Ch...ch...ch...changes

Well, I am way behind...but, it has been quite a hectic couple of months plus since my last post. About 6 weeks ago I received an offer and accepted a job as natural resource planner for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Northeast Regional Office in Hadley, MA.

So, tomorrow the movers finish packing our worldly possessions in boxes and crates to be shipped 6,000 miles across the Pacific the across the continent. We will have one more night on O'ahu at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Their kama'aina rate combined with the water slides just can not be beat. That will be followed by a Wednesday night red-eye with a Thursday noonish arrival in Hartford.

I will be trying to get caught up...in the meantime, a few pictures of what we have been up to!

President's Day weekend

I had an extra long weekend with Friday off and then the holiday Monday. We had a lot of fun!

We had our friend Tai over for dinner on Thursday night and finally made chocolate fondue with our fondue set that we have had for a very long time!! We had a great time hanging out with Tai for the evening!


One of the other highlights of the weekend was heading to the north shore on Sunday. We started the day with a hike out to Ka'ena Point, which is the northwest corner of the island. It is about a 5 mile round trip. We saw some whales during the hike out that were showing off with some flipper slaps. Then we saw about 20-30 nesting albatross including a couple of recent hatchlings! There were also a couple of monk seals resting on the rocks at the point. It was a beautiful day and not as hot as this very exposed hike can be!




You can make out the flipper just left of center in the water. If only those humpbacks would pose for us, we could get better pictures!

Laysan Albatross with chick. These are big birds that spend most of their lives at sea. The oldest known albatross is about 70 years old!


It is a little tough to see the monk seals sleeping in the center of the picture, but they are there! Hawaiian monk seals are one of the most endangered types of seals in the world with about 1,000 left in the wild!

The view from Ka'ena Point looking south toward West O'ahu.

We even saw our friends Mike, Stephanie, and Dylan from Alaska. We hoped to see them and had already made plans to hike with them on Monday. I used to work with Mike in Massachusetts and we saw them while they were on vacation in Alaska and we were there while I was on a work detail a couple of years ago.


After our hike, we met up with our friends; Stella, Zoe, Talulah, Cristoff, Hazel, Gretchen, Bruce, Kris, and Joe at a pretty secluded spot. We had a great afternoon hanging, swinging in the Banyans and watching the sunset. We followed it up with dinner in Hale'iwa. Kua aina was not our first choice, but it was delicious!


On Monday we met up with Dylan, Stephanie and Mike to hike Olomana. It is one of our favorite hikes with some beautiful views and some rock scrambling to get to the top. There are actually three peaks and on previous hikes we have been working our way in stages through the challenging portions near the top. This time we made it to the second peak and our sights are firmly set on the third!

At the top of the first peak!

View of the second peak!


Heading back from the second peak.


The view of Kailua and the Mokuluas from the second peak.


Back at the first peak on our way down.


The view looking north.


Next time....the third peak!

Mele Kalikimaka

Trying to get caught up...we had a busy couple of months with the holidays, the Sackett-Pasquales visiting, nonni visiting...

Ummm...Jacqui, they are called stockings, but...

In Hawaii, companies do indeed ship Christmas trees for the season. Apparently, every few years they have a "shortage". This year, multiple container were rejected because of invasive wasps that survived the trip. So 2 weeks before Christmas on a Sunday afternoon (not having heard about the shortage) we headed to the large tents that are set up in parking lots to sell the trees...they were all either gone or packing up. The girls were devastated...as we pulled into the last possible spot, we saw one more tree! We pulled up and were given the sales pitch that this beautiful 8 foot spruce could be loaded on our roof for only $210 dollars...we headed home, treeless. Danielle, Gabbi, and Jacqui had plans to go searching the following day. At work that Monday morning, after a few conversations and a web search, I heard about the tree shortage and a possible solution in Waimanalo. Live Norfolk pines! Sure they don't smell nice or have very many branches, oh yeah and the ornaments fall off the flimsy branches really easily, but we had a tree!!!

so, we had some friends over on Christmas eve. Khris, Bruce, Zoe, and Cristoff came over. The kids had a blast (as always) and the adults drank wine and talked. It was a lot of fun! We sang some Christmas carols and the kids opened some presents. My friend Jamie came over around the time that they were leaving and we had a chance to hang out.






Gabbi read the other kids the latest story of the adventures of Bobo the Christmas Monkey!! This year Bobo and his friend Hugh Manatee worked to clean up the environment. My Dad has been writing a new book each year for the last (I think) 5 years. They are great stories and include a new character. This year Hugh was a big hit! Thanks Dad!!!


Gabbi with Hugh.



Danielle outdid herself this year (as usual). She made fairy bowers for the girls to hang over their beds. Some friends have had them over the years and Danielle was inspired! She hung them as the girls slept, so that they could wake to them on Christmas morning.



Christmas morning was fun! The kids had a blast opening all of the gifts that Santa had brought, the gifts from us, and that had come in the mail.




After hanging out for a while that morning, we headed to the north shore. We were planning on watching the big surf that had come in and take a hike. It was kind of a drizzly morning and with the holiday, we hoped that traffic would be light despite the big surf....we were wrong. After sitting in traffic in Haleiwa for about 15 minutes, we decided to hike first. We were headed to the Peacock Flats area behind Dillingham Airfield. After talking to a woman that told us that it was now paved the entire way, we decided to try a different trail that was just up the road. The trail was fun. As we got higher in elevation, the rain picked up. When we got to the point that we were getting absolutely soaked, we turned around. We definitely plan to get back up to that trail again.

Christmas hiking...a little wet, but shorts and short sleeves...

We sat in traffic to watch the big waves at Waimea. When the surf get huge, the only break that will hold a wave is at Waimea Bay. A few weeks earlier, the Eddie Aikau tournament had been held, which is only held when waves faces are consistently 30 to 40 feet. (A note about wave heights...most of the world measures the face of the wave when measuring the height. So the wave as you are looking at it from trough to crest would be the height of the wave. In Hawai'i you measure the back of the wave...from the top to where the wave flattens out. This tends to be much smaller - 50 to 70% of the face or so. So when the surf report says 20 to 30 foot Hawaiian scale, you can expect to see 30 to 45 foot faces!) The traffic was ridiculous...at one point, Danielle got out to walk. She got a good distance ahead of us until we crept past her and slowly pulled away. We easily found parking at Three Tables (just past Waimea). Jacqui, Gabbi, and I walked back to the beach at Waimea and arrived at the same time as Danielle... We were treated to some great waves. There were about 15 - 20 surfers out and we saw some incredible rides and a few tough looking wipeouts!! We watched for about 45 minutes and headed home, after a quick stop to see some friends.

And of course the pictures, cannot do it justice...