MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas in Hawaii - look, we even had a crackling fire! No family here with us this year, so was a pretty quiet Christmas, but a good one.

Winter Storm

Tuesday night a winter storm blew through - 70 mph winds, power outages, utility lines down, trees down, schools canceled, parts of the island cut off. What fun, I'm grateful we didn't have any company! The day before the storm hit Maui, there were 2 surfers out together, who were hit by an 80 foot wave! One suffered a severe gash in his leg and the other guy took off his bathingsuit to make a tourniquet for him! Sunday we went to the beach and Santa Claus was there! I was walking along and there he was, taking off his clothes, stripping down to his bathingsuit, to get in the water. That's a sight I'd never seen, wish I'd had a camera!

Maui ~ more

Episcopal Church in Lahaina

This is I'ao Needle where many Hawaiians were killed in a bloody battle when Kamehameha overtook Maui. Now a sacred place and very beautiful sight.

Maui - Road to Hana

After watching the sunrise, we thought we'd continue on to the road to Hana. It was only 34 miles to Hana, but it took a long time, so many hairpin turns and 1 way bridges, too many to count. It was a beautiful drive, with many many waterfalls and scenic views.

We stopped at a garden that had an archeological site, which was very interesting. Also had very many coconut palm trees with signs everywhere saying to not walk under the trees. Apparently there are many injuries every year from falling coconuts. So of course Jon, the rebel just had to get bonked in the head ~ see below

Maui - Sunrise

Tuesday we woke up at 4:30 to catch the sunrise at the top of Haleakala. We overheard a tour guide says in 12 years he'd never seen a sunrise like this one. It was raining, and you can see the dark clouds overhead, the beautiful white clouds below and the sun in between. It was an amazing experience.

Here we are at over 10,000 ft!

Our protea and anthurium bouquet ~

Maui - Flowers

Monday we went to Maui. We stayed where they call Upcountry, about 3000 elevation. Our first day we went to a winery where most of the wine was made with pineapple, interesting, then went to a lavendar farm. Here's some:
Lots of Protea there, very interesting flowers that are very big and come in all different varieties and grow on small trees or larges shrubs.

Me at the lavendar farm with our purchase of protea bouquet.
More flowers, this was taken at the lodge where we stayed. It was nice and cool, we enjoyed the change in climate.

Orchids

Well, it's fall and Thanksgiving is next week, and it just doesn't feel like it! It is still pretty hot and I'm ready for it to cool down a little more. We're having friends over for dinner on Thanksgiving Day and now I'm a little worried about just how hot it's going to be inside. But, Jon's smoking the turkey on the Green Egg, so the turkey won't be heating up our house! No pictures of fall leaves, so pulled up our latest blooming orchid. Jon has lots on our front deck and this one finally bloomed for us!
And here is a very special orchid that we bought because it's called the Cindy Orchid! I know it wasn't exactly named after me, but it does have my name! :)

Japanese Tea Ceremony

A friend asked me to come along to a Japanese Tea Ceremony on Friday. It was very interesting. They say it takes a lifetime to learn the rituals of the tea ceremony (sounds a little bit like tai chi in that regard). They only thing I didn't care for was the green tea, which was really green, like the color of grass. It wasn't bad, but was told they probably weakened is some for us Americans. The tea lasted 1 hour, they say the formal tea lasts 4 hours and the tea is just as green, but also very thick. . . . . glad it wasn't formal!! After tea we went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant, a fun day.

Elaine & Ev's visit

Elaine and Ev came to see us! Unfortunately we didn't have good weather for their visit, but we had fun anyway! After leaving us, they went on to Kauai, where I am sure they are having a fabulous week.

Here at Ala Moana Park, you can see Diamond Head in the distance.

Lunch at Kahala - This is called a Sausage Tree!
Hawaiians love Musubi, which is spam and rice, wrapped in seaweed to look like sushi. They sell it at every 7-11.

Finding our Chi

Went to Tai Chi last night. Master Dong's wife gave birth yesterday morning to a baby boy! He came to the class with the 2 young girls and brought pictures of the baby. He didn't lead the class, just watched for awhile. Chip lead the class and we did something different. It takes 40 minutes to do the long form, (we are still learning it). Last night he had us do it much faster and then said, do it again. We did the long form twice in 35 minutes! That was a real workout, but it was great.

Birthday Party

My semi-annual trip to Texas!

Faith and Scott at lunch. Then went out to Robert's where we celebrated Eric and Scott's birthdays!!

What a catch!
The gang -
Uncle Dude (Scott) sits with Chase at his table for his birthday dinner. (the smallest and the tallest of our party at the same table) Chase loves Uncle Dude!!
me and the birthday boys!
Oops, sideways, but Chase loved the red velvet cake. And he helped make it!

BOO ZOO

Saturday went to the zoo, which was decorated for Halloween. It was a lot of fun, we were mostly at the children's zoo, which had fun things for the kids to do, like the cave below.


Chase not happy about having his picture taken with the clowns. . . .
my grandsons are gophers -

Soccer!

Faith and I went to Chase's soccer game on Saturday! Here's our soccer boy!

Football!

Thursday drove to Spring to watch Cody's football game. He's in the 9th grade and plays guard. He is quite a busy boy. Here he is below, #57.

Chase loves to go to the games to watch his brother. He ate the entire time, popcorn, fruit rollup, juice, etc. And played with his cars.

More Kauai

More scenes from our trip to Kauai ~

Taro fields -

Kauai - the Garden Island

On Columbus Day weekend we went to Kauai! It was beautiful. Our first stop was to Waimea Canyon, which they call the Canyon of the Pacific. We just drove around to different lookouts and took pictures. There are also hikes you can take, would like to do that next trip. They have made many movies on Kauai, South Pacific, one of the Raiders, and one of the Jurassic Park, to mention a few.

It was a little chilly and rain moves in and out quickly.



This was view from 4,000 feet, what you can't see because of the weather is the water beyond. Gorgeous! One of my favorite stops was this fruit stand!! It was just so cute, they had of course fresh fruit, but we got a couple of smoothies, they were ono! (good)
Kileaua Lighthouse and a bird sanctuary. It was a lovely stop.

Nene, endangered Hawaiian goose. They were tame and not aggressive like most, so cute.

The walk to the lighthouse had burrows in the ground around us, containing baby sheerwaters, here's one, there were at least 25 of them.