfort zone, and I had to fight back the urge to rush to their rescue and save them from the waves, while also being uncomfortable with how the waves were pushing and pulling me.

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Luckily, Nathan is comfortable in the water, and just kept telling them to keep their heads up, always watch the oncoming waves, that when one wave goes out, another one is coming in, and to spit out the water.

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All in all, today I found myself unbelievable impressed and inspired by my girls.


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Hawaiian Adventures

5 11 2019

As I sit on the plane, halfway through a flight to Hawaii with two almost three year olds, I feel happy that we have reached the point where there are periods of independent play and also nostalgic and feeling like time is moving too fast when I think about the pudgy 23 month olds that we traveled with last year.

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At the time, the girls seemed to be so old and capable and independent, and now I look back at those pictures from a year ago, and I see these pudgy toddlers that were barely toddling around.

Now these girls are telling us about all of the garbage trucks, airplanes and firetrucks they are seeing. And also asking for more popcorn or telling us adamantly that ‘no, they do not want to go potty’.

And so, as we embark on a trip that will absolutely fill up all of the memory on my phone and computer, I wanted to take some time to remember our trip to Hawaii last October.

The girls were almost two, and….

It kills me to admit that we were ‘that family‘.  You know the ones….the family that you see in the boarding line up and you think to yourself, ‘I hope I’m not sitting near them’…..or….’those kids better not be crying the whole time’.

It was a 6 hour flight and we were packed to the max with new books, games, snacks, their lovies (bunny and lamb), soft blankets and the anxiety of parents about to embark on a 6 hour flight with two 23 month olds…eek!

When we booked our flights we told ourselves, yes, it’s a long flight, but once we survive it, we’ll be in Hawaii!  And that makes the tough travel day worth it, right?

The answer is – Yes, it was worth it.  But we didn’t escape unscathed.  We had ‘that kid’ that cried pretty much all through landing.  Which sucks because you know it’s the pressure on her ears, but when she doesn’t want to drink anything or eat anything, you just feel helpless and like you have to ride it out.  That said child also didn’t nap AT ALL during the 6 hour flight.  But I cling to the fact that we must not have been a complete mess during the whole flight because the flight crew was in love with the girls!  To the point, that one of the flight attendants asked me if it was Brooklyn that was crying during landing, and that her cries sounded soothing. Soothing!  Yes – she actually said that.  I’m pretty sure they also carried the girls off the plane as Nathan and I were loaded down with a camera bag, diaper bag, tote and rolley suitcase.  Needless to say, we don’t travel light and nimble anymore.  Also, movie watching and naps (for me) on long flights seem like a thing of the past.  Which is so painful to realize since I used to be the one that was asleep before take off 😦

Other than visiting the Dole Plantation, we had absolutely no plans.  Good and bad I think, as I probably would have wanted to do a little more research on things to do/visit/eat.  BUT, we splashed in the kiddie pool, visited a waterfall, looked for sea turtles, ate garlic shrimp at Giovanni’s shrimp truck, left a Disney Aulani character breakfast hungry (these girls were super scared of the characters and spent the whole time on our laps) and generally soaked up sunshine, sand and that aloha spirit.  It is hard not to think about what it would be like to live there full time, especially when you know you’re heading home to rainy days.

But for now, I leave you with some of my favourite photos of our trip from last year, and I hope to share our Hawaii adventures this year a little sooner than November 2020!


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Categories : Hawaii, Oahu