Richard's Post

So Abby usually does the blogs, but today I thought I'd give it a go. Earlier this week Abby and I had gone to see the turtles at North shore, and Ben (Abby's brother) got jealous. So we went with him this weekend. The surf was much higher this time. Snorkeling was well-out, but the sun was still shining so we were all happy.

While I was wandering the beach looking for sea glass (one of my favorite pass-times) I noticed something I hadn't seen yet. This little guy was crawling out of the surf.

It's a ghost crab. We see a lot of them on the beach, but never more than a few inches from their sandy burrows that they dart into the moment they think you're looking at them. It was nice to finally get some good pictures of them.

He was fighting the surf so hard too.

I am a little torn, because when I see the ghost crabs here I think, "Wow, that's cool," but somewhere in my childhood I remember seeing one of those nature shows about sea turtles, and while the poor little baby sea turtles are racing to the water, all the horrible animals are attacking them, including ghost crabs. So I have a deeply embedded hatred for them too. I know I shouldn't. It's just nature, but you can bet if I'd been on that beach watching those little turtles, and I had a mallet, Abby would be very happy because she would get crab for dinner.
I want everyone to know that I haven't killed any crabs.... that I know of. When the waves toss you like a rag doll, you never know what you're landing on, but I really am starting to like the crabs. The smaller ones are easier to find. They look very different though.

They have little spots all over them so they blend in to the sand really well. when they get older, they loose the spots.

On our way back to the car we found another crab that had just gotten out of the surf, and I managed to grab it long enough to get a picture.

Yes, I'm still ridiculously white even after being here for a year.

We had a fun time and can't wait for our next adventure.

Hooray for the sun!!

So this is what the weather has been like for weeks:

It was terrible! I know, I know it is probably below freezing and snowing where many of you are and I should just be thankful... WELL I WASN'T! That's one of the major reasons we went to all the hassle of moving out here was for the everlasting sunshine and heat, and here Hawaii was trying to be a slightly warmer version of Seattle!

Luckily it isn't Seattle and after our relatively brief suffering we were finally rewarded with sunshine, and not only sunshine but the first day without a high surf warning in MONTHS! WOOHOOO! Snorkel season is coming back!!!

We were up at our favorite beach again celebrating the return of the sun and we weren't the only ones!

SOOO many turtles! Tons basking on the sand and munching in the shallows and swimming around in the surf.

Can you find all of them on this shelf?

(hint: there are 5)

 Isn't the Shell on this one beautiful?

(and yes that is someone's house in the back ground! those lucky duckies! Can you imagine how cool it would be to have sea turtles literally in your back yard?! Of course then you would have to have me in your back yard, but I bet it is worth it)

My friend Lisa made me a T-shirt with this on it a few years ago for my Birthday:

I LOVED IT!!! and therefor wore it to death. It was soo worn it was no longer socially acceptable to wear in public, But then I got this great idea to up-cycle it into a cute beach shirt! This was my first try and I still have to fix the straps a little but I was pretty proud of it:

Richard was very exicted to be able to use his camera again!

Here is a neat picture of some fish under a ledge:

And this adorable tiny fish: 

Richard had to dive down 10+ feet to get this shot! I'm very impressed with how clear it is:

Not only were there tons of Turtles they were all so friendly/curious! We had so much fun swimming with them. Here is a video of me and the turtles:

And one with Richard and them as well.

Richard looks up out of the water at the same time that the turtle goes up out of the water to get air, and it startles the bubbles out of her! :o

Here is a clip of a few of them just being beautiful:

And  here is one snatching some floating sea weed:

I'm always amazed at how unconcerned they are of personal space, here is one taking a breath up by Richard:

And here is one charging Richard:


We have not had one actually crash into us yet in one of these 'chicken' games they seem to like to play. I always get out of the way since half of them out weigh me. Richard lets them get right up in his face though...they usually stop or change directions at the last possible second, but I'm sure one of these days they are going to collide with him and I just hope I have the camera running when it happens!

Genetics and Other Musings

Richard just recently explained genetics to me for the 5th time. I learned about them in high school, took  several classes that explained them in college, but for some reason I cant keep the concept cemented in my mind. So, I thought I'd do a mini report so I could come back and reference it. Word of Caution: I just had Richard proof read this and apparently I'm still a bit off. Also, I am way oversimplifying it. If you want a nice scholarly paper on the topic follow this link or this link

What brought it up was we were talking about what color our kids' eyes might be. 

I can't use most of the common 'what color with my children's eye's be' charts because Richard and I both have eyes that don't really fit into the Brown, Green, Grey, or Blue categories

Here's what we are working with:

Richard's:

And Abby's:

Eyes can use 6 genes to define color. 

To get eyes like Richard's (hazel ) you need 3 dominant genes and 3 recessive genes.

To get eye's like mine (pale blue) you need 6 recessive genes.

On a side note when I tried to search for a proper name for pale blue eyes all I could find were song lyrics haha!

So here comes the math part. When we have kid's I will give them 3 of the genes and Richard will give them the other 3. I only have recessive genes to give, so it will be completely up to Richard what color our kids eyes are. (He disagrees with me and says that my egg will be bossy and choose whatever genes of his it wants and he can't be held responsible for my egg's choice)

If he sends his 3 recessive genes they will get eyes just like mine.

If he sends his 3 dominant genes they will get eyes just like his.

If he sends a combination of dominant and recessive they will end up with regular blue eyes.

So do a little probability math and here's how the lottery looks:

25% Hazel

25% Pale Blue

50% Regular Blue

However, this doesn't mean that if we have four kids 1 will have mine, 1 will have Richard's and 2 will be blue. The lottery happens every time. Also, I just recently found out that this method is only about 90% effective. Mostly the only thing we know for sure is we can't have a brown eyed kid.

But that is not all. My genes carry a nasty little secret. A few of my readers may not be able to tell that Richard's eye's are Hazel, to them they may just seem brown. This is because color deficiency runs in my family. It keeps my Mom and both of my brothers from seeing the numbers in these:

Color deficiency is caused by a little gene that attaches to the bottom of the X chromosomes. (Males=XY, Females=XX) It is a recessive trait so it is rare for females to show any symptoms. But if both of her X chromosomes have the gene then she will have color deficiency. Since both of my Mom's X chromosomes had the gene both Eli and Ben are color deficient. But since my dad's X chromosome was clean I don't show any signs of it. But I am still a carrier.

This means that if we have boys, they will have a 50% chance of being color deficient as well. 

As for probability on hair color?

 Brown Vs Blonde?

We have no Idea!

P.s. This is a pic of my hair after attempting the Sock Bun curling method, It was a little disappointing but think it is just because I have so much hair. I'm going to try a few tweaks and see how it goes.

P.p.s We are not pregnant, I've still got at least 5 years before that ;)

Soo it has been awhile...

I knew it had been awhile since I posted last, but I didn't realize it had been almost 2 months!

I completely blame Hawaii. That's the thing about living in Never Never Land is that time no longer has meaning, or at least not the same meaning. 

We were making plans with our friends and realized we live on the same Island, but hadn't seen each other in months! They could hardly believe it had been that long too. So here is my catch up post, a little sampling of what we've been up to in the last few months.

Richard repaired his headlights! He got glass lens covers to replace the old plastic ones. It took him quite a bit of work. The weather wasn't cooperating, it rained so hard as we were trying to put them back in. Even with me holding two umbrellas we both got thoroughly soaked! They look AMAZING though so we'd say it was worth it. 

We took a quick hike on the Koma Mai trail:

We met up with another group on this side trail. They had heard that if you follow it down into the canyon that there is a cool waterfall down there! We wanted to check it out but my knee had started acting up (snowboarding injury) so we will have to try it some other time.

Richard made another set of goggles:

We found a new place to park at our favorite North Shore beach! This spot has shade and doesn't require us to run across the busy highway anymore! It is also closer to the part of the beach we normal would hike out to. It was so perfect I could hardly believe it existed!

There have been tons of turtles again and several very large males! So far we had really only seen females on the beach so it has been fun to see some of the males, too.

Here is a nice video of one slowly pulling out of the surf:

There was an amazing sale on Blueberries plus I found buttermilk 50% off so I made these amazing blueberry pancakes:

 On another North Shore trip we forgot our regular camera's so I took these with my phone, They recorded the color strangely and at least on my computer they look like old 1970's photos:

This is Richard running away from me because I mentioned it was getting close to time to go:

Sadly for the last few weeks it has been windy, cloudy, rainy and cold. It feels like we barely get a chance for any really good adventures. Plus our hard earned tans are starting to fade! We did have a fun beach day with our friends Clint, KK and their little boy Jet. We went out to KoOlina and played in the sand. The water wasn't too chilly but the wind was so we didn't do much more than wade in the water. Jet decided that Richard was a pretty cool guy and spent his time pulling Richard around and jabbering at him in baby.

I found it adorable! I wish I had taken more pictures.
Well that's about all. I've been reading and Richard has been gaming, and we've both been trying out Pinterest recipes. Hopefully this winter weather will break and we can get out and have some more fun :)
Also all this month there will be mermaids visiting KoOlina so we will definitely have try and get some pictures of that!