BIG SURF

Aloha! The big excitement on Kauai and I think on all the other islands as well would have to be the huge swell we have been hit with. The north shores have seen wave heights of 40 feet or better in a lot of locations. Our local paper even said that at Kings Reef they were seeing some sets coming in at better than 60 feet! Kings Reef is located outside of Hanalei Bay. All of our local newscasts originate from Oahu so most of the surf shots were from there although they did show a good number from Maui at a place called Jaws as well. The majority of tonights newscast was taken up by the Eddie Aikau surf contest. It is held at Waimea Bay on Oahu when the conditions are just right. The waves have to be big at least 25 feet or better or they won't go but they won't go if the conditions are too dangerous either. Guess todays swell filled the bill perfectly as the contest was held! The newscast said that close to 30,000 people showed up to watch. I can't imagine the bottleneck that that many people must have created. All of the north shore on Oahu is served by a two lane road and today they said it was one long parking lot. The people they interviewed on the news said they left Honolulu before dawn and still had to park and walk more than 5 miles to the beach! The short video I posted today was taken yesterday morning at the lighthouse and Anini. Anini beach is the calmest beach on the north shore and most of the time you can find safe swimming there even when the ocean is booming but yesterdays swell had a lot of rogue waves in it as you will see in the video. The water level would raise dramatically in just seconds and if a person wasn't paying attention they would have found themselves getting soaked. If it was this dangerous at Anini with its large fringing reef can you imagine the chance a person would be taking walking on a beach without a reef to protect it!

SPAGETTI FOR DINNER

Aloha! I'm not holding out much hope for my blog today. When you are reduced to putting what you had for supper down as the title that might just be a hint as to how exciting our day really was! I don't have a good excuse for sitting at home all day. The weather here was perfect...around 80 with light trades. There is a pretty good sized swell hitting the north shore now with wave heights of 20 feet or better and our car is full of gas so we could have made the short trek out to watch the waves but I opted instead to sit on the lanai and watch the grass grow! At least Jackie managed to get my hair cut so the day wasn't a total loss. The weathermen say there are two larger swells heading our way with the last one being the largest of the two. They are predicting wave heights of close to 40 feet with this swell. Only problem is the storms that are producing these swells are supposed to start hitting our little island this evening starting around midnight and continuing thru the weekend bringing heavy rain and strong winds. You can also bet they will bring forth a few I told you so's from Jackie as she wanted to take advantage of today's beautiful weather by going to the beach! I had better hope that the weather guys are wrong and tomorrow will be as beautiful as today or Jackie will be giving me an earfull! The video I posted was taken yesterday at Anini. It has a pretty good clip of a magnificent snake eel...this guy was about 3 feet long. Our book says eels of this variety are rarely seen.

IS IT REALLY DECEMBER???

Aloha! I'm having a little problem coming up with something to blog about but I guess when you spend your days at home playing on the computer or napping what else can you expect although there were a couple of exciting breaks in our routine with both being listening to the Boise State womens basketball games. They played UNLV on Saturday, then WSU on Sunday. Boise State won both games and now they are 7 and 0. The WSU game was very exciting to listen to. The Cougars led by 10 or 12 points at one time in the first half but Boise State battled back and only trailed by one at the half. The second half was played in much the same manner only it was Boise that jumped out to a 10 or 12 point lead with WSU battling back. The Lady Broncos were up to the challenge and ended up winning the game by 4 points, 68 to 64. Our niece Kinzi played very well in both games and its not just her proud uncle saying so. The radio announcer was very impressed with Kinzi's game and in the coaches comment after the game the coach talked about the great minutes he got from his freshmen. Their next game is this Friday at Oregon. It is an away game so once again it will just be on the radio. The weather on Kauai has improved a great deal since my last post. We were having flash flood warnings then but now we are back to our normal winter weather of clouds, brief rain showers and temps in the upper 70's. Our weather guy was saying we have 3 huge swells heading our way with the first arriving tomorrow. Wave heights are predicted to be 20 feet or better. The last swell is predicted for this weekend and it should be the largest with wave heights of maybe 30 feet or better. Jackie and I are hoping we can make it to the beach to watch the show...surf that big is really something to see! I will have to post a rerun video for you. I will try to find one of the grandkids...hope you like it!

A WET THANKSGIVING DAY

Aloha! Jackie and I had a very nice Thanksgiving. We spent the day the way we always spend Thanksgiving...eating way too much and watching a lot of sports on tv. The only thing being different today was our football games were being interrupted every 15 minutes by emergency warnings to let us know that Kauai was under a flash flood warning! Guess thats one more thing we can be thankful for...that where our house is located we don't have to worry about flooding. Our hearts do go out to all the poor folks that do live in the low lying areas and all the homeless people living on our beaches. Seems they have had to cope with more than their share of nasty weather lately. Todays rains weren't as severe as what we went thru a couple of weeks ago and the worst rains were to the south of us in the Kapaa and Lihue areas where they got between 7 and 8 inches. Think Koloa got hit as well with rainfall near 6 inches. I would guess we probably got around 2 inches at our house. Our local paper The Garden Isle will post updates throughout the day to keep its readers informed about whats happening and will give you info on road closures, accidents and such. This morning they posted a story about the Hanalei bridge being closed. Nothing surprising there as they have to close it every time it floods. What was kind of surprising to us was the update they posted this afternoon. They stated that they had opened one lane for northbound traffic. This seemed rather odd to us seeing as how the Hanalei bridge is only a one lane bridge anyway! The video I posted today was taken on our snorkel yesterday at PK's. We had hoped to get Rey to join us but no luck! We had a nice visit on the beach but getting Rey in the water would have been like trying to give a bath to a cat...it wasn't going to happen with out someone getting hurt!

MUCKY WATER

Aloha! The last couple of days Jackie and I have been pretty busy. Monday we mowed the lawn and today we went snorkeling. Now of the two I definitely prefer the snorkeling even though today the snorkeling was not that good! We have a huge swell hitting the north and west facing shores with wave heights nearing 20 feet and that combined with the fact that we went out at high tide made for real mucky water. We ventured out anyway hoping the conditions would improve the further we got from shore. They didn't so once again we cut our snorkel short. As we were exiting the water we talked for a bit with a couple visiting from Fort Worth. They wanted to know if the water improved as you got further out. We told them it did but not by very much. They went out and gave it a try but soon joined us back on the beach where we talked story for an hour or so. Jackie and I gave them what advice we could about places to check out with the lighthouse being high on our list. The waves should have been crashing hard there today. We also told them if they wanted to snorkel the south shore was their best option. Speaking of the south shore thats where Jackie and I will be going in the morning. Rey and his family are here visiting from Washington and tomorrow we want to take them snorkeling. I was really hoping that Anini would have improved enough to take them there seeing as how Anini is usually so calm and it is one of the easiest places to get in and out but with the water conditions we have now the south shore is the only place you are going to be able to see the fish that are there. The photo I posted today is of the unnamed waterfall on the mauka side of the highway near the Kalihiwai bridge. This is where they are removing or trimming a lot of the trees. Those of you who have visited before should notice how much more of the waterfall you can see now. Sorry the photo is kind of blurry...Jackie took it this morning as we were driving past at about 20 miles an hour.

NICE AND EASY

Aloha! Things have been pretty slow for Jackie and I these last few days and thats just the way I like it. On Thursday Jackie went with Cory for his eye exam. Then they made a stop at Costco for his contacts and to pick-up a few supplies. I, on the other hand, stayed at home watching a little tv and napping. As you can see I lead a very rough life! On Friday Jackie and I went to Anini snorkeling. The water has cleared a lot faster than I thought it would so I figured it would be okay to give Anini a shot. In hindsight it would have been better if we would have gone to the south shore instead. First off they are working on the trees by the Kalihiwai bridge and have the highway down to one lane. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes. After we arrived at the beach we found the water was still a little murky...not real bad but not good either. We cut our snorkel down to about a 1/4 of what we normally do. We did manage to swim with Mr. Honu for a bit and saw an eel or two so the snorkel wasn't a total bust. We had to wait in line again going home only this time it must have been for at least a half an hour. Today has been spent watching tv and playing on the computer.

GRANDKIDS

Aloha! I just finished reading a weather update in the Tricity Herald. It stated that you guys should be expecting a pretty nasty storm this evening...strong winds, a foot or two of snow in the Cascades, possible flooding along the coast. You know...the kind of weather that made Jackie's and my decision to retire to Kauai an easy one! Our only regret is that we coudn't bring all our friends and family along with us! Speaking of friends one that I had known since grade school was laid to rest yesterday...Buster Wolfe. When we were in about second grade Buster and I decided that we didn't like each other very much. I sure couldn't say why...all I can tell you was the feelings were mutual! We walked home from school along the same road so we were always calling each other names, sticking our tongues out, acting like your typical bratty little boys. This behavior finally escalated into pushing and shoving matches and more than once either Buster or I ended up with a bloody nose or a split lip! Buster and I were pretty evenly matched so I think our parents must have decided to let us go ahead and keep beating on each other until we got things worked out! Turns out they were right as parents almost always are because we eventually became good friends. I remember asking Buster after we were in high school if he knew why we disliked each other so much as kids and like me he didn't have a clue. Going to miss you Buster...you left us way to soon.

TRIP TO TOWN

Aloha! Our weather has improved a great deal...we are still getting the occasional down pour but instead it of lasting all day like it did Saturday we got it for maybe 15 minutes then it moved away only to return in a couple of hours. This weather pattern is fairly typical for Kauai especially the north shore during the winter months. Jackie and I are really thankful that we don't get many storms like the one that just went thru even though we did truly enjoy the thunder and lightening. (It was like having front row seats at the best 4th of July celebration you could imagine!). The 4 inches of rain an hour was a bit much...until you have been thru rain like that there is nothing I can say that would describe it! On our journey to town this afternoon I was expecting to see a lot of flooding but it wasn't too bad. The ditches along the highway were pretty full of brown nasty water but nothing on the roads. The ocean is a muddy mess especially where the streams or rivers enter. We have seen it like this in the past and it will take about 2 weeks to clean its self up so that means 2 weeks without snorkeling or at least no snorkeling on the north shore. I don't think the south shore got hit as hard so if Jackie gets to needing her snorkel fix we might just wander that way next week!

THUNDER AND LIGHTING

Aloha! Jackie and I have been enjoying some very wild weather here on Kauai. We had a thunder storm Thursday evening that was as intense as any I have ever been in. It lasted for the better part of the night and keep the skies lit up almost constantly. The thunder was so loud it was literally rattling the pictures on the wall! This storm seemed to have stalled directly over our house. Lucky for us we only received about 2 inches of rain. Friday the storm abated somewhat...we had rain but not as intense. We had another round of thunder and lightning Friday evening but like the rain it wasn't as bad as Thursdays was. Today has been another story. The skies started to darken this morning around 9 and then they opened up. It has rained hard here since then. We have also had our share of thunder and lightning. The heavy rains have caused a lot of flooding on our little island and at the moment the road is closed near the Kalihiwai bridge due to a mud slide. The Hanalei bridge is also closed due to high water. Not sure how much rain we have received today but it was a lot! Cory was talking with his friends from work and they are stuck at the store as there is no way in or out of Princeville at the moment. We are thankful that Cory has the weekend off and doesn't have to work until Monday at noon. This storm should be out of here by then and the roads cleared hopefully. The pictures I posted were taken on mine and Jackies trip home in October.

SNORKELING VIDEO

Aloha! Thought you might enjoy this short video of mine and Jackie's snorkel yesterday. It was taken at Anini beach. Probably a good thing we went yesterday because the weather today is awful...heavy rain and large wind gusts. The bad news is we can expect this weather to last into next week. Guess if Jackie and I run out of things to do here at the house we can always bring out the Dominos or Skip-bo cards even though Jackie cheats worse than Darrell at both!

WET WEEKEND

Aloha! It has been a rainy, wet, overcast weekend for Jackie and I. What sun we saw was in 30 minute intervals spread about 2 hours apart throughout each day. Good thing Jackie and I had lots to do here at the house. We had football to watch on Saturday as well as a large pot of homemade soup to keep us warm in this frigid 75 degree weather! On Sunday we had a little more football to watch as well as the Nascar race. Oh yeah we also were able to follow Kinzi's basketball game on the computer. Because it was a preseason game we didn't have the video or the audio but we could still stay informed thru the live stats and play by play. Jackie and I have subscribed to Bronco Vision. It is a service you can access thru Boise State's web site. It costs about $10 a month and allows you to watch most of the schools sporting events live on your computer. We watched some of the boys basketball game on Saturday and it came across pretty good. It was a little grainy in full screen but still watchable and it wasn't nearly as jerky as we thought it might be. We are looking forward to the girls game on Friday and will be checking the stands out for Jaynee and Jerry! Wish it was where we could be sitting there with them but seeing as how that won't be possible you can bet we will be sitting here watching it on our computer. I will be wearing my new Boise state hat and yelling at the officials! By the way, Boise State won their game today 84 to 64 over Lewis and Clark State. Kinzi had 7 points and 2 rebounds. I think that is a great start to what I'm sure will be a wonderful career at Boise State. WAY TO GO KINZI!

MOWING DAY

Aloha! Things are slowly returning to normal for Jackie and I. Our trip home was a lot of fun and seeing everyone was super but there is a lot to be said for getting back to your old routine.Today we got the lawn out of the way so maybe we can return to the beach this weekend. We would have gone all ready but the weather hasn't been cooperating very well. It was late on Monday when we arrived back so Jackie and I used Tuesday to rest up a little or maybe I should say I used Tuesday to rest up! Jackie and Alex went shopping for a new washer. Guess the old one gave up the ghost last Friday and Alex wanted to wait to get our opinion before buying a new one. They searched every store that carries appliances on the island before deciding the one they saw at Sears was probably the best deal. As it turned out Tuesday was a good day to shop because it was definitely not a good day for the beach! Jackie and Alex had barely left the house when the rain started and I do mean to tell you it rained hard! We got over 3 inches of rain in about a 4 hour period. At times it was coming down so hard a guy would have been hard pressed just to stand up in it! The weather was much nicer Wednesday but we figured the ocean would be pretty mucked up from the downpour so we decided it would be a good day to play on our computers. We have been neglecting our farms on Facebook and I wanted to get to level 30 in Fish World so I could purchase a shark. The shark is really cool by the way. He munches your adult fish in the tank and you get the same amount of coins as you would have if you had sold them! Thursday the weather wasn't quite as nice as Wednesday. We had rain off and on...nothing too hard but enough to discourage me from going to the beach and definitely enough to keep me from mowing so we spent the day in the same manner as Wednesday. Man...Jackie and I have it rough here on Kauai!

BACK ON KAUAI

Aloha! Jackie and I are back at home after a wonderful visit to the mainland. We had a blast playing with the grandkids and visiting with our friends and family. Wish it was where we could have made it around to visit with everyone but the time just slipped away from us like it always seems to do when we visit. Our trip this year had so many highlights. We had a Harvest Dinner at the 1st Baptist Church where Fred Cohu is the pastor. There must have been close to a hundred of our friends and family in attendance. I had all my brothers and sisters there and Jackie had all of her sisters there as well. We also had a great barbeque at Brian's. A lot of Brian's friends from school were there and seeing as how they spent more time at our house while they were growing up than they did at home it was sure a lot of fun visiting with them! Seemed so strange to see those kids with kids of their own! We also had a nice dinner at the El Caporal in Prosser with a lot of my friends from work. It was interesting to say the least to hear about all the happenings at Kenyons. We also had the chance to visit with Nancy Martinez at her new home. It is located right on the river in Prosser. Wow...what a beautiful home and the view from every window is breathtaking! We were also able to visit with the girls from Jackie's old job and had lunch with Mary and Jose. Notice how most of our highlights center around food! I think both Jackie and I gained about ten pounds. We also had a chance to visit with Chad and Denise Pilgeram. Rachel had a soccer game in Pasco on the Saturday before we left. We were able to visit during the game and had a nice lunch at Grannies Buffet afterwards. All of the things I mentioned above where very special to Jackie and I and made our trip home very rewarding but I think the one thing that brought the biggest smile to our faces was driving our old Cobra. Troy has done a wonderful job in bringing that car back to life! The hour or so we spent behind the wheel was like an hour spent being 16 again...words can't describe that feeling! All I can say is it was priceless! Thanks so much guys...Jackie and I definitely owe you one!

SPECKLED SCORPIONFISH

Aloha! Jackie and I saw a new fish on our snorkel this morning. We think it was most likely a speckled scorpionfish or maybe a spotted coral blenny. This fish looked similar to the pictures of both in our book but Jackie and I both felt like he looked more like the scorpionfish than he did the blenny. Our book says the scorpionfish grows to almost 4 inches and this fish was a little bigger than that so we could be wrong. Our book did say that the scorpionfish likes to hang out in antler coral and thats where this guy was. We also had the opportunity to swim with 3 different honus and that always makes for a good snorkel. This will more than likely be our last snorkel until we get back from our trip. We leave in a couple of days and we still need to get the lawn mowed before we go. Jackie has been busy this afternoon getting all the washing caught up...she even had to drag our coats out from the back of the closet and wash them!

AFTERNOON AT THE BEACH

Aloha! Jackie and I had an early start to our day. We started the morning off by watching the Nascar race from Kansas. The countdown show started here at 7 with the race starting around 8. Jackie and I thought it was a very good race...of course the fact that the Biff who started from the 31st starting position and was able to work his way up to the front and lead most of the race might have a lot to do with why we liked the race so well! We were both really surprized when he elected to get 4 tires on his last stop. He had taken 2 tires on two of his previous stops and both times he dominated the field afterwards. Guess he thought it was best to play it safe on his last stop and get 4. I think if he had chosen to go with 2 again he would have won instead of finishing 3rd. Course that call is a lot easier to make when you are watching the race on tv and don't have anything to lose by going for it! After the race was over Jackie and I decided that we needed to get out of the house for a little while so we made plans to go to the Menehune for subs. I suggested that we put on our swimsuits and take our subs to the beach. It had rained off and on for most of the morning but I figured what the heck...we might as well be ready to get in the water and if it contiued to rain...so what! Turned out that by the time we made it to the beach the weather was great. We enjoyed our subs then got in the water for a nice little snorkel. The 1st pic was taken at Smith Family Luau when Mary and her gang were here visiting. The next 2 were taken this afternoon. They show a yellow tang. I love the color of these guys...it reminds me of those hard butterscotch candies.

NEOSHO 1975

A WEEK AWAY

Aloha! Most of mine and Jackie's day has been spent getting things ready for our trip home. Funny how it requires so much more preparation to be gone for three weeks than it does to remain here! First stop was Walmart...we wanted to get Cory an alarm clock as he is working such crazy shifts at work now. Part of the week he will work noon to 9 pm, part of the week it will be 11:30 pm to 8:00 am and once in awhile they will throw an 8:oo am to 5:00 pm shift in just to keep him on his toes! I don't know how he does it. Our next stop after Walmart was at Allstate to pay the insurance. Then it was a stop at Home Depot to return a few items. We also made a stop at Costco for gas and to pick up a few items to insure that Cory won't starve while we are away. Hope you enjoy the pictures I posted tonight. I was looking back at some of our old photos and thought you might want to see a few also.

BIG JACKS

Aloha! Sorry about the quality of the last video I posted. It looked great on my computer but when I saw it on the blog I was really disappointed.I couldn't even see the eel and I knew where he was supposed to be! Hopefully this video will be better. The fish are a lot bigger so maybe that will help. Jackie and I took this video on Monday at Anini. The water was a bit choppy and we even debated whether or not we should get wet. Glad we decided to get in because we had a nice little snorkel. We headed out on our usual route and discovered the convict tangs behaving a little strange. They seemed to be a little more agitated than normal as they weren't stopping to feed as much as they normally do. There also seemed to be a few more of them than normal but that could have been because they were swimming around more. It wasn't long before we discovered what had them all stirred up. There were 6 large ulua out hunting along the reef. Our book has them listed as bluefin trevally. These guys were between 3 and 4 feet long and I would bet the largest one must have weighed over 50 pounds! It was a real experience swimming with these guys as they didn't act the least bit concerned about us. We were unable to see them actually catching any fish so maybe we did have them distracted a little bit. They stayed in an area about 50 yards square and Jackie and I swam thru it 4 or 5 times. We saw these fish on each pass and sometimes we would run into them more than once. We also ran into a white mouth moray. This was a good sized one and I think I got a pretty good clip of him. I used the zoom on the eel but the video of the ulua was shot without any zoom.

Getting Closer

Aloha! Jackie and I have enjoyed a very peaceful week here on Kauai. On Tuesday we went to Anini snorkeling. The conditions were great with very little wind chop and pretty good visibility in most spots. We did run into a few places out near the outer reef where the current had the water stirred up a little but seeing as we are almost into our wintertime conditions this is something we are just going to have to learn to live with. Speaking of winter time conditions on Thursday and Friday we had surf heights of 20 feet or better here on the north shore. Guess we should have made a better effort to get out and see the large surf but neither Jackie or I could pry ourselves away from the house. Thursday evening the surf was pounding so hard it woke me up! I got up and looked outside expecting to see thunder and lightning only to realize it was the surf making all the noise. Jackie and I are really looking forward to seeing everyone when we get home. We should be arriving in Pasco around 9am on Saturday the 10th. Can't wait to give my grandsons a hug! I posted a video we shot Tuesday at Anini. The eel in this video is an undulated moray. According to our book this variety of moray is one of the more aggressive ones and it says you should avoid trying to feed or handle a undulated moray. I would think that would be very good advice...right up there with not poking a grizzly bear with a stick!

MORE PICS OF NAPALI

NAPALI COAST

Aloha! Things have been pretty quiet for Jackie and I. I think we have made it to the beach once since the last of our guests left. Not real sure why we have decided to hole up here at the house as the weather has been great...light trades and temps in the low 80's. Of course if you ask Jackie she will tell you the main reason we haven't left the house is because I am too lazy. So far I have been unable to convince her that all I'm trying to do is save up my energy for our trip home. Some how she has come up with this queer idea that you can't save up your energy before hand and that all you can do is rest and recover after your energy has been spent. Now all of you who know me will understand just how alien this concept sounds to me as I have spent my entire adult life saving my energy up for when I get old. At least thats my story and I'm sticking to it! The pictures I posted today were taken on our boat trip around the Napali coast. We did this trip with Dr. Mary when she was here. Dr. Mary chartered the Sea Breeze and there were 15 of us who took this trip. I must say I was really impressed with the boat captain and the gentleman he had crewing. They did a wonderful job of making sure everyone was as comfortable as possible. They were real good at pointing out things and letting us have enough time to look. They were also very well informed about the history of the area and were more than willing to share this info with us. Of course the best part of the trip was the Napali coast itself. The pictures just don't do the place justice. All I can say is it was awesome! There was unbelieveable beauty every where you looked. We dropped anchor near a beach on the southern end of the coast and we snorkeled for close to an hour. The snorkeling could have been better as the water clarity was just fair but the sandwiches were great and we ran into a few dolphins on the way home. The trip back was a bit rougher but not too bad. Jackie and I got the biggest kick out of watching Nicole's son Drew. He is about 9 or 10 years old and every time the boat would get airborn off the waves he would giggle and laugh then grin like a possum. Bet he grinned more on that 45 minute ride back than he did on his entire trip!

ANINI

Aloha! Jackie and I have had a very enjoyable morning. The weather was perfect...low 80's with light trades. We arrived at the beach around 9 and found great conditions...not much wind chop and hardly any people. The water clarity has been better but with all the other factors being what they were it still made for a very nice snorkel. We saw a ton of fish including a few ulua. The one in the photo is probably 24 inches long and about 15 pounds. Some of the others were quite a bit larger but I was not able to get a good pic. We also saw 3 or 4 yellow tangs as well as a teardrop butterfly. Jackie and I were in the water for almost an hour and I think this was the first time we failed to see a single cornet fish even though we snorkeled in our usual spots and have always found them to be quite abundant in the past. We left the beach a little past 11 with the only firm plan being to find a warm shower and something to eat for lunch!

NAPALI COAST ABOARD THE SEA BREEZE

SMITH FAMILY LUAU

Aloha! Jackie and I have been having the best time! The last couple of weeks we have had friends and family here visiting. Normally when I post I have a very hard time finding anything to write about. These past couple of weeks it has been just the opposite. We have been so busy going that there are way too many things to post and I have no idea how to even start to tell you about our many adventures! All I can say is I will try to put a few slideshows together and you will have to supply your own commentary!

WAIMEA CANYON

MATT AND BRANDI'S WEDDING

Aloha thought you might enjoy this little slideshow

Poipu beach and Hanapepe

Aloha! Here's a few more pics of my nieces visit. Most of these were taken at Poipu beach on Sunday. I also included a few from last nights luau. I can't believe how fast the days have flown by since they arrived and I bet they have flown by even faster for them! Maybe after Brandi's wedding today things will get back to normal and everyone can experience that slow relaxing Hawaiian charm that Jackie and I have found to be so enticing!

ALOHA NIECES

Aloha! Thought you might enjoy this short clip. There are a few pics of my nieces arrival at the airport and a few clips of our snorkel at PK's. Jackie and I have been really bad about getting pictures. We have spent the time catching up with everyone and just haven't taken the time to snap many photos. We will try to do better but I won't make any promises...ok I will make one promise...I promise to turf the job of taking the pics to Jackie!

MOORISH IDOL AND BOXFISH

Aloha! The yard looks great today...of course it had better after all of mine and Jackie's hard work yesterday! It took us a little over 5 hours to get it all mowed and the clippings all spread out. We were so pooped afterwards that we drove into Kapa'a to get us a hamburger rather than trying to fix anything here! On our way into town I mentioned to Jackie that as much as I love it here sometimes I really miss being able to go to the 10-4...especially after a hard day. The 10-4 was always a place you could come dressed like you were, find a good hamburger and a friend willing to listen to how your day was going. Jackie and I keep looking for a place like that on Kauai but so far no luck. About as close as we have gotten has been Eggberts. They serve a good breakfast and keep your coffee cup filled but they close after lunch. Our trip to the beach happened a little earlier this morning thanks to Oceanic Cable. There was an outtage in our area so no cable or internet! Jackie and I have both become so conditioned to our morning routine which consist of checking on you guys via Facebook, getting our farms and other games caught up and then watching a little bit of the news while we eat breakfast. It felt so odd this morning not to be able to do any of that so we hurried our meal and headed to the beach for a bit of snorkeling hoping that things would be back in sync when we returned. We had a nice little snorkel and I was able to get some good pics of a moorish idol. We didn't go out as far as we normally do as I have been a little under the weather lately. Nothing serious...just been feeling a bit off. After we returned from the beach they had our cable up and going so this afternoon has been spent playing on the computers and watching a little tv and oh yeah I even found the time to take a much needed nap!

HANALEI AND ANINI

Aloha! Jackie and I enjoyed a very nice weekend. Most of Saturday was taken up by the Nascar race at Bristol. All in all it was a pretty enjoyable race to watch and one that was filled with excitement thru out most of it but that being said I still feel Nascar needs to shorten the races. I think if the races were about half as long as they are now it would make them a lot more exciting to watch. On Sunday Jackie and I went to Hanalei. We had lunch at Bubbas and browsed thru some of the shops afterwards. Hanalei is filled with shops selling everything from surf boards to antique toys but we have always found that people watching here is the most fun. Hanalei has all kinds...from the diehards of the sixtes to the jet setters of today. This morning Jackie and I went snorkeling at Anini. We saw our usual assortment of fish and got a nice little workout to boot. The weather today has been kind of hit and miss. It would be real nice then the wind would pickup and it would rain and then it would go back to being real nice again! This type of weather is not unusual for Hawaii but is more prevelant during the winter months. Not sure whats on the agenda for tomorrow but think it will more than likely be the lawn. We need to get it done as we have visitors arriving at the end of the week and we don't want to have anything standing in the way of spending as much time with them as we can!

50 YEARS FOR THE FIFTIETH STATE

Aloha! It was 50 years ago today that Hawaii became our 50th state. There wasn't a lot of celebrating on Kauai...at least not that I was aware of. On Oahu they had a celebration at the Convention Center with speeches by the governor and the rest of the dignitaries but I would have thought there would have been a bigger deal made out of it. The local stations did produce a special show about the 50 years of Hawaii's statehood and the clips they showed on the commercials looked interesting but I had to choose between watching the show or writing in my blog and as you can see the blog won! It was a beautiful day on Kauai with temps in the low 80's and a nice breeze. It was so nice Jackie and I just had to get out and enjoy it a little so of course we went to Anini snorkeling. The tide was pretty low so getting to some of our favorite spots was a little bit of a challenge. As a matter of fact at one spot Jackie swam right over an eel! It wasn't the one in the video but was the same size and type as that one. We were swimming over the top of the reef in water that couldn't have been more than a foot deep when I noticed this eel. I had slowed down and and was preparing to take a few pics of it when Jackie swam by. She couldn't have been more than 6 inches from the eel when she swam by it! I think it startled her a little when I pointed the eel out to her and she was able to see just how close she had come to it! After we got back to shore we got the biggest kick out of watching some of local keikis fishing. There were 4 of them with the oldest being about 8 or 9 and the other 3 being 4 or 5. These little guys were using open faced reels and casting into the wind. Not sure how they managed to keep their reels from looking like a rats nest but they did! The oldest even caught what looked like an eel. It was about a foot long. Of course Jackie and I sat there for about a 1/2 hour watching them play and neither one of us was smart enough to take any pictures!

Felicia Update

Aloha! Well Jackie and I are still in a holding pattern waiting to see what Felicia has in store for us. At the moment it looks like this should be a pretty mild event as the weather service have down graded Felicia to a tropical storm and they are prediciting her to weaken even more. On Sunday they were saying we should expect rain totals of close to 15 inches but tonight they have revised that to totals closer to 6 inches. The storms path has also shifted a little and now it looks like it will make landfall on either Maui or Oahu instead of the Big Island like they were prediciting earlier. We should feel the worst of the storm Tuesday afternoon thru Wednesday and things should be getting back to normal by Thursday. Today the weather was pretty nice...the skies were a bit over cast but not that bad. Having been warned about all the rain we should be getting Jackie and I decided that today would be a good day to mow the lawn. We have made the mistake before of letting it get too long and that really turns the lawn in to a huge job. The video I posted today was taken Saturday at Anini. It has a few still pics of a juvenile sailfin tang. There were two of them about the same size. This is the first sailfin tangs we have seen so we are hoping these guys will stay around for a while. I was also able to capture a short clip of a small cleaner wrasse. He was doing his little dance that he does to draw attention to himself so the fish will know that he is open for business. To me it looks like action I wanted to put on my crappie jig with the hopes of attracting a bite! Guess its lucky for the cleaner wrasse that there are no crappie in Hawaii!

IT'S NICE NOW but...

Aloha! Jackie and I have enjoyed another week of watching tv, napping, reading and playing on the computer. A very enjoyable way to spend the week but not a way that gives one much to blog about! This week we did take the time to make sure our hurricane kit was ready. Basically we just did an inventory of the supplies we have on hand as we wanted to make sure we had enough staples to get us thru a couple of weeks of no electricity or water service. Surprisingly we didn't need to purchase much...just a couple of 7 gallon water containers and a little more propane for the stove. Everything else we had on hand. According to the weather service there is only a very small chance that hurricane Felicia will remain a hurricane and will more than likely be down graded to a tropical storm by the time it makes landfall in Hawaii sometime around Monday if it even hits Hawaii at all. So the main threat we should be facing will be rain with the likely hood of it being heavy in places. Having lived here for almost three years now I know that it can rain here when it wants to! Seeing as how Jackie and I spent last week pretty close to the house no new pictures so I posted a short clip from February. Hope you don't mind the rerun!

CATCHING UP

Aloha! I know it has been a week since my last post and I don't have a good excuse for not writing in my blog other than the fact that the days just seem to have flown by. Not sure why that is because Jackie and I haven't really done anything. Our only real accomplishment was getting the grass cut! The weather has been overcast with just enough rain mixed in to keep us away from the beach and outside of a couple of trips to town to check the mail and pick up a few groceries our days have been spent here at home reading, playing on the computer, watching a little tv or napping. It was this type of week I used to stress over so much when I was thinking about retiring. I figured I would need something to do to keep me occupied and to help me pass the time. Boy was I mistaken! It seems I forgot to factor in that one ironic little twist that God has put into his plan...that the older one is the faster time passes! When I used to hear people tell me that youth was wasted on the young I always assumed that by youth they were refering to how you felt and your level of energy. Now I wonder if they might have been refering to your concept of time and how when your young and have a lot of it it passes so slowly and as you age it speeds up so dramatically! Ok thats all the philosophy for this post! Let me tell you what Jackie and I have really been thinking about and thats whats happening at the end of this month. We are going to have visitors. First will be Theresa and Tricia with their families and then Mary and Jose and most of the staff from Mary's clinic. We are going to have so much fun! It is a real treat to be able to experience Kauai with someone who is seeing it for the first time and being there when they discover the joy of snorkeling or to watch as they take in so many of Kauai's beautiful sights! Really drives home the fact that Jackie and I are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place and we are so lucky to be where we can enjoy it at our own pace. PS our trip home in October might have made it in to our thoughts a time or two as well...not that you guys and our grandsons are ever far from our thoughts but thinking about seeing you all in October has really started to build the excitement!