Sophie has a House Guest

Luke's dad is in the hospital, so Luke is staying with us for a few weeks. He's a perfect gentleman and a welcome house guest.

Aloha y'all!

Megan Graduates from Purdue!!

Not that anyone is surprised, but Megan graduated this week from Purdue University!!
No 5-year plan or summer slacking for Megan! This girl was not playing! She worked hard for four years, had internships during the summers, and already has a great job lined up.

Great work, Megan!!!!! Look out world!

Aloha!

Earthquakes in Hawaii

I meant to post this on April 15th...

On Saturday afternoon, we had a big earthquake here!

The official report was that it was only a 5.5, but even the USGS reported that “violent’ shaking was felt in many areas. Mine was one of those. I was in the kitchen when it happened, and I could see my range bouncing up and down and I could hear things falling all around my house. All day yesterday, I would spot things around my house that had been knocked over. And everything hanging on my walls was crooked. But nothing of any consequence was actually broken. A little super glue and I was back to normal…

But…

My neighbor is on the mainland this week and I’m watching his house. He has/had a collection of beer glasses on a high shelf. Yeah…. I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning up broken glass. I can say with certainty that when a beer glass falls 8 feet onto a tile floor, it breaks into a billion pieces. I wasn’t cleaning up shards of glass, it was more like glass dust.

It’ll be a long time before he can walk barefoot in his kitchen.

Fortunately, this earthquake had nothing to do with the volcano. It's not coming back to life... yet...

Kona to Maui and Back Again

A couple of weeks ago, I took off work to join my friends Barbara/Steve/Megan/Eddie on Maui for the day. Megan and Eddie were on Spring Break from Purdue, and the whole clan spent the week on Maui.

We hiked up to the Iao Needle...

...and saw turtles on Ho'okipa Beach...

(Those are turtles, not rocks!)

...and had an early dinner at Mama's Fish House.

We didn't skimp on dessert...

And then I hopped back on a little 10-seater airplane and was home before bedtime.

Just another lovely day in Hawaii...

Aloha!

!!!!!!!!!! Zip Lining !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the fun things to do on the island (for the adventurous) is zip lining.

Some gal pals from Thermo were here last week, and they convinced me to try zip lining with them. We went to a place up at the northern tip of the island (the town of Hawi). 

Nine separate zips. 5 rope bridges. And a final 80-foot rappel to get down from the last tree. Heights were in the 100-400 foot range. Distances on the zips were from 300-1200 feet.
OH! ... and the last couple of zips were in the pouring rain. The rain drops were hitting our eyes like bullets. SO MUCH FUN! 

Enjoy the pictures... (PS - If I can do it, YOU can too!)...

Autumn in Kona

Now that the VOG is virtually gone, we are having the BEST weather!

Typical Rainy Afternoon

Early Morning Moonset

Today is Wednesday, and Sophie can tell you that Wednesday is BEACH day!
As soon as I get off work, we'll head to the beach to pick up trash, look for pretty shells, and MOST IMPORTANTLY sniff every square inch of every single rock on the entire beach.

Aloha, y'all!

VOGless Sunset

Now that the volcano has died down to practically nothing, we are seeing the bluest skies and clearest days in a dozen years. The VOG is virtually gone.

This is my version of a flipbook... if you size your window just right and flip down through these images, you'll see the sunset that I saw last night...

Aloha, y'all!