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.