Pre-teen mutant ninja turtle

Ninja Turtles
Originally uploaded by Nate Murray

Well you are in for a treat today. My parents have digitized a gang of photos from my childhood. I have uploaded them to flickr and you can view the set here (slideshow).

another halloween memory

Here's a photo of Mat, Melissa, me, and Steph from a Halloween years ago.

Halloween
Originally uploaded by Nate Murray

Halloween Memories

Nate:
When I was a kid the towns in our area would each host trick-or-treating on a different night of halloween week. Each night my parents would drive us around to whichever town was having it's trick-or-treat night and we would fill a pillow case with candy. By the end of halloween week we had enough candy to last us until Easter, the next big candy holiday. By the time Easter came around I would be down to the dregs - butterscotch and tootsie rolls, but at least it was candy.


Ashley:
We didn't celebrate Halloween and not once growing up did I go trick-or-treating. To this day I have not been trick-or-treating. The day after Halloween we would walk through the neighborhood and pick up the candy that had fallen out of the other kids bags. Usually this consisted of Laffy Taffys, Now and Laters, and if we were lucky a miniature candy bar - a snickers maybe that had fallen in the shade and had not been melted by the sun yet. I would walk around with the front of my shirt turned up to make a little pocket and would use that to hold the candy. We tried to get out there pretty early the next morning before the candy on the sidewalks got stepped on.

Quite the adventure

Today we had quite an adventure! It is our last day in hawaii so we tried to make it a good one. There is a great snorkeling spot right near captain cooks monument (Its where he died if you are wondering). Its such a great spot that the locals want to restrict access to it so that it does not becone overrun with "causual tourists".
Now that ash and i have spent some time on the island, we think this is a good idea. For instance, there is a very popular snorkeling spot on alii drive in kona (referred to as "snorkel beach"). This reef is easily accessable to anyone and it seems like pretty much every tourist and sight seer come to snorkel at this reef. The problem with this is that  its very shallow so everyone steps on the coral, sun screen gets on (and kills) the coral and if a wave comes a long you'll land on the coral and break it etc. Because its so popular the reef is dying and there's not that much beauty left. There's still some, but its nothing compared to our two other favorite snorkeling spots. Needless to say, no one wants any of the snorkeling spots to end up like this one.

In an attempt to keep the massive crowds away from captain cook no maintained roads lead there. So a popular way to get there is by a mile kayak ride and that is how ash and i intended to get there.

We rented a double kayak at "kona boys" and strapped it to the top of our jeep. After arriving at the boat ramp we loaded up our gear and put in the seats to the kayak. A gentleman kindly informed us that we put the seats facong the wrong way and we were about to kayak "backwards" (whoops).

The kayak trip was a hoot. The bay is often used as a place of rest and nursery for a pod of spinner dolphins. I hoped we would see some but we did not. When we arrived at the monument i promptly stepped on a bee which stung my foot. We put on our snorkel gear, trief to avoid stepping on the purple sea urchins, and jumped into the ocean.

I have to say, that ashley was being very courageous during this time. After our first snorkel trip the last thing i thought we would be doing was kayaking our into the ocean to jump in with the fish. Earlier in the trip she was nearly in tears for being within a yard of a puffer fish and now she was dragging me along into schools of them. I thinks shes finally over her fear of fish.

The ocean was warm, the coral beautiful, and the fish fishy. We swam and took pictures and admired God's beautiful creation of the coral reef.

As we kayaked back i announced that we were not leaving until i spotted a dolphin (or we reached the other side). We reached the other side first, so i guess ill just have something to look forward to for the next trip to paradise.

half-marathon

I think I am going to run the half-marathon.

I've never actually been able to commit to running for long periods of time. So I am going to commit to running for a short-period of time. I have a 3 month schedule (pdf, ical) that should get me ready for a half-marathon at the end of March. I've even done research on 5k and 10k races that I think I am going to try.

Will I stick too it? I don't know. But here are some of the benefits for my own motivation:
* Increased energy
* Better sleep
* Reduces risk of heart-disease
* Lowers cholesterol
* It's Free
* Weight-Loss

Mat has a great article on New-Years Resolutions that I'd recommend. I, like Mat (, like everyone) make resolutions and never keep them. So this year I've picked three small, reasonable goals:

1) More exercise
2) More vegetables
3) No corn-syrup.

putting on the holiday pounds

We'll the holidays are here again, and you know what that means: Santa's bringing lots of snacks and goodies on the tray. In an effort to continue to fit into my santa-pants I've attached this graph of my weight. It's updated every few days so you can see how I'm doing.