Beautiful Day

The mature Hovlands (G'pa & G'ma) are here visiting us for a little stint.  Yesterday turned into a beautiful day and we took advantage and drove over to Na'alehu location of the southernmost bakery in the US.  Along the way we went down to Punalu'u beach.  There we were able to see some sea turtles, big waves crashing, and seas of azure.  The kids also played in the water and black sand. 

After a nice outdoor lunch we headed to Volcano's National Park to see the lava tube and walk a little bit of the trail above a crater.  It was a wonderful day full of sights to see and beautiful weather.  They may have brought the nice weather with them being that Wisconsin has had a very mild winter this year.

Trains



Anika recreating a scene from Polar Express.

Engineer Anika

Engineer Henry

New Toys

The day after Christmas we took some of our new toys for a spin.  Alright, Lance has had his surfboard for awhile, but we bought it for him as a pre-Christmas present and he hadn't used it yet.  So, Racheal and the kids spent a sunny day at the park while Lance floundered amongst the waves.  Henry and Anika have been blowing a lot of bubbles ever since they found them in the stocking.  We're pretty sure that the bubbles are Henry's favorite present, followed closely by cardboard boxes.

Mele Kalikimaka

We had a nice Christmas on the island this year very laid back.  Granted we missed our families but were able to skype with both sides of our family.  And grandma and grandpa will soon be flying in to visit.  Anika woke up fairly early to tell us that Santa came.  We enjoyed some homemade uber sweet cinnamon rolls, applesauce, and bacon for breakfast.  Followed by gift opening and playing with the new gifts.  We were blessed with some sun and got to play outside with chalk and bubbles.  This year we decided not to make a lot of food and save that for our company.  Instead we had some pizza and leftover soup for our meals.  Not too tradional but niether is living in Hawaii!

Twas the day before Christmas and the rain finally took a hiatus.  We decided to go for a hike to rejuvinate us.  On the drive up we saw in the distance, atop Mauna Kea a glimpse of a white Christmas.

,The hike was quite pleasant, as we saw many wild pheasants.  The morning ambled by with nary a cloud in the sky, and as our hike came to pass we had a picnic in the grass.  Yes, we really enjoyed our walk through the branches, that is until a tree ate all of our Lances...

Mele Kalikimaka Everyone!

Rainy Days

It has been raining quite a bit lately here in Hawaii, which is starting to make us a little annoyed and stir crazy.  Okay we knew we were going to be living on the rainy side, in the rain forest, and have some "winter" season here but come on!  We have emptied the rain gauge at least every other day for the last couple weeks.  It holds 5 1/2 inches of rain.  Without the sun it stays on the cooler side and infests us with mold and dampness.  Luckily we moved when we did because our old house was just beginning to give everything a slight layer of mold.  (You did see on our blog what it did to our pumpkins in less than 24 hours, right?)  Alright that's enough claiming we are living in Hawaii.   

Here are a couple pictures of things we find to do on the raining days here.  Our days are usually filled with cooking, baking, some art project, game or lego playing.  If we're lucky we find an outside the house activity like go to the budget movie theatre or to the toy store that offers art/music things at low cost like the crowns the kids are wearing. 

Our princess and son working side by side.

Our handsome prince.

Tram

Another thing that topped the kids' list of favorite parts of our mini vacation was the tram.  Due to the size of the resort there was a tram that ran from end to end, allowing us to relax and take in the Roman/Japanese/art deco architecture, the abundant water features, as well as the african crowned cranes.  Henry absolutely loved the tram.  His face lit up every time the red lights flashed and the warning sounded in English and Japanese signalling the doors were about to close.

Statues and statues and statues...

 One of the first things we did on our dry-side vacation was to walk around the 64 acre resort and see what there was to see.  Oh look, a statue that the kids can climb on.  Sure we can take your picture, that will be cute.

Look!  More statues, lions this time!  Roar.

 Wow, look at that seahorse!  Can we take another picture?  Ok....

Alright, that's enough, no more pictures with statues.  Turns out there are literally hundreds of these things scattered about the grounds.  It was a lot of fun for the kids and some were pretty amazing to look at, but it would have taken days to take a picture with each one, and who wants to sit through that slideshow?

Mini Holiday

We have thrown out many ideas of what to do over the 2 1/2 week long winter break.  Grandma and Grandpa are coming right after Christmas but we wanted to do something in the week prior.  We decided to make reservations on the west "dry" side of the island at the Waikaloa Hilton Beach Resort.  This resort is supposed to be one of the best resorts in the world.  They have multiple pools (one with a sandy bottom), a tram, a boat for the kids to ride, waterslides, lagoon, water rental items, and even their own dolphin.  We are very excited to get out of the rain and take in some sun and relaxation.  We are probably not going to be posting on the blog until we return.  Here are a couple pictures taken from a beach near the resort to give you a feel of what's in store for us. 

Holiday Concert

Today was Anika and my (Racheal) last day of school until the new year.  The kids at the Elementary put on a Holiday Concert.  The kindergarten sang "Jingle Bells".  Anika was a little nervous about the performance but really had nothing to worry about.  Lance and I felt it wasn't the most put together concert we had been to but when the students have no music class let alone a music teacher we should have guessed that.  Here are a couple pictures from the big concert.  Well at least of Anika and her class.

Random Photos We Like

Barren tree in farm country near Akaka Falls, courtesy Racheal

Little silver bell mushrooms at Akaka Falls, courtesy Racheal

Stone arch in Kealakekua Bay, courtesy Kim Possible

Go Bananas!

Here are the first bananas harvested on our rental property.  We have at least 20 banana trees here.  They are the apple banana variety and super yummy.  Wish we had more people to share them with because there are only so many bananas one can eat in a day.

Greenery

Our friend just sent us a video from Bing Crosby's "Mele Kalikimaka" which made me listen more closely to the words.  Here are a picture of our yard that we see out our dinner table which made me think of the words "green and bright" it's also mixes in with some red.  Quite the Christmas colors we look at every day. 

The next picture reminded me of the video of different scenes for the holiday season.  Here is Lance and the kids' take on the Christmas spirit when a nerd is in charge.  Nerd was Lance's term but I personally must be on the edge of nerd myself because I think the tree with gifts out of legos is pretty sweet!  :)

Sulphur banks and vog, eww

On Racheal's last trip to Volcanoes National park with Kim and Anika, they walked the trail past the sulphur banks.  Surprisingly, the banks didn't really stink; they were just steamy and yellow.  Though, apparently some people have fallen in and have experienced extreme burns.  Also on this day, the smoke from the crater looked as though it was forming a giant cloud that hung over the mountaintop.  This is not too far from the truth since the smoke does hang over the island in the form of "vog" (volcanic fog).  It is especially bad during the winter months.  Usually the trade winds take the vog to the other side of the island, but recently the vog has been hanging around our side of the island.  As a result, we've all been experiencing some coughing, sore throats, and headaches that we believe are due to the vog.  Here's hoping the winds of change blow soon! 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, or not!

Being that we are from Wisconsin, it is really hard for us to think of this as winter or that it's December.  Let alone that Christmas is right around the corner.  This is the view of our backyard into the coffee and cacao farm.  We miss and feel like we should be looking out back towards some sparkly white snow.  We refused to buy a "fresh" cut tree that just got off the boat from the mainland.  However it was hard to get into the spirit without any sort of tree, lights, and snow.  We settled on buying this 3 foot tall tree, some lights, and had fun making our ornaments.  (Special shout out to Kim for helping to craft the ornaments!)  Both kids were very excited about our new tree and Anika exclaimed "This is the best Christmas tree ever!"  Wow, our cut trees from the past must have been pretty bad or they really are missing everything from home..... 

Farewell Friend

Today we said aloha to our friend, Kim.  We were sad to see her go.  We had a great time hosting her and showing her the Big Island in a whirlwind style tour.  We did many things including white and black sand beach stops, visiting a few state parks, kayaking, snorkeling, hiking, volcano watching, waterfall viewing, visiting, and laughing.  Here is a couple pictures from her last evening on little hikes near the volcano.  We wish her safe travels back to chilly MN.  We miss you already friend!

Kealakekua Bay

Kim's top request on her visit here was to snorkel Kealakekua Bay.  This particular bay is regarded as the best snorkelling on the big island.  Spinner dolphins often hang out here to play and take refuge here.  Unfortunately we didn't see any dolphins this day, but we did see an amazing amount of coral, fish, and other curious sea life.  This was a pretty big deal to Kim since her only previous snorkelling experience was in the Gulf of Mexico.  The kids did a great job riding in the kayaks, especially Anika who took a scary tumble on the dock before climbing aboard.



Thanksgiving

Nothing says Thanksgiving like coconut shrimp, orange chicken, shrimp with vegetables, and a plate of the greasiest wonton's you'll ever lay eyes on!  As we travelled with our friend Kim to snorkel on the other side of the island, only a small chinese restaurant was open.  The meal wasn't great, but at least we were with family and friend.  We did miss spending the holiday with our extended family though.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Coqui Shaka

Here is a picture of a coqui frog on our window giving us the shaka.  This was taken one of the last nights at our old place.  We think it was its way to say "See ya braddah".

new place

When talking to Nana this evening she had said she didn't see the new house picture.  Here is another one of them. 

In our yard we have bananas, avocado, limes, lemons, grapefruit, oranges, tomatoes, and a little garden.  We also get to look at bee hive, coffee, cocao, roses, and the ocean :)  This picture is of a flower we found on our walk yesterday not too far from our driveway taken at dusk.  Aloha friends!

New Home

Our landlord of our first place got a job in Hilo and needs to live in his house so we had to search for a new rental.  We settled on this place which is a working coffee and cacao farm farther away from work for Racheal.  This is what it looks like on the outside.  We moved 2 car loads today and are going to see how it goes sleeping in the new place tonight.  We have many fruit trees in the yard as well as a garden that needs some TLC.  The kids are going from having their own rooms to sharing so we'll see how it goes.  We are also moving from the middle of the rain forest up the mountain side some.  At least we know we get to live here until the end of our HI adventure.

Kalapana Beach (or New Kaimu part 2)

This is one of the first places we went when we arrived on the Big Island.  It is the old area of Kalapana which was taken out in one of the lava flows back in 1990.  To get to this beach requires a short hike along a path with lava fields on both sides.  The surf was way to strong to attempt swimming.  Henry was very frightened when the waves came up and splashed him.  Anika wasn't scared of the waves, but after they knocked her over she was definately more aware of them and didn't want to play in them anymore.