Paying Attention

When I was a little girl, my parents bought me a mini trampoline. It sat in our family room and I would bounce and bounce and bounce for hours on end. I bounced while we watched TV. I bounced while I talked with my mom. My mom says my grandma once asked, "Doesn't she drive you crazy with the bouncing?" My mom responded, "Not as crazy as she would drive me if she wasn't bouncing." Apparently I had a lot of energy. One of my mom's nicknames for me is "Tigger".

Nowadays, I sit at a desk for 10 or 11 hours a day, staring at my computer. The entire day, one of my legs is bouncing away. Some friends and I jokingly say we have "mild ADD." My brain is always multi-tasking, and my body is bouncing with energy to just DO something. I've noticed it helps to have two things going on in order for me to focus. One thing has to be mildly distracting, and then I can focus on the more enveloping matter.

For example, knitting. I watch TV and knit. I listen to podcasts and knit. I talk with friends and knit. Like with the trampoline, my body needs the slight distraction in order for my brain to truly focus.

I had a roommate with anxiety issues and she would knit at church just to keep from completely jumping out of her skin. I admit that I have taken to knitting at church. I stopped doing it during Sacrament Meeting, but during Sunday School I knit, with my scriptures open to the section we're talking about. I participate, I read aloud. Frankly, I think my anxious roommate was onto something - I pay attention better when my hands are occupied.

In the past, when I've knit in Sacrament Meeting, I have found my attention completely focused on the speaker. I glance up at regular intervals so the speaker knows I'm listening. When I'm sitting there with my hands neatly folded in my lap, I get so distracted. I read the program a million times. I start paying a LOT of attention to the kids in the pews around me. My mind wanders and I find I miss big chunks of the talks. I might be staring at the person who's speaking, but I've missed his or her words completely.

There was an article in this week's Ravelry newsletter where the author talks about not knitting in front of company she invites to her house lest she be thought rude. Well, she learned a few years ago that in reality, she pays better attention to what's going on around her and to the conversation at hand when her hands are occupied with her knitting. The comments to the article consist of a bunch of people chiming in with "Me too!"

I'm tempted to say it's just an excuse we knitters invent to justify more time knitting. But having read that article and the comments, and knowing that my two biggest knitting friends complain of anxiety and attention issues anyway, maybe the reality is the people who are drawn to knitting, and those other activities that result in a mild distraction from what's going around them, are those people with the "mild ADD". We just need to take the edge off by occupying our hands and then our attention is completely yours, whether you believe it or not.

Any other knitters? How's your mild ADD?

Vote On My New Sweater

I've decided to take the plunge and make myself an actual honest-to-goodness sweater. I've been making baby sweaters, but haven't made an adult-sized one yet. Last year I bought a few skeins of a nice dark terracotta-colored yarn that would be perfect for an Autumn sweater.

So which one should I make?

Green Gable
February Fitted Sweater
Darcy

Vintage 3-Hour Sweater (which I would make with 3/4-length sleeves)

Marriage is Hard Sometimes

Well, I wound up taking back all the red stuff and getting the spa bathroom elements after all. Our friend Rachel came over for a little bit Friday night and I asked for her opinion on the shower curtain and the red.

Her first thought was sometimes red, white and black can seem a little harsh and the tan might help to soothe the palette a bit. We hung up the shower curtain and my (and Rachel's) initial impression was that it really closed off the bathroom and made it look super small all of a sudden. And it's not a small bathroom.

So I decided to go with the spa plan, take the towels back to Kohl's and get a white shower curtain. My plan was to do this Saturday morning and just kind of do it without making a big deal about it. However, Jason wanted to come along because he also thought we could go to Lowe's and look at backyard and other house necessities*.

Then he discovered that I was returning the red towels. I really want to be fair in all of this (because I am very concerned about "fair". Some would say this is a Libra thing, but I credit my INFJ nature more). But I also want our house to look nice. Because it's a beautiful house. Thus, I don't really want the Homer Simpson action figure in the dining room. Or the dorm room octopus lamp with the monkeys hanging from it in the family room. Since the office is basically Jason's domain, I figure it's a fantastic place for his toys to go.

But he still looks completely wounded and becomes completely disengaged from the process when I say "no" to anything like that. And I felt like that's what happened Saturday morning at Kohl's when I said I was returning the towels. At least that was my perception, whether or not it was his actual intent. Which he told me later it wasn't. I think it shocks him sometimes when I take things so much to heart.

I explained that I tried the red and I didn't like it so I thought I would go with the more soothing palette. I love red, actually (we have red sheets for Fall and I have several red dish towels and red potholders). But I also like the medium teal I wound up buying. Jason said "Whatever..." and I felt like I had stabbed him right in his red-loving heart.

So I bought the medium teal towels, and a white seersucker shower curtain, but already my headache was starting. Then we went to Wal-Mart (which is always kind of a horrifying experience anyway) and I got some stuff for the Young Women for camp prep. Jason told me he could have gotten all of that much cheaper online if I had just let him know earlier.

Basically, I just felt really stressed out and I wound up with a migraine. Jason felt really bad about stressing me out. This is partly my problem, I know. I want to be fair. I also don't want to disappoint anyone, particularly Jason.

Anyway, Jason assured me he really didn't care about the bathroom, he was just expressing a preference. I guess I take his preferences too much to heart because I want things to be fair. "Fair" is a key word in my life.

Note to self: need to relax and be ok with the fact that sometimes Jason and I will have different opinions. Sometimes or often, as the case may be. Totally not worth a migraine.


*Like hinges. For some reason there are 2 cabinets, 1 shutter and 1 door that have broken hinges. The last tenants must have liked swinging on the doors or something.

Knits

This is my niece Anya in the sweater and hat I knit for her just because I'm her aunt and I get to do stuff like that.


A full shot of the sweater and hat before I sent them:

Decorating Part 2

You may think I'm spending too much time thinking about the bathroom, but it's really the only area where I'm going to have any creativity in this new house. Most of the other rooms are pretty well established. We have furniture and rugs. The walls are painted nice colors. I talked myself out of buying new guest room bedding because the stuff we have is perfectly serviceable and the blue and white of the things we have will go fabulously with the light yellow walls of the guest bedroom. Basically, the bathroom is the only almost completely blank palette.

So I bought a shower curtain, but I was thinking about taking it back until Jason saw it and said, "Oh, that looks nice."

As I mentioned, the bathroom is mainly white, with black accents in the tiles. I got the red towels, right? We already have a tan bathmat, which I was considering getting rid of and replacing with a red or white one, but then I found a shower curtain that is horizontal striped red, tan, brown and white.

I thought, "Red and tan! I can make the towels work with the bathmat!"

Then I got it home and remembered the black tiles.

Then I remembered I have a small wall hanging of Tournee du Chat Noir (for Tiny, our chat noir). Red. Check. Black. Check. Tan. Check.

Maybe I can pull it all together after all.

I'm going to run with this plan, take pictures, and ask for commentary. But what's your gut reaction? Is it ok to have tan and brown in the same bathroom as black? Will it just look messy?

Crock Pot Cooking

If, like me, you are loathe to cook anything that warms up your kitchen right now, I just posted a couple of great Crock Pot dinners over at Bee's Knees Recipes.

Update to Decorating

So when I mentioned I might take back the red towels and opt for a more spa-like feel, Jason objected. He likes red a lot (as do I, but I was kind of warming up to a spa bathroom). He also does not have the warm feelings about aquas and teals that I do.

Well, I figure I can go with red since he did give up his beloved world map shower curtain. Marriage is all about give and take.

Decorating

I'm trying to decide what to do with our bathroom. I talked Jason out of using the broken cartoony world map shower curtain* that we used in the old apartment, but I'm not exactly sure what to get instead.

*For those of you who saw it, yes, I know, the world map shower curtain was interesting AND educational, but I kind of want something a little more classy in the new house. Plus, it was ripped. And the tape I used to fix it was ripped. It was time to let it go.

I would also like to note that in the downstairs half bath we have a monkey trash can, monkey face bath mat, and just today I bought a palm tree with monkeys soap dispenser to put in the bathroom. Jason loves monkeys. So you see I'm not so much of a decorating harpy as you might think.

So the upstairs bathroom is entirely black and white. There are tiny black and white tiles on the floor and black and white tiles on the walls. The sink and bathtub and little cabinets are white.


Basically I'm torn with what direction to take it. I originally thought red, which is kind of a classic look with the black and white. We already have these white towels with red stripes and today Kohl's had some dark red towels on sale that I picked up (55% off, plus an extra 15% off. Love Kohl's!).

However, I also saw another color at Kohl's that I like a lot - kind of a medium teal shade - that makes me think of spas and relaxing and ocean breezes. I'm kind of a sucker for aquas and teals, but I love dark red too.

In my search at Target and Kohl's today, I didn't really see any shower curtains that went with the red towels. I know something will turn up eventually. But maybe I should go with the teal and make it more of a spa bathroom with one of those white waffle-fabric shower curtains.

These are the tough decisions.

End of An Era

Last night, Jason and I finished cleaning out the old apartment.

Finally!

I honestly didn't think it would take so long to get everything out of there. But between trying to get the new place organized a bit, my inability to work on it very much because of work and YW obligations in the evening, and Jason going out of town, we were only able to work on it in fits and starts.

It's done now, though, and the feelings are bittersweet. Jason moved there almost 4 years ago. I visited the week after he signed the lease and spent a day cleaning the place for him (because I was that awesome of a girlfriend). I also found out where the nearest Target was and went there to pick up a shower curtain, a dish drainer and some other necessities for the place, only getting moderately lost in Providence along the way (these were the days before GPS).

A year and a half later, we got married and I moved in. We threw parties and housed various of Jason's family members over the last 2 1/2 years. We enjoyed fires in our fireplace. We watched the snow fall while we snuggled cozily inside. We traipsed over to the Brown Observatory next door on Tuesday nights to peer through old telescope. We lost a big old smelly tree. We decorated for Christmas.

Crummy neighbors notwithstanding, it really was a great place. We've grown out of it, in a variety of ways, but it will always be the first place we lived in together. We are both thrilled with our new place, but it was a sad moment last night when we turned off the lights and walked down the stairs for the last time.

View from the living room of the park in front of the Observatory
Jason shoveling snow
Jason and his dad getting ready to carve the turkey (or wreck havoc)

Tiny on Jason's mom's lap in front of the fire

Lovely fire in the fireplace

Jason's birthday party

My birthday party

Christmas mantle

Aren't We Done Yet?

My body is so sore and worn out. I don't think there was one night last week when I got to bed before 12:30 AM. Then I woke up and got to work early every day because I was so wired. Then I worked hard all day because we're busy and came home to pack and clean and move and pack some more.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights we moved over all our fragile boxes. Jason moved some stuff over during the day on Wednesday too. Thursday was the big moving day and Jason stayed home and supervised the movers. It was so great of him. By the end of the night his feet were so sore because he just stood all day. We unpacked a little and I made the bed so we could sleep in it Thursday night.

We has a little disaster Thursday night when I ran a load of wash and we realized when the laundry room flooded that somehow the water output had been pulled out of the drain pipe. We were a little panicky and called the landlady and she said she would come right over. Then we realized we could probably get most of the mess cleaned up ourselves and called her back to tell her not to come, but she insisted. She, her husband, and her college-age stepson came over to clean up and hook the washing machine up correctly. It's nice to know they're so responsive.

In the meantime, we realized we had no gas. Also, we found out we have a gas dryer. So I rewashed the clothes, but then couldn't dry them. This also meant no cooking or hot water. Friday, Jason called the gas company and even though they happily switched the bill over to Jason's name when he originally called to set it up, no one bothered to notice that the gas had been completely shut off when the last tenant moved out in May, and would need to be manually turned on. We get gas tomorrow (Monday) morning. In the meantime, I have taken two very cold showers. Hypothetically, I could go to the other place (which is what Jason has done), but since I have to be to work early and don't want to wake up any earlier than necessary, I would rather suck it up in a cold shower.

Friday I planned to leave work around 2 so I could get home and unpack, but, as usually happens, I wound up being too busy. I finally left a little before 5, which is at least a bit early. I unpacked a bunch of the kitchen on Friday.

Saturday we unpacked ALL DAY LONG. Seriously, we woke up and I ran over to Dunkin Donuts in the shopping center just down the street for breakfast sandwiches (Dear Dunks employees, how did you manage to severely mess up BOTH sandwich orders?), then we started unpacking. I finished the kitchen (although Jason tells me he spied a couple more kitchen boxes in a closet that we forgot about), we arranged the family room furniture, built Jason's desk, and put away a LOT of books and clothes. About 8 hours after those mediocre Dunkin Donuts sandwiches, we went out to the Texas Raodhouse for dinner (and realized we go there too much when our waitress recognized us). We came home and unpacked some more, finally calling it a night a bit before 1.

Today we had an early church meeting that we both had to attend and wound up spending about 5 hours at church. Then we came home and watched the World Cup, because that seemed like the thing to do. I was rooting for Spain, so, yay! I also kind of slept through about half the game. But that was ok since the big show happened at the very end and I was awake for that.

After the game, we went back to the old apartment to finish. Jason still needed to finish packing up his closet and a couple other things. So he packed and I cleaned and cleaned. And sweated. It was only in the low 80s, but it was very muggy. Unpacking in our new house with AC has spoiled me already. We're not quite done at the old place, but pretty close. It's definitely cleaner, thanks to me. Our cat created many cat fur dust bunnies.

Tonight we're exhausted and sore and going to bed early. My knee and hip hurt a bit, and I think I pulled something in my lower back. Jason has similar complaints. I'm just grateful we had movers for the big stuff. Those guys are miracle workers.

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to a busy day at work. I brought some work home for the weekend, but didn't get to it at all. There is just too much to do around here. So I'll need to get into the office early again. Someday I'll get on a normal sleep schedule...

In Non Moving-Related News

OK, to be honest, I have no non moving-related news. It's moving all the time at our house!

But I just have to write this quick little note about how pleased I am with the relationships our Young Women at church are developing with one another. They all go to different schools and are various ages, but they have fun together and are planning an excursion to the beach tomorrow. (I'm Facebook friends with them so I get all the updates. I told them they should pass off their camp swimming requirements while they're there.)

Anyway, I just love that they're such friends (even though there is some DRAMA! sometimes). I know these friendships with other girls with similar values will help them stay grounded.

Scamaroo

I'm trying to sell my dresser before we move on Thursday. This morning I received a super enthusiastic email in response to my Craig's List posting. I wrote back and sent my phone number, telling them to call me to arrange to come see it. This is what I got in response:

Thanks for the prompt response, I am quite satisfied with the condition .I am also interested and I will like to make an instant purchase, so kindly end the advert on Craigslist, I do not mind adding an extra $25 for you to close the advert on craigslist so that I can be rest assured that I am the prospective buyer, I would have loved to come take a look but I am a very busy woman I am very sure you understand. I will also want you to know that I will be paying via Certified Check, and it will be sent to you via courier service due to the distance. You don't need to bother about the shipment, as that has been taken care of...... So I will need you to provide me with the following information to facilitate the mailing of the check.

1. Full Name on the check
2. Address where payment will be sent to not p.o.box (because my courier service does not deliver to p.o box)
3. City
4. State
5. Zip Code
6. Phone Number

Once again, I will like to remind you that you will not be responsible for shipping as I will have my mover come over as soon as you have cashed the check .

Have a nice day.

Of course it's a scam, and Jason and I were trying to figure out what the angle is. I Googled one of the odder phrases and discovered that in this particular scam, they send you a check in an amount much greater than the amount they're going to pay and claim it's a mistake. You're supposed to deposit the check and send the extra money back to them via a wire transfer. Then, of course, their check bounces and you're out some money.

But this email was so obvious. Total overkill for a $70 OBO dresser. Note to scammers: if you're going to run an email scam, at least make it a little bit believable.

Boxes

Living room:
Dining room:
Note the white boxes with the flies on them. That's what happens when you marry a geneticist working with fruit flies. They are the best moving boxes, though.

I Don't Sweat, I Glisten

Jason walked into the bedroom last night where I lay prostrate from the heat, and proclaimed there is nothing left to pack in our house. Not exactly true, but I let it slide since my nod to packing yesterday consisted of dumping most of the contents of my dresser (which I'm trying to sell) into a box and calling it good.

Jason on the other hand spent last night detangling and packing the corner of our living room dedicated to entertainment, and all of its assorted cables.

The heat index was 97 yesterday and even though it eventually cooled off outside, our apartment retained all of the day's heat quite nicely. I sat perfectly still on the couch and sweat still rolled off of me.

I'm not going to say that we have it rougher than those in, say, Tucson, but it's just different. I don't ever say "But it's a dry heat" because I know exactly what that dry heat feels like in the middle of the summer. Like a blowtorch. Or a very hot oven right after you open the oven door. That's what 115 degrees on a summery desert day feels like.

But in the desert you have air conditioning, or at least a swamp cooler. Most homes in the Northeast do not have air conditioning. So when it's 94 with 70% humidity outside, that's exactly what it is inside.

My point is, I excused myself from packing last night. The truth of the matter is, there ARE still things to pack. I made a little list for us and emailed it to Jason this morning. Tonight we pack!

For Future Reference

Yesterday we had a luncheon to raise money for the Young Women to go to camp. I didn't make enough food. I mean, everyone got firsts, but there wasn't enough for seconds or thirds, which everyone wanted.

So, note to self, next time make about twice as much food.

One thing we did have a lot of were two huge green salads. And you know what - the kids kept coming back for more. Usually we have lots of desserts and the kids come back for more cookies and brownies and such. However, apparently when presented with extra food, kids will come back for whatever is left. One kid said he was going to eat ALL the cucumbers. Another one was picking out tomatoes (I made sure she used the tongs).

Second note to self for future reference when I have kids: hungry kids will eat salad.

Farm Share Weeks 3 & 4

THIS year I was going to take pictures of my Farm Share every week to show you all how awesome it is. Last year I missed some weeks and then kind of petered out, but THIS year was going to be different.

Then we decided to move.

I did take a picture last week, but it was only of half of the Farm Share because I had already used the other half to make us dinner salads. But posting the picture would involve actually finding my memory card reader, which I have a sneaking suspicion I threw in a box labeled "Misc." last night.

(You know those Misc. boxes. They're the ones that get all the detritus left over after you finish packing up the rest of the room. As my assistant just said, those boxes are like Christmas when you get to the new place. Who knows what's inside?!)

So anyway, Farm Share Week 3 consisted of another lettuce as big as my head, scallions, beets, and mesclun mix. I feel like there was something else, but I can't remember what...

Farm Share Week 4 (which I picked up last night and just threw in the fridge when I got home from madly running errands) has TWO head-size lettuces, pattypan squash, summer squash and sugar snap peas.

Also, in home gardening news, I have one tomato, one zucchini, one cucumber and one pepper plant that are all thriving. I planted them in containers, then put them outside, so they are fully portable to the new place. They love being outside in the fresh air and sun. I haven't even had to water them yet since we've been getting so much rain. All of the plants have blossoms and the pepper plant has 2 baby peppers on it. So exciting!

Losing Steam

I have decided that I'm just inherently lazy because I'm already tired of moving. And I haven't done THAT much. Jason has been a total rock star, and has packed up his desk, which is a major undertaking, and finished up the built-in bookshelves in the living room and another bookshelf in the dining room.

Wait a second. I've emptied out my desk, most of 3 bookshelves, most of the built-ins in the living room, most of our sideboard in the dining room (the Ingo, for those who know Jason's IKEA names for things), most of the other storage in the dining room, and packed two boxes of kitchen breakables. OK, maybe I'm not such a slacker after all. It's just that there's still soooo much to do.

Last night the neighbors were thumping away until pretty late. Usually on weeknights, the noise is fairly confined to over our guest room, but last night, we could hear it in our bedroom too. Jason and I concurred that, yes, we made the right decision.

Tonight is dedicated to packing (and selling my Barbri books. I never thought I would find a buyer for the Rhode Island ones, but he's coming by tonight). I plan to finish up the dining room and my desk, and start on the kitchen. I'm going to Wal-Mart tonight to get some disposable utensils and cups. The plan is to wash the dishes in the sink, leave out a couple of pots and pans so I can cook for the next couple weeks and pack up the entire kitchen.

I'm curious as to what will be uncovered. When Jason first moved into the apartment 4 years ago, his method for dealing with stuff he couldn't fit in the cabinets was to fling it on top of the cabinets (there's about a foot of space in between the cabinets and the ceiling) or on top of the refrigerator. I think there may be 2 or 3 waffle irons up there. So if anyone local wants a waffle iron, I bet I can hook you up.

Day 4: The Big Island, April 28, 2010

On Day 4 we went south a bit to Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Park, or Place of Refuge. This was the site of a palace and temple complex.

The replica of Hale-o-Keawe, the royal mausoleum:

Hawaiians in the sixteenth century under Kamehameha followed a complex system of laws. A person could be executed for relatively minor offenses, unless he managed to swim across the shark-infested waters of Kealakekua Bay to the Place of Refuge. If the offender reached the shores of the Place of Refuge, he was absolved of his crimes.

The park provided a pamphlet with a self-guided tour around the site. I acted as tour guide and read about each of the designated spots.

Carved wooden figures (kapu ki'i) watching over the grounds and warning away those who might try to invade from the sea



Carving the kapu ki'i


Marissa and Taylor
Jason
Lorraine and Steve
Lorraine and Steve apparently feeling the influence of the kapu ki'i
Behind a wall and past the Hale-o-Keawe is an expanse of black lava rock with altars and the remains of a foundation


Also, honu!

Love.

The bay off the Place of Refuge is a well-known snorkeling destination.
And if you pay to get into the National Park, they will let you park there even if you're snorkeling. After walking through the park on a warm and muggy day, jumping into the water was a welcome relief.

I wound up mostly snorkeling by myself since I inadvertently left Jason behind. He said he tried to keep up with me, but couldn't. Whoops. Sometimes I forget I'm a good swimmer.

Jason's typical view of me, swimming away, often down toward the bottom

I love going deep and being beneath the water.

If you look at a map of the snorkeling area (like the one in this book (which is a fantastic book, by the way. More on that in a future post)), there are two areas to snorkel: one that's deeper and for all levels of snorkeler, and one that's more advanced because it is shallow and you run the risk of a wave crashing you into the reef if you're not careful. After I paddled around the deep part for a bit (and it did get pretty deep. Probably at least 30 or 40 feet or more if you swam out), I headed for the advanced area.

Hawaiian greetings via cinder blocks at the bottom of the bay:
There were fish everywhere in the bay, but I think the majority of them congregated in the shallow area, moving up and down, back and forth on the waves as they came in. So I joined the fish, bobbing up and down over the rocks and swimming through the caverns in between the rock walls. It was great! Seriously, I could stay in the water, swimming with the fish, pretty much all day.

So I went and found Jason and brought him (and the camera) back to the shallow area.

Then we told Jason's dad and little brother to go check it out, which they did, and Jason's dad wound up getting smashed into the rocks and cut up a bit. Eek. I felt bad about that.

We didn't see any sharks despite the Place of Refuge materials that said the Hawaiian people had to swim across the "shark-infested waters" to get to the Place of Refuge. But there are spinner dolphins in the area and we saw a few of them toward the end of our swim, leaping and spinning out of the water. We saw even more a couple of days later, which I'll write about later.

Lorraine took a picture of us all, post-snorkeling
Gratuitous happy Anya shot
On our way back to the condo, we stopped at St. Benedict's Painted Church.

The pretty graveyard in front of the church. It looked peaceful.
I wanted to do a bit of shopping for some family and friends and the Young Women, so Steve, Lorraine, Marissa and I headed down Ali'i Drive to the shops. I think some of the best things were in the big outdoor farmers market. I found some cute trinkets and when we came back a couple of days later they had avocados as big as my head. We should have been shopping there for produce the whole time we were on the Big Island.

After shopping, we walked out behind the shops to the ocean and posed for some pictures.
Another lovely Hawaiian sunset.

Day 3: The Big Island, April 27, 2010

(Slowly but surely, I'm getting these done)

On Day 3, Lorraine (Jason's mom) needed to grade finals so the rest of us headed north to Kohala and back down the coast to Kona. We drove up through Waimea and Hawi, then over to the Pololu Valley Lookout. The first plan was to possibly go north and hike in some valleys with waterfalls and such, but what with such a large group and a 3-month old baby, we scaled it back to more of a car tour, but still got to see some beautiful sites and play in the ocean at the end of the day.

The Big Island is a land of contrasts (why do I feel like I'm narrating a National Geographic special?). It is the youngest island and still boasts an active volcano (more on that in Day 5). We headed north on a road that looks over the desolate valley toward the ocean, where there are relatively recent lava flows, and plants are just starting to grow. It's very dry and brown and desert-like and reminded me a bit of Tucson.

However, once we got up into Kohala, it started looking a bit more like what I always thought Hawaii would look like. You know, lush and green and jungley.

Pololu Valley Lookout, at the top of The Big Island:



These mules were standing at the side of the road, grazing on the cliff over the ocean
Not such a bad life, I would think








After we took a little walk down a path toward the beach, and took a ton of pictures, we got back in the cars and headed toward Hawi, stopping first at a local park to eat lunch. Then we went in search of Tropical Dreams, a local ice cream company.
And we found it, which thrilled Marissa (and me too, if I'm being perfectly honest):
Coconut and mango. Fabulous!

After our ice cream, we headed out of Hawi and down the coast road. We made a quick stop at Pu'ukohola Heiau, since it is a national historic site, after all.
Heiau means temple in Hawaiian
Says Wikipedia:

Kamehameha I took control of western and northern Hawaiʻi island (the Kona and Kohala districts) in 1782, but for eight years since then fought in a number of inconclusive battles. After returning from Maui in 1790, he was attacked by his cousin Keoua Kuahu'ula who still controlled the East side of the island. He returned to the village of Kawaihae, where he had spent some time earlier. A respected kahuna (priest) named Kapoukahi suggested building a luakini leiau (sacrificial temple) to gain the favor of the war god Kuka'ilimoku. Puʻukoholā Heiau meaning "Temple on the Hill of the Whale" was the result, probably on the site of an older temple from about 1580. It was built entirely by hand with no mortar, in less than a year. The red stones were transported by a human chain about 14 miles long, from Pololu Valley to the East.

When we went in, a park guide was telling a big group of kids about King Kamehameha and the unification of Hawaii under him. The kids were enthralled.

We walked around the visitors center a bit, and then got back on the road to our final destination, Hapuna Beach. Jason, Brandon, Sarah and I had come there for a little bit the day before and decided we needed to end our day back at this beach.


I know you can't really see it, but Anya is licking my chest. Just call me Auntie Salt Lick.

Anya liked the beach ok, as long as there was someone to play shadow puppets on the roof of her little beach tent. Steve was happy to oblige. I have to give him a lot of credit. Anytime Anya needed tending, he was right there asking, "Do you need me to take her?" He definitely got a lot of quality time with his granddaughter in Hawaii.
(with Anya's other best friend, the ceiling fan)
As we were leaving the beach, the full moon was rising from behind the mountains. Taylor leaped out of the car and snapped some lovely pictures.