July 24

Today is the day we leave. We have a 6:00 flight out of here over to Maui and then are headed home tomorrow morning. Sad...
The last pictures I put up are what we have been up to. The small baby is Savannah, Joel's sister's 9 month old. She's adorable. When tropical depression Cosme came by, it rained here from Fri-Sun. However, starting yesterday, the weather was beautiful and sunny again. We took advantage of the weather by hitting all the indoor hot spots including an orchid show/sale, and a winery up in Volcano, the town. In somewhat of a mist, we stopped at the Zoo on Saturday and one of our finer sites was this lemur, not pictured is the white tiger, the main attraction of the Pana'ewa zoo. We drove to the top to see the Kilauea and Halemaumau Craters but fought rain the entire way. We could see the devastation from the lava flows, smell the sulfur, and see the large craters in the earth known as lava chambers but through windows that were constantly fogging and a deluge to me at 5-10'' of rainfall on the day. Hilo gets 400'' of rainfall yearly, so this was nothing for them.
Also pictured is the 5 of us at Akaka falls.
We stopped at Spencer Beach on our way back from Kona and watched the sunset there and took some great pictures. Also at Spencer beach is a heiau, a hawaiian temple. There are two temples visible to the eye and a third is said to be in the water, a temple built to the shark deities. In the bay, there have been occasional shark sitings for years as they used to sacrifice people less than 200 years ago. Hence the picture with the four of us and the shark siting sign.
They were here for 5 whirlwind days and most nights we celebrated with Mai Tais, Pina Coladas, Mint Mojitos and Spades. Lots of cards. I think that all that might have led to the mask being worn one night, but I couldn't be sure.
It's been loads of fun. Today, we're cleaning cleaning cleaning. Lots to do. Up at 7 to get started on the place in hopes that we can finish around 10/11 to head out to the beaches here one last time before we depart. Have a nice day!

July 22

July 19

Of the pictures listed below, there are stories that go along with. The first two pics from the 18th have to do with our hike on the previous day. We hiked down and up that steep grade hill. 25% grade for 1 mile. I can’t imagine driving down it, but it was well worth the hike. The first and second pictures from the second post of pics, the one with joel and I and the overlook are also related. In that second picture, can you spot the sandy beach? We hiked to that from this overlook and back again. It took us around an hour to get down. While down below, we swam in the cool freshwater creek, played catch with the tennis ball and paddles in the water, tried to catch waves by body surfing, and saw wild horses! They are said to roam the valley freely. There are sections barricaded off down there as well as it is a burial site for kings. Our muscles all hurt so much that they twitched and trembled and we walked backwards and sideways, and created our own switchbacks on the road. We even took a picture at the top of the 5 of us, seen in the second posting, 3rd picture.
Back to the top is a picture of most of what we did yesterday. This is Laurel in her snorkeling gear. We spent 3-4 hrs at the beach yesterday snorkeling with the fishies, Joel went kayaking for a bit and then Aaron and Joel went out to catch waves while body-boarding. I think we all got a little sun. Update! Yes… I am peeling. Grrr. It isn’t stopping me from going out in the sun though. I just put on sunscreen. Yesterday morning, we went out to the market and the accompanying Hilo downtown stores and got some souvenirs. Laurel is the feature of the next picture. After beach time, we also went shopping and went to Hilo Hatties, a shop, and Laurel got to pick a pearl. She picked an oyster with 2! Joel in the 5th pic is showing what they planned on doing last night. Having a little island fun, making pina coladas and some island brewed beer with flavors of liliquoi. Down again to the second posting of pictures, is me sitting at the counter. I’m cutting up mangoes. On our way back from Waipio Valley, that gorgeous place above me in the picture, we found about 20 lbs of mangoes. That has been a fun thing about being here for sure. I’m turning them into lovely mango slices to go on cereal, ice cream, or just for munching. The 10th unexplained picture is a ½ way through the sunrise here yesterday.
It’s been a whirlwind having the family visit. I fell asleep at 9:30 last night as I was wiped. I think they might have lasted varying times from 10-midnight. We watched movies and played spades. Depending on when we all make it out of bed, we may head to Kona or it might be something else. We’re all sore yet again.
People are starting to wake up here. It’s now 7am and we’ll decide what to do. Catch you later :)

July 18

11 am and all is well

My computer may say 11:06am, but it is really 6:06am... good job computer. I'm up at the crack of dawn to see the sunrise, a little late I am, but it's pretty. My siblings arrive at 8:10 and we're going to make some fresh leis out of plumeria and feed through some flowers in the Ti leaf leis that we made the other day.
Yesterday afternoon, we stopped by a friend of Joel's family's place. He owns 620 acres about 4 miles out of town just up the mountain, just under a square mile. It is gorgeous. They've owned the property for about 5 years and use it as a place to tool around after work. They dapple in gardening, landscaping, have 12-15 trees of all different sorts of fruits including vivee which I hadn't had before, some on and off-season tangerines, the starts of mangoes, guavas, bananas and avocadoes, and lots of ornamentals, orchids and tropical plants I've never seen before to eventually landscape around the house they hope to have put in and finished by December. They have a little waterfall, and a gorgeous view of the city below. It rises to about 1,000 ft. and is the view you would expect from the airplane as you fly in. I enjoyed our 2 hr. tour of the small bit they he's had a chance to play with!
And now for the list of things we've done, perhaps with a bit of detail to them, perhaps not. May not seem interesting, but I need to write it down somewhere :)

• Snorkeled in Maui and here at Richardsons and saw many blue, yellow, green, purple, white and assortments of those colors in fish as well as pipefish, 3 types of pufferfish, sea cucumbers, sea anemones and large turtles.
• Made some good food here: sushi with tuna, a nice pasta sauce, lovely salads, purple sweet potatoes, mint tea, marinaded teriyaki and sesame chicken, fried rice with chorizo, and Hawaiian style hot dogs.
• Have been seeing Joel's darling nieces each day. They are now 8 mo. and 22 mo. Will post pictures of the cuties.
• Scrabble. Played daily. We're 8-0, I'll let you guess who is undefeated :-D
• Sunburn is getting much better. Still red, hurts less in the sun, 80 % chance it will not peel, woohoo!
• Line Drying Clothes - not so bad, takes an hour or two when the sun is out. Takes a day when there is mist in the air and it is high in humidity out.
• Waterfalls are much nicer when you're not in a drought. Will need to re-visit Rainbow falls now that we had a little rain. Akaka falls and Kahuna falls were nice though. Every tourbus stops there apparently.
• Maui is not that big. You can get to most places there in under an hour. I am not a fan of the mtv show, living Lahina, or whatever it is called.

Please comment!

July 16 - Hawaii!

Big Island, Onomea Bay. Big Island, Onomea Bay. Big Island, my finds! Avocado and guava.

In Maui, a beautiful sunset. In Maui, sugarcane - Sugar in the Raw from HI is from here.

In Maui, Haleakala National Park - top of 10,000+ ft. In Maui, we watched wind surfers.

Big Island, orchids at a friends. Big Island, making a Ti leaf lei.

Post 4th of July downtown

Yeah, lots to update. Throughout the night, we launched fireworks for 2 hrs and headed inside around midnight. Including family and friends of mine and my siblings, we had about 15 people here watching the fireworks. It was great. We watched from a safe distance, though we did have one instance where some flying paper chards zoomed towards us and struck us, specifically my friend joe. Nothing wrong, just gets you on alert. Ducks, Tanks, lots of fireworks. Up until 1 chatting and talking about everything. Around 2, while Joel and I were in my room watching the fireworks on this computer, we heard some very close fireworks outside. Wha? I saw one come very close to my front window and so we opened the blinds and didn't see anything wrong. We left the blinds open and a few minutes later, I looked out the window and saw a gold reflection in Joel's car. Huh? 2 in the morning and something wasn't right. I stormed outside leaving Joel to wonder what I was up to and found that someone had set out trashcans on fire! We only get trash taken once a week, so there was a fair amount out there. There were 10 ft. flames and all I could do was watch. Joel went in to wake my parents and we put out the fire. In the debris, we could see that someone had indeed put 4 bottlerockets around the trashcans and had thrown more into them. Strange. What indeed is this world coming to. Frazzled at the destruction, we walked up and down the street and found unlit fireworks all over, and then about 45 min. later, we walked up to the top of the hill and found another trash can on fire. At 2:45 in the morning, I met my neighbor for the first time and put out that fire too. We called it in to the police and called ourselves down around 4 to sleep. It was an interesting night.

4th of July

4th of July Fireworks Finale

I have more videos, but this is the finale. If you'd like to see more, email me, and I will send you a cd of higher quality video.

Riding High

This is a video of Barbie having a ride... she isn't very aerodynamic. Barbie flies again. What did we learn? Use a cheap Barbie, they are less durable. Throughout the evening she road rockets and fireworks and her destruction wasn’t as good as last time. She is still in one piece. She is missing some clothes and has some singed pieces to her, but not the ‘into pieces’ look of the past.

Barbie on her first ride of the day.

A view of the courthouse from where we were

sitting waiting for the fireworks.

Me with the fireworks right there!

July 6, 7

Good morning, I’m sitting here at the farm. The Samuels Family Farm. Sounds like this house has been around since 1839 or mid-19th century, I get two different answers. It is a quaint old house with a sit down shower, black and white photos on the wall from men and women in black ties and 5 layers of dresses on. Old collections of books and antiques are in abundance. The farm here in New Windsor, IL is the old house of Joel’s Dad. He lived here as a child and is now in a family trust where any one of 7 children or friends of the family can come and ‘retreat’ here, stay for a week, come do improvements, live here if they really wanted to to make use of this house. There are cattle out in the field which is rented out year-round. There is an old well water pump out front which still pumps water albeit a bit brown. There are vestiges all about which are left here by each of the children that come – they are in their 50s. Paintings, small trinkets on windowsills, paperweights holding up books, and in each of the drawers are a great smattering of items. When one of the ‘children’ as they are no longer children, come here, they look for a precious item that was left here only to find that one of the other visitors to the house has moved the item and the search must continue. Other old treasured items are left here because someone is afraid they might break because of their ever-moving lifestyles. Every single item in the house has a story behind it. Things are only thrown out or donated by committee, or so it seems, a sign labeled – Throw out or Donate or Give Away need to be clearly labeled and present for over a year so it seems in order for said direction to happen.
I’ve spent the last 2 days here with Joel, his parents and last evening, his 45 year old brother Rolf arrived. We have been having long lunches and dinners to talk and catch up, lots of greens and eating from the land in lettuce, lambs quarters, milkweed blossoms, and vegetables from surrounding gardens. We all spend our time with the roofers. They start at 7am and go on until 7pm. Go ahead, ask me how restful that is. :-p I somehow manage to sleep until 9am and my dreams incorporate the bang, bang, bang of the nails and shingles meeting the roof. I don’t blame them for starting early to avoid the 95+ degree heat during the middle of the day with high humidity and blazing sun, but goodness, I would love to sleep a little later.
Yesterday Joel and I were walking down the lane and saw a dump truck and a pickup turning into the cattle field. Any ideas on what might have happened? Well, as we watched, they drove through the middle of the field and stopped at a grove of 5 Cottonwood trees in the middle of the field. More ideas? They hoisted up one cow with ropes and put it in the dump truck, and we thought death during child birth, they hoisted a second and we surmised facetiously murder suicide, a third and we thought that perhaps the crop dusting yesterday was poison. After they drove out, we found out that there were four dead cows. The cause of death? Lightening. They had insurance on the cows – life insurance – and were covered for natural disasters like lightening from the big storm that happened on Wednesday morning. Another herd around here lost 27 cattle on the same night.
All in all, it was a good weekend, it is now Sunday morning, the 8th. We went fishing on Friday evening and Joel’s dad caught a 4 lb. catfish. It was on the first cast of the afternoon and then between us, we caught a few more small catfish and a baitfish, a small fish that will be put into the freezer to be used as bait the next time. We ate bunches of black raspberries and blackberries and headed home. When we got in yesterday evening, we ate some sweet yet spicy chicken wings, and then headed to my sister’s boyfriend’s place downtown. He lives near a downtown place called Lafayette Square. Headed down there and had beer, amaretto and milk on the rocks – tasty!, chips and pomegranate salsa, spicy nachos and rainbow chocolate chip cookies. We watched Finding Nemo in Spanish – Buscando a Nemo J and played a few rousing games of Spades and finished with a round of Hearts. I have missed cards J We may resurrect Euchre and 500 this week yet.
It’ll have to happen quickly as Joel and I head for Hawaii on Tuesday. My three siblings follow next Sunday to Maui and arrive in Hilo, HI on that Tuesday. I’m excited! I am Really looking forward to snorkeling again, to taking everyone around, and perhaps getting to see lava and the possibility of good weather. Mmmm…

One bit of last week that I had no time to write about was the 4th of July. It was marvelous, great holiday to eat and be with friends and not work. Sorry guys, but I enjoyed it for a change, taking a holiday off and not having to work. Not that I am working anyway, but after awhile, it is nice knowing you don’t have to work on a holiday. Behind all of that was a family party here at the house with a meal at 2, then we left and made it to dinner at 4:30 at Joel’s Aunt’s Party, and then at 6:30, we had dinner again at Annie’s house, my roommate from college. At 8, we headed downtown for the firework at the arch. I’ll post pictures and try to find a way to put video on here of the amazing fireworks. It is somewhat like the video that the Monster Librarian put on her website from YouTube, it was a great show! After the 20 minute fireworks extravaganza, we headed out to my house for my family’s fireworks. We live in a place that doesn’t allow fireworks, but that doesn’t stop anyone from doing them. There are so many calls into police on that night for mischief, they can’t check out fireworks. In that vein, with the 4th falling in the middle of the week, I’ve heard fireworks for about 10 days in a row. Lots of fireworks. Each time I head out of my house and down the hill, there have been fireworks shows off in the distance, all the local counties have their own show. I love it!
Fireworks festivities in upcoming blog…

Festivities

I'm sitting in the kitchen listening to my two brothers and Joel talk about our 4th of July plans. Not only are we going to go downtown and watch Cindy Lauper (oh boy. :-p) from under the arch, but we are going to see one of the greatest 45 min. music/fireworks display with 20,000+ other people. What I am really referring to is some very strange plans of their desire to blow up Barbie. As my good friend Brian said tonight, " i would expect nothing less from the youngs...yardwork and exploding barbies :)". There was lots of yardwork today, but they built a rocket this evening and bought $90 worth of fireworks to set off tomorrow. They got a barbie with minimal clothing - a bikini - for the purpose of sending up into space with not much drag. This conversation has lasted 45 min. so far. They are planning for next year already. This is year #2 on this endeavor. Be amused, don't be concerned or alarmed. This is just one of the strange things that my family does and I accept this.
Just finished playing a couple of games of spades. Spent 5 hrs working outside unloading a tree from the trailer (3 hrs) and washing the truck - it's a nice truck for the other two. I'm trying to account for my time and am failing miserably.
This is just a post to unload my mind on. 3 BBQ's, and the Arch to go to tomorrow! Wooooo... and then Thursday is off to IL.

Substance

Complete thoughts aside, it's a whirlwind. How can I put two thoughts together to make a sentence or write words of substance (sp?) if I'm having a slight trifle figuring out where I am and what I'm doing next. Perhaps I need a calendar, a day planner, a schedule, a job, a guide, a pen and paper, receipt for my brain to exchange for a new one as this one seems to have something funny going on with it, a list, a routine, hm. Well, with the help of one of those, I shall put this life of mine to order.
Vignettes and realizations from Atlanta:

• I'm not a country club person. Went to two of them, couldn't stand either. A full service bathroom that includes hair dryers, mousse, razors, shampoo and soap, pre-pasted toothbrushes, hairbrushes, and make-up stations are just not my cup of tea. No cell phone rules and dressing up being mandatory. The Dogwood Invitational - an Amateur Golf Tournament was taking place there this week too.
• When you get to a certain age, repetition is inevitable. If I heard a story once, I heard it three times, within the week.
• Buckhead is a suburb of downtown Atlanta, and you can only shop there if you have gobs of money that you want to throw away. Phipp's plaza specifically, where a tanktop is $350 and things that are 70% off are still about 3x too much more than I would spend on a good day. Phew.
• No road in Atlanta is straight or flat. All roads must turn every few feet, go up and down 2-3 times in any given 1/4 mile, and the lanes must be tight, very tight. Atlanta has a lot of traffic and people use a lot of gas there. I don't like one way streets.
• In the past two years, I have missed cherries, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, and fresh pineapple. I do not miss tea snack or having dessert/sweets all the time.
• Palmetto bugs are gross. Their presence alone could make me averse to the Southeast.
• Time change - Eastern, Central, Eastern, Central, Hawaiian, Central - drives me batty.
• For as long as I live in my parent's house here, my room will be full of everything I own in life and thus have little actual living space available to me. I have a tiny trail that ends 2 ft. before my bed currently and I have to jump to my bed without going too far as the blinds for the window are just beyond the bed.
• Private health insurance companies are bold, brazen, and scammers. In the words of my sister, "So they only insure healthy people?" Darned pre-existing conditions.
• A stand up shower is a luxury. This past week, I had a sit down shower. Great! you might think. Well, it isn't really and I can tell you why. The tub only goes up to about 2 1/2 ft. off the ground. Plus, you have a hoselike device that attaches to the spigot and then ends in a shower head handle. When the device detaches from the spigot, it sprays water everywhere and needs to be reattached thus necesitating shutting off the water, reattaching, and then readjusting the water. You must sit the entire time. If you try to rinse while standing, other than it looking silly - no shower curtain - it splatters everywhere. I could go on, but that's probably revealing enough. I like modern devices.
• Lunches and suppers can last longer than they do at the farm. 2 hrs is not a stretch for some folk.
• Violette in Atlanta is an adorable French Restaurant. It reminded me a lot of the way I've learned to cook and the food and atmosphere were great. There was a piano player and the decor inside was perfect. A nice NY Strip Steak for dinner and Salmon Rillette with Capers for the appetizer was amazing. I had never had salmon rillette, but would have it again in a heartbeat.
• Whole Foods has great taste testings on Saturdays, makes great sushi, is a good place to find cheeses - they have lots, including 20 varieties of goat cheese, and from there I found a yogurt called Brown Cow. Maple Yogurt, it was amazing. I'm going to have to see if they are here in my state, I'd eat it everyday.
• I love hiking. Not a revelations, but rather a vignette. From Stone Mountain State Park, to Sweetwater Creek State Park, walking around Emory Campus, around their house in Druid hills, and just everywhere we hiked. Even on the way back at Old Stone Fort State Archaelogical Park for a viewing of a 2,000 year old wall. I'm inspired by the Monster blogger to link to sites to help demonstrate what I'm talking about.
• Rummy is fun, but I don't like losing.
• I need to create more time in my life to blog, as I like doing it!