Preschool Field Trip - Whale Watch

Dean's Preschool went on a fun Field Trip this week - they took a Whale Watch boat out of Maalaea Harbor! Joel tagged along as a chaperone (I'm pretty sure every child had at least 1 family member present on this excursion). I didn't go. I chose not to traumatize my child and all the other children with my violent vomiting off the side of the boat from seasickness. But I think Dean had a pretty good time. When I asked him about it later, he said "I saw 41 whales!!" while Joel stood behind him shaking his head and said "well that's interesting. I only saw 4 whales". (Dean's been really into making crap up lately). He does know the difference between 4 and 41. Joel said Dean was interested in looking for whales for about 15 minutes, then he was mostly interested in running around the boat in circles like an out of control inbred chihuahua. So yeah. I'm really sorry I missed out on that. But judging from the pictures, it looked like a beautiful morning. And Dean's BFF Maddox was there and those two have fun wherever they are! And it looked like Dean got in some good flirting time with his lady friend Isabelle. Melissa, one of Dean's teachers in the Dolphin class (which is the older class at preschool that Dean moved up to in February) apparently told Joel at pick-up the other day that Dean has become quite the lady's man at school. She said that all the Dolphin girls have been doing a lot of talking about Dean, even when he's not there, and giggling. I was amused at how much Joel's chest puffed up about this and was all "You know she's talking about DEAN, right? Not you?". But anyway, yes, 4 is turning out to be quite the adorable age (and yes, challenging in it's own way too - but fortunately for Dean also adorable).

So here are the pics from the Whale Watch Field Trip. Notice there aren't any pictures of actual whales - because as you'll recall Joel said they only saw 4!! It's pretty early in the season to only be seeing 4 whales when you're out on a Whale Watch! Maddox's Dad is a boat captain and he said they've seen very few whales since the Tsunami. The theory is that the majority of the whales left immediately before the Tsunami arrived in Hawaii, sensing it's impending arrival and heading for safer waters before it got here. He said it was strange that the day before the Tsunami they were spotting hundreds of whales on each outing and then immediately after, only a handful. Normally, we would continue to see a lot of whales far into May. I guess even the Whales have their own "Coconut Wireless" about these things, huh? Anyway, the photos...the other little boy in most of the pictures with Dean is Maddox. The little girl in the last 3 photos is Isabelle. The man with the dark beard is Maddox's Dad.