FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL

Aloha! Well, as you can tell the photos for todays post aren't from Kauai but Grandma and I think they are by far the best photos we've posted on our blog! They are pictures of our grandsons, Brent and Ty, heading to school. Brent is starting first grade at Liberty Christian. He is wearing the striped shirt with the black backpack. Tyler is starting preschool at Liberty Christian. He is the little redhead with the black backpack. Wow, my grandsons are getting so big! We will be going to Washington in January to see them and can hardly wait! Not counting getting the e-mail from Brian and Kristi we have had a pretty uneventful day. Judy called this morning to say they made it back ok and she wished she was back here so we could go snorkeling at Poipu! Jackie and I have been taking it pretty easy today. We played in the garden a little...we needed to pull a few weeds like always and I decided to take out our sorry looking corn. We only had 15 or 20 stalks and it was looking so pathetic that I was embarrassed to have it in our garden. Even the birds were turning there noses up at it! Not sure what we will do tomorrow. Know the car needs a bath and we will need to go grocery shopping pretty soon but we can put those things off if we have to. We might just hang out at home and enjoy the holiday. Lord knows us poor retired folks need a day off every once in a while!

FOOTBALL AND NASCAR

Aloha! Well Jackie and I have had a very relaxing day. Jackie went out and caught up on the garden while I stayed in and posted a few things on the blog. Of course, that was during the commercials as we had to watch all the college football we could squeeze in! We talked to Jaynee this morning and she told us that Jerry and Zack had gone to Quest Field to watch the Washington State/Oklahoma State game with Zack's friend Blake. I know that Blake is a huge WSU fan and Jerry and Zack are huge fans of any team that WSU is playing so we're pretty sure that Blake had to listen to those two crow all the way home about WSU's poor performance. Of course Blake is a pretty good sized boy and if the crowing got too intense I wouldn't be surprized if Jerry and Zack don't have some fresh lumps! We will have to call Jaynee later and see if they made it back without too much bruising! We barbequed hamburgers for lunch and talked story with Cory until he had to leave for work at 2. We hadn't had a chance to talk with him much the last couple of days as we were gone early and home late trying to spend as much time with Judy and the girls as we could. About the only thing left on our agenda for today is the Nationwide race. It starts at 4 here so we will watch that and eat a little supper and hopefully get to bed early. The first photo is of the Makaweli post office. It is on the south shore and Jackie comments about how cute it is every time we drive past it. The second photo is of a flower arrangement that Jackie put together. Alex's mother has a anthurium farm on the Big Island and Alex brought back a huge bunch of flowers for Jackie. He had been to his moms for a short visit and returned on Saturday. The next photo is of a metal sign that was hanging in the antique store in Hanalei and the last photo is of the Kauai chickens. Judy sure got a kick out of our chickens and now she knows what we mean when we say they are everywhere!

KEIKI HULA SHOW

Aloha! Thought I would put a few of the short video clips together for you. Jackie and I are real amateurs when it comes to this computer stuff be we are learning!

JUDYS VISIT

Aloha! Well Judy, Brandi and Nicole are headed home. They should be somewhere over the Pacific making their way to Seattle. We really enjoyed having Judy and the girls visit and hope that their visit was as special for them as it was for us! This is a short slideshow of some of the highlights of their trip. It's about 5 minutes long with music by Brudah Iz.

WINDING DOWN

Aloha! Well Judy and the girls visit is almost over. We had to say goodbye tonight as they have an early flight out in the morning. It was really hard to say goodbye, just glad that they were able to come see us. We had a lot of fun showing them around our little island and even found the time to talk story! Wish it was where their visit could have been longer but they have their lives in the real world to get back to. We gave Judy a tour of the north shore today while Brandi and Nicole had a zipline adventure. Jackie and I like the scenery on the north shore a little better than the south. It is a bit more lush up here and you get more of a sense of being in a jungle. All you would need to complete the feel would be a few parrots and macaws thrown in and maybe a monkey our two as we have most of the vegetation right down to Tarzan's swinging vines! We spent a little time this morning walking around Hanalei. There are a lot of little shops here to discover and you will meet some very colorful people here. Believe all the free spirits of the sixties have relocated here or maybe they just never left! We drove to Black Pot Beach and walked out on the Hanalei pier. Today there were a group of young kids maybe 8 to 10 years old jumping off the pier and having the best time. There was also a man of at least 80 fishing. He had his walker fixed up so he could sit on it and he was out there having almost as much fun as the keikis! After we left Hanalei we drove on out to Ke'e Beach which is as far as the road goes on the north shore, then it was back to Cory's store in Princeville for sandwiches to eat at the beach. We never made it all the way to the beach with the sandwiches as we got stopped for road construction. It was such a nice shady spot we ate our sandwiches in the car while we were waiting for the traffic to start moving but we did save a few of the candy bars to have at the beach. After we left the beach we drove to our house for a brief stop then it was back to the hotel to hook-up with the girls. We all made one last stroll around the Coconut Marketplace and finished the day off with shave ice from a little stand in the market place. The first photo was taken in front of a little shop in Hanalei. The second photo was taken at an overlook of the Hanalei valley. The next photo was taken in the antique shop in Hanalei and the last photo is of the girls waiting for their shave ice at the Coconut Marketplace.

WAILUA FALLS

Aloha! Thought you might like this little clip. It is reminiscent of the old Hamms beer commercials.

A DAY TO RECOVER

Aloha! Well this is day four of Judy and the girls visit and we thought it was a good day to relax a little bit. We have been hitting it pretty hard for the last 3 days so today the only thing we had on the agenda was a little snorkeling. We started the morning at Eggberts with another wonderful breakfast, then it was off to Poipu to get Judy back in the water. Judy was able to stay out a little longer today before she had needed to come in. We thought Poipu would be the best place for Judy to snorkel as you can see a few fish without having to go out very far. We really wanted for Judy to be able to swim with the turtles but doubt we can make that happen this trip. Nicole did see a turtle today though and we all were able to see a monk seal swimming close in to shore. Normally if you see the monk seal all you see is them lying on the beach and they usually lay so still you would swear they were dead! After snorkeling Brandi and Nicole wanted to explore a little more of the island so we sent them off with plans to look at more waterfalls while Judy, Jackie and I thought a trip to Nawiliwili Harbor would be fun. When the cruise ships are in port you can drive right along beside them. Those ships sure look a lot bigger in port than they do out in the ocean! After we looked at the ship and all the happy people going ashore we thought we would take Judy for a walk around the harbor and a tour of the Marriott and its many shops. It's always fun walking around the Marriott...they have a beautiful pool and they keep there grounds so nice. They have a cool koi pond and there are fresh cut flowers everywhere but think the best part is that we can enjoy all that ambience for free as I'm sure most rooms there cost more for one night than our little studio does for a month! The first photo is of Nicole enjoying the snorkeling at Poipu. The next is of us relaxing on the beach and the last is of Jackie and Judy at Nawiliwili Harbor.

MONK SEAL AT POIPU

Aloha! Jackie shot this clip at Poipu this morning. There were two monk seals lying on the little tombolo (a small spit of sand created by the waves breaking from two different directions). One was lying there when we came and the other one arrived about 45 minutes later. We watched them for about an hour until they both decided it was time to leave. One swam real close to where we were sitting on the beach before he headed on out to sea so Judy and the girls got a real good look.

LITTLE HULA GIRLS

Aloha! This is one of the clips we shot at the Coconut Marketplace. The keiki put on a hula show on Wednesdays and it is a lot of fun to watch the little ones dance!

A DAY OF SIGHTSEEING

Aloha! Well we had a great time today showing Judy a little of what Kauai has to offer. Brandi and Nicole had a Napali boat trip scheduled so they were busy with that most of the day so we took Judy and showed her some of our favorite places. We started the day at Eggberts. It's in the Coconut Marketplace and close to their hotel. As their name implies they specialize in breakfast and do a great job of keeping your coffee cup full. We all decided on macadamia nut pancakes and they were awesome. The next stop was Kilohana. It's an old plantation house they've restored and it has a lot of little shops and a restaurant inside the main house. They have also converted some of the outbuildings into shops and they keep the grounds looking real sharp. It's a very fun place to explore and gives you an idea of what Hawaii must have been like in the planation days. We left there and made our next stop in Koloa. It's one of the oldest towns on Kauai and like most of the others it grew around the sugar industry. It has board sidewalks and a lot of neat little stores to browse around in. From there it was down to Spouting Horn and then over to the Allerton Gardens for a quick look around. We left there and drove around Poipu for a bit and then it was off to the Kauai Coffee Planation for a nice little walk and an opportunity to sample some delicious coffee. We decided we needed to find a spot for a quick meal and the McDonalds in Ele'ele fit the bill nicely. From there it was a visit to the Red Dirt Shirt factory in Port Allen, then a short drive to Aunty Lilikoi in Waimea to sample some wonderful stuff. From here we decided we should probably start working our way back toward Kapa'a and the hotel. We ran into Brandi and Nicole in Kalaheo as they were heading home from their adventure and they wanted to stop at Walmart to drop off some film so it was on to Walmart and then Hilo Hatties. Brandi and Nicole decided they were hungry so they left Hilo Hatties in search of dinner. We told them we had one more waterfall to see then we were going to do the same and would meet them back at the hotel in time to go to the luau show at Smith's. We decided that pizza sounded pretty good to us so we went back to the hotel and got ready for the luau show, then walked to the Coconut Marketplace for pizza. They were having a hula show there so we had entertainment with our meal! The little keikis put on a great show and we got some cute video we will post when we find the time. The first photo is of Jackie and Judy at Kilohana and the second is of them in a small shop in Koloa. The next is of the keikis putting on the hula show at the Coconut Marketplace and the last is of me and Brandi at Smith's getting ready for the luau show.

A DAY AT THE BEACH

Aloha! Well it's been another wonderful day in paradise! We started the morning at Snorkel Bob's getting the girls set up for the water. We were even able to get Judy fixed up with prescription goggles. Then it was a stop at Starbucks for lattes along with a quick trip to the ABC store for sunscreen and towels. On the way to Anini, Cory and Alex called and asked if Nicole would be interested in going boogie boarding with them as they both had the day off so we stopped at the house to drop Nicole off and that gave us an opportunity to show Judy our garden and have her try some apple bananas as we had a bunch on our lanai. Believe the girls really liked the bananas. Nicole left with the boys to surf and the rest of us headed to Anini in search of Mr. Honu. Judy and Brandi did super for their first time snorkeling. They were in the water and ready to go a lot quicker than we were our first time! While Jackie and the girls were getting used to their snorkels I swam on out to turtle rock to check on Mr. Honu. He was just leaving as I got there and all my begging couldn't convince him to stick around any longer. Jackie and the girls made it out to turtle rock and we had a nice visit with the other inhabitants but by this time Judy was ready to call it quits. Think the combination of being overly anxious about snorkeling mixed with not having eaten made Judy a little nauseas so she and Jackie headed back to the beach while Brandi and I stayed out for a bit more snorkeling. We didn't stay out too much longer before we headed back to the beach also. After we rinsed off and enjoyed the beach a little more it was time to head back to the house for lunch. We barbequed hambugers and Judy had a cheese sandwich. Alex and Cory checked in and said they were taking Nicole to Anini for fish tacos and would meet us back at the house afterwards. Brandi and Nicole have a Napali adventure booked for tomorrow and they thought it would be wise to check-out were they will be leaving from today so I gave them directions to Port Allen along with directions to a couple of waterfalls that are located along the way. Judy was still a little green around the gills so she stayed with us so she could rest. We spent most of the afternoon at our house talking story and during this time decided that a nice italian dinner was called for so we headed to Kauai Pasta. We had a real nice meal, talked a little more story then went to Coconut Marketplace to check out the shops. We hadn't been there very long until we got a call from Brandi saying they were at the Coconut Marketplace and did we want to meet them there? Think we were about 3 stores apart when they made the call. As you can tell this is a small island! We are going to take Judy to the coffee plantation in the morning while the girls go on their adventure. There are a few more spots we are hoping to hit also. Judy even said she wants to try snorkeling again! If we do I think we will go to Poipu this time as there are a lot more fish a little closer in so Judy won't need to swim as far. Poipu is also a very good place to see turtles from the shore and we have seen them while snorkeling also so we aren't going to give up on Judy seeing a turtle just yet!

THEY MADE IT

Aloha! Well Judy, Brandi and Nicole made it in at 5:30 this evening after a long plane ride and an even longer day. They flew out of Seattle at 8:oo and made it into Honolulu at 11:00. Brandi said they took a taxi to Waikiki as they had some time to kill waiting for their connecting flight to Kauai. Glad they were able to catch a glimpse of Oahu even if it was a short one! Each island has its own feel and Oahu has always felt the busiest to me...especially the Waikiki/Honolulu area. The north shore is a little more laid back but not as much as Kauai. I think their day started before 4 this morning as they had a pretty long drive to the airport. We left them at their hotel at around 7:00 and I think they were all ready for a good nights rest. Of course 7 our time is 10 their time so it is understandable that they would be about done in! The first photo is of the girls arriving at Lihue and the next one is of the girls in the lobby of their hotel. The next photo is of Cory and Jackie in the hotel lobby also. We were so glad that Cory had the night off so he was able to go with us to meet them. The last photo is of the grounds of the hotel. Not real sure what we have on the agenda for tomorrow but think we are going to start with a trip to Anini snorkeling. Brandi and Nicole were talking they might want to book a kayak/zipline adventure and maybe a boat trip up the Napali coast so they will probally do that while we give Judy the grand tour of our little island.

YELLOWTAIL CORIS

Aoha here's another short clip you might enjoy

BLACK TRIGGERFISH

Aloha thought you might like this little clip

A DAY OF PREPARATION

Aloha! Well as you might have guessed from our earlier posts we spent the morning at PK's. We had to pick-up a few things from Costco and as we were that close decided to drive on down to the beach and check it out. There is a small swell on the south shore and we wanted to make sure it would be safe for Judy and the girls. It was a little rough but think the girls will handle it just fine! We saw a good assortment of fish but not as many as usual. Might have something to do with the tide being high or the moon phases or maybe its just like it was when I would go fishing and everyone would say "man you should have been here yesterday...they were jumping into the boat!" Anyway, hope we have a "jumping into the boat day" when Judy is here. After snorkeling we went to Costco and then to K-mart with a stop at Walmart thrown in. We have found that we can stay within our budget better if I stay in the car and read while Jackie shops. She can go in a store and come out with what she went in for where as I always seem to find things I can't live without! We did splurge at McDonalds on the way home though and ordered two southern fried chicken sandwich meals. They weren't bad but think the ones on the dollar menu are almost as good. After we got home we cleaned the inside of the car a little as there was almost as much sand on the floorboards as you find at some beaches! The first photo is of a black triggerfish...love the way these guys swim. Their dorsal and anal fins remind me of sails as they kind of wave in the water like sails do in the wind. The next two photos are of threadfin butterflyfish. If you haven't already guessed these guys are one of my favorite fish. The yellow is so bright and the white is so white with just enough black to accent the colors. We shot a lot of short clips today that we will be posting in the future. The clip of the yellowtail coris didn't post as good as some of the others have. Not sure why...we might try it again or send another as we shot 3 or 4 today.

YELLOWTAIL CORIS

This clip was shot this morning at PK's. It is of a yellowtail coris and the colors on these fish are awesome! The water was pretty surgey this morning as we were out at high tide. There is about a 4 foot swell that should be heading out soon so hopefully it won't be too rough for Judy and the girls.

CROCODILE NEEDLEFISH

Aloha! Thought you might like this clip. We shot it this morning at PK's. It gives you an idea of the size of this needlefish. It was at least 3 feet long and if you saw how many teeth it had you would swear it was 6!

MOWING DAY

Aloha! Well we got the yard done today so we won't have that to worry about for a couple of weeks. We have a fair sized yard to mow and it takes Jackie and I about 4 hours to finish. Jackie does the edging with the push mower and I do the rest with a rider. It's not a real hard job although it can get kind of monotonous. Jackie has the more strenuous job but she doesn't want to change and I can't get her to let me do it while she watches. After we finished the yard it was into the house for a nice shower and a bit of lunch. The Nascar race started here at 2pm so of course you all know where I spent the rest of the afternoon...glued to my tv! It was a pretty good race but would have been a lot better if we could have shared it with Tyler. He is like his grandpa and gets a kick out of watching Nascar. His favorite driver is Kyle Busch when he is driving the M&Ms car so if he stayed awake until the end he probably got a laugh out of Kyle and Carl's little skirmish at the end of the race. We thought we would send a couple of pictures of us snorkeling as we are hoping to get a chance to hit the water next week when Judy and her girls visit. Thought this might help get them ready for their trip!

CROWN OF THORNS

Aloha! We have had a very nice day here in paradise. It has rained enough to keep me from mowing the lawn but not so much that anyones day at the beach would be ruined. It would rain for 5 or 10 minutes then the sun would shine for an hour or so and then it would rain again. It has kept this pattern up all day so we have spent most of the day sitting on the lanai with coffee cup in hand watching the grass grow! We did get to the store this morning and made a stop at the post office...even found the time to visit the bank. Don't know how we find the time in our busy schedule for all of this but Jackie manages somehow. We are having tacos for dinner and maybe a few games of skip-bo after I have given up on beating her at dominos and I'm hoping to have better luck at cards. The first two pictures are of a crown of thorns starfish. It was taken at Tunnels Beach. These guys are pretty nasty and they can give you a very nasty sting if you step on them. They are also very damaging to the reef and have been the cause of a lot of damage in Australia. As you can tell from the photos they can move pretty well even though they look very much like a plant. The next photo is of an hawaiian hog fish. It was taken at Anini. These fish normally like the deeper water and prefer the northwestern chain. They are rarely seen on Oahu but will visit Kauai as they like the cooler water. Think this one is a subadult female. The last photo is of a blackstripe coris. This fish is only seen in Hawaii and normally only in the northwestern chain. This is a mature female and our book says mature females are uncommon and rarely encountered.

A DAY OF WEEDING

Aloha! Well we spent the day working in the garden. We thinned the tomatos from 16 plants to 8. Jackie got tired of not having enough room to work around them. We are going to plant 2 more rows of okra and a row of beets after supper. Jackie also has a few more weeds she wants to get pulled. I will pull the weeds and let Jackie plant as she is much better at that kind of thing than I am! Maybe its because she takes the time to read the package where as I would just throw a few seeds out like I was putting in a lawn and tell myself thats good enough! Jackie took the video of the garden yesterday. We have been playing with our camera and checking out some of its different features. Think I like the video quality of this camera over the old one. It's not as good as a video camera but for an all around camera you can take snorkeling...not bad! We will probably mow the yard tomorrow as we want to get it done before Judy's visit. We are also thinking of checking out Koloa landing to see if it would be a good place to take them snorkeling. We have heard that it is a good place to see manta rays so we might make it down there this weekend.

BABY THREADFIN

Aloha! Thought we would put this clip in for Brent and Ty. Brian told us earlier that they like to look at the fish! This clip was shot this morning at the clump of coral we have named turtle rock. Mr. Honu was out visiting friends but the other inhabitants were home. The small black fish with the white patch on their sides are called dascyllus. The babies have a blue bar across their nose and they can be really small. These fish like to swim around cauliflower coral and the way they circle the coral is reminiscent of the way moths will circle a street light. Thats why we like to call them volkswagens because of the little volkswagen bugs circling the street lights in the movie Cars! The 3 small striped fish are damselfish...believe these are hawaiian sergeants. The slightly larger fish that is hanging by the baby threadfin is called a bluestripe snapper. All of these fish are fairlly small with most being smaller than a 50 cent piece.

TEARDROP BUTTERFLYFISH

Aloha! Well we got back in the water this morning and so far our new camera is still watertight! After the problems of the last ones it makes a person a little nervous but if its going to leak better for it to do it while its still under warranty! We shot a few video clips of a teardrop butterflyfish. This is still a juvenile and the only one we have seen at Anini. We have seen a few at Tunnels and some at PK's but only this small one at Anini. We have been seeing him for the last couple of weeks and always in the same area of the reef. Jackie is warming us up some bagel bites for lunch and we will probally head back to the beach or maybe to Hanalei after we eat. They are putting in a new solar hot water heater and we will be without water for awhile. Hope you like the clip. It is about 8 seconds long and filmed at 30 frames a second. We think it is better than what the old camera did but no sound. I'm thinking I might shoot a clip using out of water movie just to see how it turns out.

NEW CAMERA

Aloha! Well Jackie and I got our new camera today. It's a Stylus 1030sw. We had a problem with our other camera, an Olympus 770sw leaking so we sent it to Olympus and they sent us a refurbished camera back. This camera lasted about 4 months before it developed the same problem so we sent this camera back to Olympus also. We got another repaired camera back and this one lasted for about a week. We only had it in the water twice before it started leaking also. We sent this camera back to Olympus along with an e-mail asking if there was anything that could be done to keep this problem from reoccurring. They sent back a nice e-mail apologizing for all our inconvenience and offering us their newest underwater camera to make up for our problems. Needless to say Jackie and I were shocked! We figured they would just blow us off and wait for our warranty to expire but we feel Olympus did everything they could to keep us happy and not many companies are doing that anymore! Jackie took the pictures of the moth on our lanai using the new camera. This moth is huge! It must be about 6 inches across as it is sitting next to a 2x12. We are planning to get back in the water tomorrow as we want to get acquainted with our camera. It is a little bit different from our old one and has a few more features. With this one you have 4 modes for movies, 2 underwater and 2 out of water. It lets you chose between 15 or 30 frames a second. You have sound but no zoom in out of water mode and zoom but no sound with underwater mode. I think I will miss the underwater sound because it always reminded me of an old Sea Hunt show but think I will like the quality of 30 frames a second more

MOMS VISIT

Aloha! We put together this little slideshow of Mom's visit and wanted to share it with all of you. It's about 5 minutes long and has Bruddah Iz's Somewhere over the rainbow/What a wonderful world as back ground music. Wish we could have put some of Don Ho's music with it as thats Mom's favorite hawaiian performer. Don Ho had passed away just before Mom's visit and we were able to watch an hour long special of his memorial that aired here on local tv with Mom. That will always be a special memory as was her entire trip. Don't think we will ever be able to thank my sisters Tommie and Ruby enough for making that trip possible so thanks again!

LAZY MONDAY

Aloha! Well Jackie and I have had a very uneventful Monday. We drove into Kapa'a this morning to pick-up a few things from Ace for our garden. They have this pest here called a melon fly and it has been stinging our tomatos. About the only thing you can use to control it is a lure called methyl eugenol. You make a trap out of a gallon jug by drilling two half-inch holes in the jug for the flies to crawl into and putting about an inch of soapy water in the bottom of the jug. You add about a 1/3 of an ounce of the lure to the water and stand back and watch. It is really amazing at how many flies you can trap in a very short time! We had the bottom of the jug full in about four hours. We took the picture of the rainbow while we were snorkeling at PK's. The butterfly is called an ornate butterflyfish. We have only seen them at PK's. The long skinny fish is called a crocodile needlefish. They are kind of translucent and usually swim near the surface. As you can see they have a mouthful of very sharp teeth!