Jen and Donna Visit

Jen and Donna were here for a week just before Christmas. We had a busy schedule:

• A Mark Twain Christmas play at the Aloha Theater
• The Kona Christmas parade
• Snorkeling
• A visit to a seahorse farm

Then they drove to the Hilo side to visit with Jane and Kathy (isn't it nice to have friends all over Hawaii?)

It was a high-surf day, but the fish were awesome and they debated over how many dozens of spinner dolphins they saw. Coming back to shore was rough, and Donna's legs were dripping blood from being banged around on the rocks. No, I didn't go out with them - I stayed on shore with Sophie.

The sea was angry that day, my friends...

Sophie's 3rd birthday

Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Farhana and Family Visit

My friend and coworker, Farhana, brought her family to the islands last week. They spent a few days on O'ahu and then a few more here in Kona.

Rayyan, Hasan, Emaan, and Farhana

One day, they took the whole-island bus tour and really loved it. Among other stops, they visited the volcano, 'Akaka Falls, Rainbow Falls, and Black Sands Beach. If any of you come to the island for the first time, I might take that tour with you.

Hasan and a painted eucalyptus tree

On their last night, we drove to the harbor to watch the sunset before having dinner at Bite Me...

Kitchen Remodel -- Phase 1

I finally pulled the trigger and started on my kitchen remodel. It will require many steps and many participants. The first step was hiring the tile installer. Here's a photo journal of that first step.

Before you ask.... that little hole in the middle of the tile is where the vented hood will get power. The next step (the BIGGEST step) will be getting the new appliances purchased/shipped/installed. You might recall that I had the kitchen plumbed for gas when I remodeled the laundry room. Very soon, I will be cooking with GAS!

Aloha y'all!

You think YOU'VE got snails??????????

I've found a few discarded shells in my garden before, but this is the first live (now very dead) one that I've come across.

He's not a native to Hawaii. I think his official name is Big Beautiful African Snail.

His DNA made him beautiful, but my garden plants made him BIG. I had no choice but to put an end to that. Sorry, Mr Snail.

Dana

The Latest Addition to Our Family

Dogs in the tropics don't shed just in the summer. They shed 365 days a year!

99% of my vacuuming is just to stay on top of all the Sophie hair on my floors.

After much hesitation -- and suspicion that it would be more trouble than it was worth -- I got a new pet.

I find that I DO treat it like a pet: I talk to it (and it talks to me), I make sure that it's doing OK and hasn't wandered outside where it could fall to its death, I give it regular potty breaks. The talking is the strangest part -- it tells me when it needs something, and I find I talk back to it a LOT. Sophie is a little jealous.

Aloha!

Dana

Bathroom Remodel

From Day One in this house, I've had a wish list of things I want to replace or remodel.
Last year, I redid the pantry / laundry room and had the laundry and kitchen plumbed for gas.

Now, I've started on the guest bath and VERY SOON my kitchen. Replacing the bathroom tile backsplash was a test to see if this tile guy was capable of doing the tile in the kitchen. HE PASSED.

Here's the transition from an odd, unmatching, green backsplash to a new, multicolored three-dimensional natural stone...

The next step for the bathroom is new paint and fixtures. I'll be doing that myself while the hired gun tiles an entire wall in my kitchen.

Stay tuned for the kitchen transformation...

We Caught Our First Mongoose!

For those of you unfamiliar with the mammal situation in Hawaii, here's the scoop.

There are only two indigenous mammals in the islands - the Hawaiian Monk Seal and the Hoary Bat. We have no squirrels or rabbits or raccoons or any of those little creatures. But we have the mongoose. Way back when, someone brought mongooses here to control the rats in the cane fields. It didn't work. And now we have as many mongooses as rats. (I swear, that's the correct pluralization of mongoose.)

I don't mind the mongooses at all. Mongooses are lovely little critters... until they start eating my ripening tomatoes.

So... this weekend, we caught our first mongoose. He was SO cute, even when he tried to act threatening by showing his tiny little teeth. Unfortunately for him, all I could see was how those tiny teeth were the exact shape of the bite marks in my tomatoes.

Sophie and I drove him up the hill and introduced him to a new neighborhood. 

Aloha, Mr Mongoose!