Halloween!

This year we have Tinkerbell and Superman!  Trick or Treat!

Anika's pumpkin design.

   Decided to carve pumpkins, roast the seeds, and save the cut out pumpkin to make pie at a later date.  We'll see how long the pumpkins last in the warm weather.  

Henry's pumpkin.

The kids made their bat hats at the library.  Then preceded to put their blankets on to fly around the house and scare us.  Spooky!

Black Sand Beaches

Okay so when I looked back at the pictures I put in about how we don't have any nice sand beaches I put in 2 white sand pictures (mine on Oahu and Henry's 2+ hour drive from our house).  Here is one beach with sand that we have near our house.  Usually the beaches are more just lava rock and minimal sand.  These are all taken at the Kehena beach not too far from our house.  This is the optional clothing beach and it had a smell of herbs in the air.  The surf was too strong for the kids and I to swim and the sand is pretty course but overall we had a great time checking out the ocean and playing there.

 

'Ohi'a and Lehua

According to legend, 'Ohi'a was a young, handsome Big Island chief.  The volcano goddess Pele know that 'Ohi'a was courting a beautiful young girl named Lehua.  Pele became enamored with 'Ohi'a and desired him for a husband.  One day as the chief went up into the mountains to cut kukui bark to stain his surfboard, Pele appeared to him.  She was dressed in her finest clothes and was quite striking.  After a time, she announced to 'Ohi'a who she was and asked him to be her husband.  Nervously, but very diplomatically, he turned her down, professing his eternal love for Lehua.  In her anger, Pele told him he was as gutless as a piece of wood and changed him into a gnarled tree with grey-green leaves.  When the other gods saw what Pele had done, they felt bad and tried to reverse her actions, but failed.  The best they could do to reunite the broken-hearted Lehua with her beloved 'Ohi'a was to turn Lehua into a beautiful blossom on the same tree.  To this day, it is said that picking a lehua blossom off an 'ohi'a tree will produce rain.  These are the tears from heaven for separated lovers everywhere.

Lava Tree State Park

Our family decided back in August to check out the Lava Tree State Park which is about 5 minutes from our house here in Pahoa.  We had a nice little hike and enjoyed walking through the canopy of trees and all the ferns.  Here is a little bit of knowledge on the park.  

Situated in the Nanawale Forest Reserve, this park is a graphic depiction of the long-term effects of lava. Hundreds of years ago, a fast moving flow of hot lava hit this patch of wet 'O'hia trees. The lava forever encased the structures leaving behind vertical, hollow, lava tubes where each tree once stood.

Local yokels

Some of the locals in Kona are a little odd, but the kids found them wildly entertaining.

Fruit

As I discussed with my friends from WI today I was reminded of how I miss the WI apple season.  However, looking around the greenery that surrounds our house I am thankful for our bananas, oranges, lemon/limes, avocado, guava, lilikoi, etc that we will hopefully pick throughout our year here in HI.  Amazing to us how we miss the comfort of apples even though we have all these other fruits at our fingertips here.  Here is a picture from our yard of some of our bananas just starting to form. 

3 months in

We have now reached the 3 month mark on our adventure.  We have had some ups and downs.  We just found out that we will have to move out of our rental and find a new place to live.  We enjoy living in the area where we are now so we hope to find something relatively close.  It is nice and close to Pahoa Elementary where Anika goes to school and Racheal works.  It is also close to friends that Lance and Henry met at the park. 

Here is the synopsis thus far:

Lance:  It's been quite an adjustment of being a stay at home dad and working from home.  I miss some of my adult time, however, it has been rewarding to see Henry grow from day to day and setting my own work schedule has been nice.  I have enjoyed our many adventures so far and am still happy with our decision. 

Racheal:  My job is good and for the most part enjoy it.  It's been a great experience leaving all of my comforts of somewhere I knew the ins and outs of to try to figure out a new state's rules, paperwork, customs, co-workers, students, etc.  Hawaii is not really what I expected.  Being that we live in a rain forest, we hardly ever see the ocean, it rains at least daily and the beaches take a new definition here since there's no sand.  Lance and I are closer now and I feel it's because he does the cooking and cleaning which I did in WI.  I'm probably less stressed that way.  I do miss some things like family, friends, fall but know that we'll be back in no time at all.  We will be back in 7 months!  I do not regret this decision.

Anika: "I like when we went to Nana's beach."  Likes the flowers, the community pool, sunny weather and her friends at home.  Enjoyed the plane ride here.  Misses WI.  Nana, grandma, grandpa, cousins, visiting their houses, Iwa (cat), Spaz (dog), apple trees, autumn, jumping in leaves, snow.  She asks at least once a week to go back to WI :(.
 

Henry:  He is only two so it's hard to get much feedback but he seems to be enjoying Hawaii.  He likes wearing no shirt around the house and yard with papa.  He loves "swimming" in the small pool and ocean pools.  He enjoys eating guavas and bananas.  I think he misses family and our pets.

Aloha Nana

Here's a photo of the black-crowned nigh heron or 'Auku'u.  We saw it outside the seaside restaurant in Hilo where we ate a lovely farewell dinner with Nana.  We all had a great time during your visit and hope you did as well.  Sorry to hear about your longer than expected trip home.  Aloha Nana!  A hui hou (until we meet again).

Hau'oli la hanau (happy birthday)

We had our first birthday celebration on the Big Island as Lance turned 34.  I had a great birthday filled with chocolate cake, aloha shirts, surfing (if you can call it that), phone calls from family, a new wedding ring, and some island brew.  All in all a great birthday!  The aftermath, however, has been painful and lingering...  The surfing left me wiped out, literally and figuratively; some muscles that I didn't even know I had are still sore and it has been 4 full days now.  I guess that's the price you pay as you endeavor to stay young in the face of growing older.  At least I can still eat the deliciously decadent cherry chocolate cake with chocolate sour cream frosting that Racheal made... mmm...

Evening at Volcano National Park

A view from the Kilauea Iki crater.

Sun is setting over the volcano.

The glow of the volcano on a beautiful evening.

First Visitor





 We've had a lot of fun with our first visitor Nana.  The kids have enjoyed seeing a beloved family member - that and they might be getting sick of papa and mama.  Nana has also lightened the load which has allowed papa to get quite a bit of work done and go surfing.   

 

 

Here is a photographic tribute to Nana on the Big Island.  From Nana's beach near Seaside, to Tutu's tree at South Point, to Rainbow Falls, to beach 69, to Punalu'u with the sea turtles, to Kiluea overlook, and through it all rides in the car. 

Anika the boggie boarder!

We stayed at the 69 Beach for a couple hours enjoying the dry side of the island, the white sand beach, and the waves.  Anika wanted to keep boggie boarding all day!

 

7th Anniversary

Lance and I decided to take advantage of having my mom here with the kids to hike the #1 recommended hike here on the Big Island.  We woke up and headed up to the Volcanoes National Park to hike the Kilauea Iki Trail.  The trail is a little over 3 miles which includes ancient rain forest to a newly lava-paved crater and back through the rain forest.  At the end of our hike we sat at the scenic overlooking the Kilauea Caldera and the smoke rising from the Halema'uma'u Crater.  As we were eating our lunch we watched as a cloud moved into the crater and slowly swallowed it until the visibility was almost gone.  We had a great time and thought an appropriate activity for our anniversary since we went hiking on our first date.  We followed up the evening with a nice dinner at Paulo's Bistro in Pahoa town.    

1st surfing lesson!

Well Lance finally got off his butt and went surfing thanks to encouragement and support of his awesome wife Racheal.  With the help of my surf coach Jon, I managed to stand up and ride the wave every time but once (approximately 15 - 20 times in the span of an hour).  Even though the swells were only 1-3 feet in Honoli'i bay, it was pretty sweet!  Unfortunately, I did acquire some pretty nasty bicep rash as a result of paddling out, but it wasn't bad enough to dampen the spirits.  I definitely would like to try it again, next time without a coach.

A view of Honoli'i bay from the cliffs above

South Point

 On our way back from our most recent trip to Kona, we meandered down to the southern-most point in the US.  This may have been where the Polynesians first settled on the Big Island because the fishing is supposed to be phenomenal.  Though, the land has been slowly collapsing into the sea resulting in some rugged cliffs.  The green sand beach is nearby, so there were some green particles mixed in with the dust on top of the cliffs.  The land and climate in the surrounding area is pretty rugged as well, which reminded us of somewhere like the ranchlands of Wyoming.  And of course, it does get pretty windy down there as you can see by the way this tree is growing...

Views from our hotel in Kona



Here is downtown Kona with a view of where the start of the Ironman in the right-hand corner.




This is the start of the sunrising over the mountain.



Tide Pools

We have had many busy days with Nana visiting.  Today mom and I went to Maku'u Market sans kids which was really nice to be able to meander throughout the entire market.  Then watched some Brewers while eating some lunch.  Afterward, Nana wanted to go to the tide pools so we headed in that direction.  Nana opted to hang out with Henry instead of snorkeling so Lance, Anika, and I got on our snorkel gear and headed in. 
Just to preface a little on Anika:  When we left WI Anika did not like even getting her hair wet let alone going under the water.  Just last week I introduced her to her goggles and now out with us using her goggles and seeing the underwater wildlife.  It was really fun to show her different fish, coral, and eels swimming around.  I would point something out and she would say things like "Yeah, I saw it", "That looks cool", or "Look at all that coral".   She had a great time and didn't want to leave.  Our new plan is to look for a youth sized mask and try to introduce a snorkel.  We'll see how it goes.  We're so proud of how well she's doing with swimming and we're glad because we're surrounded by so many wonderful things to see in the water.   We were also happy to have Nana hanging out with Henry since he's not quite ready to be snorkeling with us.


From left to right, here is a picture of a manybarred goatfish, whitemouthed moray, and a yellowmargin moray.



Here's Looking at you Kids

Anika taking a picture of Henry

Henry taking a picture of Anika