TSUNAMI PRACTICE

Aloha! I'm sure you all heard about the tsunami scare we had on Saturday. Wow what an interesting day! It was very reminiscent of another Saturday we had a few years ago...May 18, 1980 for those of you who weren't around yet or have forgotten the date. That was the day Mt. St. Helens blew. Jackie and I were living in Washington then and I remember watching the news reports and wondering just how bad things were going to get for us. We did the same thing yesterday. We took the same precautions then as I took on Saturday. We made sure we had enough food and water to last for a couple of weeks, candles, batteries, wind up radio, all the things everyone should keep handy for an emergency. I remember checking on my friends and family then to make sure they were ready. We did the same thing yesterday. I remember then it seemed like the whole country was watching and waiting to see what was going to happen and it was like that yesterday. About the only thing different was that yesterday I was outside part of the time watching Vasil and the painter paint the eaves on Vasil's house where as when the mountain blew I was sitting in my house in Sunnyside waiting for Jackie and Brian to bring our dog Mocha home from the vet. Turns out that even with me watching them yesterday Vasil and the painter still managed to break the sprayer and of course the painters spare sprayer was at his shop in Lihue. Only problem all the roads were closed because of the tsunami so the job didn't get finished and today it was too windy to spray. Hope the weather is better tomorrow cause it sure feels like I'm living in a cave because of the black plastic on my windows. Cory's day was exciting yesterday as well. He had to be at work at 6 am so he had left before I had a chance to warn him about the impending tsunami. He said his jaw about hit the floor when he came around the corner and saw people lined up 3 deep around the store waiting for it to open. He also said it was very easy to tell the locals from the visitors by what they had in their carts. The visitors carts would be full of bottled water where as the locals carts would be piled high with beer! They all commented that during hurricane Iniki you could get bottled water almost anywhere. The Red Cross and civil defense were handing it out but beer...now that was a precious commodity! Jackie and I want to thank all of you for the prayers and well wishes we received yesterday. Reading your comments and about your prayers on Facebook took a lot of the anxiety out of the day.PS. Seeing as how Jackie and I didn't get out much I will be forced to try and post a few pictures of the house. You should be able to see the new house color in the photo of the entry. It's the green at the top of the photo.

FEELS LIKE WINTER

Aloha! Jackie and I must be getting used to our new home. That's the only explanation I can come up with for feeling so darn cold! We are both sitting here with the sliding door closed wearing long pants and thinking real hard about getting a blanket to curl up in. I believe the outside temp is hovering in the upper 60's. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be complaining about 60 degree weather in February. I remember when we 1st moved over we would laugh at the people wearing sweatshirts and heavy coats anytime the temperature would drop below 70. Even the weather forecasters would warn everyone to bring out the extra blankets cause they were going to need them to fight off the chill. Well guess what... last night we were those people! We were scrounging in the closets looking for more covers. I even considered wearing socks to bed. The entire week hasn't been cold...just the last few days. It was real nice on Monday. We even made it to the beach for a snorkel. The water conditions were great. We saw most of our old friends and even ran into a young spotted eagle ray. We don't see these guys very often...maybe 2 or 3 times a year so its a real treat for us to see one. We also came across a flying gurnard. We see these guys quite often but I still can't resist taking a few pics when I see one. This one had his fins flared out. They do this when they are concerned about something. They also have an antenna-like fin they will raise. Guess it makes them look larger to the other fish. We also went snorkeling Tuesday morning. We wanted to see if we could run across that ray again but no luck. We did have a nice swim and saw a couple of honus. These guys were out by the buoy. It was a good thing that we decided to go snorkeling early on Tuesday because by the afternoon the weather had turned windy and cold.

ANOTHER WEEK IN PARADISE

Aloha! Well as you may have noticed it has been more than a week since my last post. It's not that I haven't wanted to write it's just that I haven't had much to write about! Guess I could tell you about our weather or maybe I could say a little about the sorry mess this countries political system is in. Of course there isn't anything I can do to change either one aside from packing a coat and an umbrella for when the weathers bad and voicing my opinion at the ballot box in an attempt to change things there. But a coat and an umbrella aren't much use in a hurricane and your vote doesn't account for much when you need a super majority to get anything through congress. Ok back to what's been happening here in paradise. Not much! Over this past week Jackie and I have made it to the beach just once and that was for about 20 minutes. We have gone to the store 3 or 4 times but the rest of the week has been spent either watching tv, napping, working in the garden or eating. Sure hope Tommie makes it over here soon...Jackie and I need her to push our lazy butts out the door! Well guess I should be more truthful and say Jackie needs her here to help pry my butt from the chair! I will try and post a few more pics from the past.

GROUND HOG DAY

Aloha! It has been a little more than a week since my last post so I will try and get you caught up. Guess I will start by telling you that unlike most weeks Jackie and I only made it to the beach once! We have stayed busy though mainly here at the house. On Monday we mowed the lawn. That takes about 6 hours and after we are done all we want to do is sit and rest. It sure takes a lot longer to recover from a little bit of work than it did when we were younger! On Tuesday Alex had a bunch of his friends over to celebrate his 23rd birthday. They started cooking around 11 and continued through out most of the day and into the evening. We had so many new things to try. A couple of Alex's friends are chefs at the Princeville resort and they prepared some wonderful dishes. We ate and talked story well into the night. On Wednesday and Thursday the weather was a little rough...scattered wind and rain so we stayed in and did our usual tv watching as well as playing on the computer. On Friday Jackie and I decided that the sun wasn't going to shine on the north shore so we put on our swimsuits and headed to the south shore. It was great...just a little overcast but nice. We spent the majority of our time at Poipu sitting in our chairs and snacking on the apples and cheese we had brought with us. Jackie wanted to get wet but I was feeling just a little under the weather so I talked her into just sitting on the beach. From here we went to PK's and watched the surfers for awhile. There are some benches in front of the Beachouse restaurant and you can watch the surfers from there. This is about as close as you can get to where they surf with out getting wet! From here we headed home and thats when things went a little sour for us. It started to rain while we were going thru Kapa'a and the further we came north the harder it came down! By the time we reached home it was coming down in buckets! We got soaked in the short distance from our car to our door. We watched it rain for a bit and Jackie fixed us a nice supper. After we had eaten and got the dishes put away I got a craving for some ice cream. We didn't have any here at the house so figured we might as well drive into Princeville and get some. That was a mistake! We got almost to the Kalihiwai bridge and came upon a rock slide. I saw a car stopped in the opposite lane and there was a patrol car going to aid him so I had cut my speed way down to about 10 miles an hour. That wasn't slow enough...the rocks were all the way across the road! I hit a pretty good sized one with my left front tire. It was enough of an impact that we were airborne for a bit. I was totally amazed that we were able to continue after such an impact. We went about a quarter of a mile to where Anini road turns off and I told Jackie we had better turn off here where it is safe and check the car. All four tires were up and the fenders were still on so Jackie and I continued on to the store...thanking our lucky stars! We made it all the way into the parking lot before the tire went flat. We found a spot close by and it was next to a light pole so guess things could have been a lot worse. We got the tire changed and Jackie went into the store to get our ice cream and to warn everyone headed to Kilauea about the slide. We made it back as far as the Princeville airport before we came upon all the cars that were stopped waiting for the county to clear the road. They had 3 tow trucks towing the cars that didn't have as much luck as Jackie and I getting past the rocks. There were at least 5 cars that we could see that were disabled...some with quite a bit of damage. Saturday and Sunday were spent watching tv and recovering from Fridays ordeal. Monday we had the carpets cleaned in our room as well as Cory's so the day was spent taking everything out so they could clean then putting everything back. Not the most fun I have ever had but guess it could have been a lot worse. This morning Jackie and I took our car to Costco to get a new tire and the rest of the day was spent running errands in Lihue. I didn't like the way the pictures we took at the south shore turned out so I will try and post some of our pics from way back when.