Philip and Jaime Connor

Well, today we went to the Honolulu Zoo. It was Military Appreciation Day and the Hawaii USO was sponsoring a free day at the zoo for all military families. Admission was free as well as lunch and ice cream. Any of you who know Phil know that one of his mottoes is "de gra ç as, até injeção na testa eu aceito", or in English "for free, I'll even accept an injection in the forehead", so of course we had to go. We caught a shuttle from the NEX to the zoo and arrived around 9:30. We had such a great time walking around the zoo and looking at all the animals. It had been a long time since we had been to a zoo and it was the first time for Caleb. He loved looking and pointing at everything, he also loved the ice cream. We saw elephants and lions and giraffes and zebras, as well as a host of other interesting animals. The elephants waved at us and the hippos were doing flips in the water, which was very cool. We had hot dogs for lunch and walked all over t...

What a great night we had. Phil got home at a decent hour and we were able to have a family dinner together. Then, we ate popcorn and watched a movie as a family. It was one of those "normal" nights that I would think are fairly common throughout the US, but which we don't get very often. That made it all the sweeter. We all sat snuggled together on the coach, except for Caleb because he wouldn't sit still, and watched the X-Men triumph over evil. The popcorn was good and everybody shared, there was no fighting and the only sounds heard throughout the house were the occasional commentary of the kids and Caleb saying please (it really sounds like GAH, but we know what he means) whenever he wanted another piece of popcorn. It just goes to show what an impact the family can have on a person. The feeling of belonging we all had as we shared those moments was sweet and binding. Is it any wonder that the family is under constant attack from the adversary. Anythin...

Hooray! Phil is home, for a little bit anyway. Ship's movements are of course classified so I could tell you more but then . . . well, we all know what comes next. It is great to have him home. It feels complete when he is with us. Whenever he goes away, there always seems to be a huge hole in our lives. I have to give single mothers all the admiration in the world because it is hard to raise a family alone, even if it is for a few weeks or months at a time. We enjoyed some good quality "couple" time last night. We went on our date night to a restaurant in downtown Honolulu called Kincaid's. It was very good and we loved being able to talk without being interrupted every couple of minutes by a "Dad this" or a "Mom that". We rode double on Phil's motorcycle on the way down and then after we picked up the kids in the van, I got to drive it home. It had been two weeks since I had been able to ride my motorcycle and it was so fun. I...

So I am going to backtrack just a little because I have some great pictures of Phil's boat when they arrived in Honolulu. The kids and I moved over here in February and got into the house, got Nathan into school, etc. while Phil and the crew of the Santa Fe brought the boat over through the Panama Canal. He arrived on Saturday April 5th and they had a huge welcome home party at the pier with food, flags, and hula dancers. There was even a brass band. We were so excited and happy to see him and to welcome him to our new home here in Hawaii.

Well, it has finally happened. I finally jumped on the blog bandwagon. It has been coming on for some time now, and I finally decided to do something about it. For anyone who doesn't know, this branch of the Connor family has been relocated to Hawaii. It is beautiful and warm here, pretty much all the time. Even when it is rainy, it is still pleasant. We are settled into our new house and are really enjoying life. The only dark spot in our lives is that Phil is often gone with the boat doing Navy stuff. Currently he is on a short deployment, but will be back soon, which has us all in an uproar around here, in a good way. We are enjoying our neighborhood, our ward, and our explorations of the island. Currently, we are beach hopping. We have been to the beach many times since our arrival here, but never the same beach twice. We are trying to enjoy all of them, and believe me there are so many of them that it will take us awhile to play at each one. We have seen many diff...