Pine Crest Orchard, Bilpin

apple picking came early this season for the ormsbys.

we have done it on easter monday for the last 4 years

but with family coming over form new zealand for easter this year

it just wasn't going to work out.

so we decided that instead of missing out

(because it's tradition and we can't mess around with traditions)

we would do it the saturday before easter.

it was super fun too 

because there wasn't heaps of people like there normally is

and there was so much more apples to pick of the tree.

zayden probably had the most fun.

he was running up and down the row of trees,

stopping at every apple he could

picking it off the tree and then asking us "is this a good one?"

no matter how many times we told him to wait and ask us BEFORE he picked it off

he still would see a red one and get way too excited.

i love comparing photos from previous years

to see how much the boys have grown.

makai is getting older and hung out with his dad in the shade most of the time.
he was also a great helper,
he tried to pick his little brother up so he could reach the red apples at the top of the tree.
they each enjoyed sitting on their dads shoulders to reach to see who could get the highest apple.
this has got to be one of my favourite traditions
we randomly started on our way home form dubbo one year.

p.s i love pine crest orchard because you don't have to pay an entrance fee,
you only need to take an environmentally free bag and pay for what you pick.

Parenting Fail #5609

i think this has got to be my most finest parenting moment to date.

yesterday zayden had been complaining that he felt like he needed to vomit.

we even had to pull over in the car once - but nothing,

we gave him a vomit bag in the car - nothing,

at one point we could hear him trying to vomit,

stopped and said "oh hi makai"

in a normal voice.
we went apple picking and he was running around the trees like crazy.
there were NO signs that he was actually going to vomit.

i just told him it was probably because he went on a spinny ride at the park

and its made his tummy upset.

we had friends over and all of a sudden zayden had disappeared.

i asked the boys to go and see where he was,

he had taken himself to bed

- this is unusual for zayden,

he's bit of a grandpa when he's had enough he'll take himself to bed or ask if we can go home.

he came in to my bed around 2 and told me again he needed to vomit.

my response "go and take a sip of water and go back to bed."

i literally didn't even open my eyes or feel his forehead or really even try to move at all.

i was just all "yeh, yeh, sure you need to vomit,

i've heard it all day from you kid. now go back to sleep."

i wake up to a message from my mum in the morning at 2

saying zayden is sick.

i didn't even hear my phone beep.

i went and checked on him after the message and he had a really high temperature.

the poor boy was sick 

and i totally thought he was putting it on just so he could get in bed with me.

i felt TERRIBLE !

and he has even vomited three times since he's been up this morning.

whoops.

so if your having a bad parenting day just think,

at least if your kid was sick you'd take care of them.

i rolled over and went back to sleep.

needless to say i have been trying so hard to make it up to him today

and he hasn't been minding that at all.

Clovelly Beach

hawaii made us fall in love with snorkelling,

so we decided we would take our boys on the first saturday we had free.

 we took them to clovelly.

this was a perfect spot for a first time snorkel.

it was flat and had a heap or fish,

once we put our eyes in the water there were fish everywhere.

bracky was in their straight away,

makai took some convincing

but once he got over his little fears

he loved it and was snorkelling all over the place. 

zayden and i stayed on the rocks and kept putting our heads in,

looking at the fish swimming around our feet.

i forgot his noodle so he would swim between the rocks to see the fish.

this was one of my most favourite family dates.

the boys have been nagging us to go back and snorkel

with the stipulation of "you don't forget the underwater camera this time, ok mum."

Lanikai At Sunrise

so in total we did 4 hikes in hawaii,

but one of them we did twice.

and that was the lanikai pillbox trail.

jevan couldn't really enjoy it the first time

because we literally walked off the plane picked up some breakfast and headed their,

he was a tad jet lagged and looked like he was going to pass out.

SO combining my request of a sunrise hike and his request of going lanikai again,

we did a sunrise hike at lanikai

and it was PACKED.

it was way busier than the first time we did it,

but it was even more amazing !

the colours were pretty spectacular,

not only watching the sun rise over the water

but the watching the sun his the mountains behind us was beautiful as well.

as you can tell i'm really into nature !

this was just a quick hike because we had kaneohe on our to do this.

Kaneohe Bay

kaneohe bay.

wow.

while you read this,

remember i have a massive fear of sharks.

so we get to kaneohe bay and we've got it all booked in the kayak across to the sandbar.

so we begin kayaking its lovely i can see the sand and all the sea slugs,

(fact: did you know that they are this beautiful vibrant orange colour?!)

and then about 2 minutes into it the ocean floor just dropped.

out of no where.

i was packing it.

like i can't even begin to write down how i was feeling.

i literally wanted to cry inside.

another "fun" fact: kaneohe bay is breeding ground for sharks.

for a moment i froze and could not move but thought

i have just paid $70 to hire a kayak i can't turn back after 5 minutes.

i really wanted to though !

jevan was getting motion sickness because it was a bit of a choppy day in the ocean

the day we decided to kayak over the sharks breeding ground.

(what was i thinking ?!?!?!?!?!?!)

so we both powered through and made it to the sandbar

and can i be that total cheesy person 

and say "it was totally worth it!"

until i had to hop in the kayak and come back.

the sandbar was one of those pinch me moments.

it was amazing.

we were standing in the middle of the ocean,

crystal clear blue water,

up to our knees.

we could see chinaman's hat,

we both joked around and said "should we kayak there."

that was NOT happening.

even though i was "crapping" myself,

the colour of the water when we were on the ocean was such a beautiful deep blue,

the colours of hawaii are beautiful.

we did realise how easy it was to kayak when their were two adults doing it,

it took us 20 minutes to reach the sandbar,

with the boys it probably would of at least taken us an hour,

at least !

Sharks Cove

sharks cove was

AH-MAZ-ING !

this is probably my first proper snorkelling experience

- i sucked last time we came.

this time i got my breathing right and 

once i saw fish the whole hearing myself breath didn't bother me at all !

we hadn't planned to snorkel the day we went 

but we were being all spontaneous,

(because you can do that without kiddies.)

so the morning before we left,

we pretty much packed everything in the car for every situation we could think of

and lucky we did because after breakfast

we didn't have to go back to our airbnb.

good thinking their joovy !

sharks cove is PERFECT for snorkelling

for those who are scared of the deep dark ocean - like me.

sharks are REAL PEOPLE.

they are my BIGGEST fear.

sharks cove is flat because their is a rock formation that blocks out the waves.

their are a bunch of fish their and the water is super clear.

the only thing that we disliked about sharks cove

was the amount of sharp rocks you had to walk over to get into the water.

it took us a couple times but we found  solution to that problem.

we'd take our thongs and leave them on a random rock just before we got into snorkel.

we loved sharks cove so much that we came back here two days in a row,

completely ditching the hike we had planned to do the second day.

theirs a whole lot of food trucks and a foodland right across from sharks cove,

so there is no reason you need to leave.

Koko Crater Stairs

this hike was hands down my favourite

and if your ever in hawaii and can spare a couple of hours

DO THIS HIKE !

the day we did it was pretty miserable,

it was super grey and rainy.

we weren't even going to do it

but my wise husband thought stuff it lets do it.

standing at the bottom of the stairs

and looking up i was PUMPED !

the best part was that we couldn't see the top of the stairs

because the top of the mountain was blanketed in fog.

we headed up these stairs 

and i'm not going to lie i was feeling pretty great,

i wasn't puffing or getting sore.

the awesome thing about this hike is that it's made from old train tracks,

you are literally climbing up the tracks all the way up to the mountain.

when the mountains edge begins to go up and steep 

so does the tracks.

at one point you felt like you were crawling up the wooden sleepers 

it was AWESOME !

i was in front of jevan and at one point i turned around to see how he was going

and i couldn't see anything behind him because we were up in the fog.

it was incredible,

something i have definitely not done before but glad i have experienced it.

40 minutes and we were up at the top

and i can tell you by the end my legs were thankful to reach the top.

there were a couple of bunkers at the top which we sat on top of.

while we were up there,

the wind would push the fog away and

 for a moment you would get these wicked views of the hawaiian coastline.

there was one section where i was sitting,

thinking i was on the edge of a mountain and

 right underneath me would be views of the ocean

i waited for the fog to clear and it was not the ocean 

but a crater of a volcano.

i was so excited.

i pretty much YELLED to jevan to come and look.

it was so green, lush and rugged.