Page Ohana: Koa's turn...

Koa only had two state times to swim last weekend, so he qualified to go to Jags. And because he was so close to state times in several events, he did really well as this swim meet. (this is a late post, so I just have to mention that this is from 2017)

Jags or Junior Age Group Championships is the weekend after states each year. It is a meet for those kids that have Hawaii A or AA times, but no more than three AAA times. I like this meet because it gives those kids who aren't making states a chance to shine. And many kids make state times at this meet. It really gives them a confidence boost and a taste of what is to come as they continue to swim and go to bigger championship meets.
Koa couldn't swim the events that he swam at states, but he had several others that he swam. At states he swam the 50 Breast and the 100 Breast. At this swim meet he swam the 50 free, 100 free, and the 200 free.

His first event was the 50 free. He took first place and made a state time with a time of 36.81. He was so happy! He got the meet off to a great start.

His next event was the 200 free. he took third place with a time of 3:10.48, only one second away from a state time.

The first day is done and he was determined to get a red tomorrow in his 100 free, so that he has 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

We headed out to Waikiki for dinner at Wolfgang puck's.

Then we checked into our hotel. CarolAnn got us a room at a nice hotel right in Waikiki.
Check out our Ocean view.
Koa loved that there was a balcony and of course he had to jump on the beds, as per tradition.

After we got all checked in and ate dinner, we headed to the pool. Because why not swim ALL day. It's so funny to me that we go to these swim meets and after the meet is over for the day, the kids just want to go play in the pool. I guess it's the reward for working hard in the pool. They don't usually just play in the pool at home.

We played all evening into the dark.

Koa's day one medals. He was so happy!

Breakfast on the balcony.

And here is the whole group. We actually had a much larger group go to Jags this year than what we normally have. It was great!

Day two didn't bring the red medal that he wanted, but it brought another state time, 1:25.53 and 4th in the 100 free.

And here is Makoa's cleanup. He did really well. We decided that the yellow instead of the red was more our dolphin colors.

One more picture with Kai and Koa and their Blue medals.

This year, I found some mustaches for the kids "swag bags". They were obviously a hit!

And that's a wrap for the meet.
Our flight wasn't until 9:00 pm (the cheapest flight), so we had several hours to kill and CarolAnn told us about the Bishop Museum and how cool it was. So we went to check it out and I'll tell you it did not disappoint. I could spend several days there.
They have several buildings. The first was the planetarium that had everything space and Earth.
The large Death star picture below changes into different earth atmospheres. I love that it has a death star image.

Another building was all about how we move, bodies in motion; animals and humans. In this building, the exhibits change every three to four months.

The coolest building to me was the actual Bishop Museum. It holds all the history of the Hawaiian islands. The building itself is incredible in its architecture. I definitely need to go back and learn more from this beautiful building.
I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

This exhibit held Keile and Koa's attention for a while.

Just look at this staircase. So much detail.

even in the door hinges.

The kids were chomping at the bit to go to this next building, the Children's museum.
They ran as soon as we said they could go.

Inside this building is everything weather. There is a volcano that you can make explode. Inside the volcano is more learning about how volcanoes work and even deeper in the volcano is the undersea world.