Skip to main content

Dolphin Swim

Emily was able to go on a Dolphin Encounter for her birthday two years ago and Katie had asked to be able to do it for her birthday ever since. Since we all really wanted to do it, we decided to just make it a full family event and take all five of us on the dolphin swim.

For this activity we chose Dolphin Quest at the Kahala Hotel and Resort. We had a great time there with Emily's swim and wanted to have the same wonderful experience!

We got to watch the trainers feed the dolphins and give them a quick checkup.

The dolphins looked like they were have a blast just playing with each other before we even got in the water.

The trainers were wonderful. They told us about each dolphin and how each of them has a different personality. We learned about the feeding and care of dolphins as well (so I can count this as an educational field trip, right?).

We were able to have a lot of contact time with the dolphins. We were able to pet them, hug them, and kiss them. We raced one (he took it easy on us) and also participated in a splashing war (he won).

The trainer showed us the signals to use to get them to do tricks and we got to see some great flips and twirls!

This was a fabulous family adventure and definitely something I can check off my bucket list!


Comments

  1. Very fun. And I'd totally count it as a field trip..I'm sure you learned a lot. What wonderful family memories. Fauche

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Luau, Luau

This week we attended our first luau! We went to the luau at the Hale Koa hotel. The grounds were just incredible. There were men playing soft Hawaiian music, the plants and flowers were glorious. There were people in native costumes making headbands out of palm fronds, chopping up fresh coconut for us to taste, handing out flowers for us to put behind our ears and handing out seashell leis to each guest. It was very relaxed and peaceful. This was a Samoan man who kept us entertained during the cocktail hour. He was very funny! Check out those tattoos. He said the tattoos were part of a rite of passage that he had to go through. He said it took fourteen days to complete the tattoo and, yes, it hurt. And yes, everything was tattooed. He demonstrated how to climb a coconut tree using only a bandanna around his feet. They picked people out of the audience and gave them a quick hula lesson. Katie was thrilled to be one of the people chosen and of course it irritated Ben because he thi...