Summer Morning at the National Elk Refuge

This is my view from the second floor of the visitor center at the National Elk Refuge as I sit and compose this. The boys are back in the hotel room sleeping and I'm checking out the scene here, just inside the town of Jackson. We'll head down that road in the distance today and head back to the Grand Teton park. Our final day will be spent driving around to highlights we missed earlier in the week, as well as a few we want to revisit. I highly recommend a trip this way. More pics and stories to follow once we're home!

Greetings from Jackson Hole

Here's the plane that brought us to Wyoming, the last leg of our big trip. The airport is technically in the middle of Grand Teton National Park. Feels a bit like Tahoe to me, at least the air and altitude combination. I'm loving the late summer nights we've had since Oregon. Stays light out until 9:00PM!

Can we go back to the Lake House?

While in the Seattle area, we stayed at the lakeside home of my uncle's girlfriend. Everyone should be so lucky! Temps soared this weekend and I stayed out of the sun and off the water during the peak hours (surprise, surprise) but took the kayaks out during the evenings for a short run with one of the boys along for the ride. On our last night I had Cub in my lap and my Mom alongside us with Robbie in another kayak as the sun set over the tall trees of the northwestern skyline. Beautiful!

Oregon Coast run

While visiting friends in Salem, Oregon, we drove west to Lincoln City (on the Oregon Coast) to escape the inland heat. Escape we did! It was overcast and in the 60s and 70s. But no worries. With good friends it's fun no matter where the destination.

You know you're in Berkeley when...

We were in Berkeley last weekend for a wedding and spotted this in the church parking lot.

Maui's Sugar Cane Train

Here's one of my other favorite shots from the quick weekend in Maui. On Sunday before we flew home, we rode the short, overpriced Sugar Cane Train. A lot of fun for kids though, and even fun for adults. Great views along the way, but a lot of it is dry, like this bend you see here. Got Cub looking out the window by holding the camera as far out of the train car as I could.

Earlier that week I had taken the boys to a shady playground after running some mid-day errands. The shade came at a price - Cub was playing with the pods that had dropped on the ground, and at some point rubbed his eyes. By the end of the day, his left eye had swollen up and he looked like he'd gone a few rounds in a prize fight. Took him to the doctor the next morning to make sure it wasn't a more serious reaction to something or an allergy, and the doctor said it was a "normal" reaction for kids. The reddish marks lasted for over a week. Sadly, that playground may be off-limits for us until the seasons change and the pods don't drop.

Pano at the Park

So, since I got the new iPhone in June, it seems that every picture I post is from my phone. Sorry...hopefully will have some really good stuff from a real camera by the end of summer. But for now another iPhone shot! This I want to share because it uses the Pano iPhone app. Basically for $1.99 you get the functionality (albeit very limited) of the Photoshop panoramic tool. And I love it! Here I was practicing late one afternoon at the local Kapolei park while Robbie rode his bike. This is the result of three or four images stitched together.

Lazy evening waiting for fireworks

After the carsickness experience late Friday night, we needed to do some laundry before getting back home. So after a fun afternoon at the pool, I got Cub down for a nap and found the hotel's guest washing machines and cleaned up before the nightime fireworks. Sitting down and waiting for the cycles made me sleepy, so I wandered around the hotel to stay awake. Stood outside the hotel's luau and heard the crowd learning the Hukilau! The lyrics are plucked from the Internet and look a little odd, but I don't have time to fact check.

Ah, what a beautiful day to go fishin'
The old Hawaiian way
And the hukilau nets were swishin'
Down in old La`ie Bay

Oh we're goin' to a hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Everybody loves the hukilau
Where the laulau is the kaukau at the lu`au

Oh we throw our nets out into the sea
And all the `ama`ama come a-swimmin' to me
Oh, we're goin' to the hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau

Oh we're goin' to the hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Everybody loves the hukilau
Where the laulau is the kaukau at the great l`au

Oh we throw our net out into the sea
And all the `ama`ama come a-swimmin' to me
Oh, we're goin' to the hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Huki-huki, hu-uki-huki, hukilau-au...

Hyatt Ka'anapali

After what turned out to be a rough and long leg to the hotel Friday night, this beautiful scene greeted us on Saturday morning. (That's the island of Lana'i in the background.) We ditched plans to ride the Lahaina Sugar Cane Train (bumped to Sunday) and spent all day at the pool instead. What you see here is the "adult" side. Pass through under the rocks on the right and you find more connected pools and a great kids play area, complete with two slides.

Driving down the crater road

We left the parking lot near the Haleakala crater overlook after sunset but before it was too dark. Driving slow, I pulled over and let a few cars pass me, and also stuck my iPhone out the window and took a few shots at the fading skyline. An amazing range of reds, oranges, and yellows sandwiched between the blue sky and the clouds. All was going smoothly until about 30-45 minutes into the drive when Cub woke up from a nap. He started crying and then got sick. We pulled over and cleaned him, the car seat, the car, and everything else we could, but it still smelled really bad. Up until that point we had wished we would have been able to take the Superferry over. Not anymore. We were happy that the rental took the direct hit! We drove directly to the hotel that night and went straight to the room (with a brief Safeway stop for more milk).

Moonrise over Haleakala

When we were discussing the quick weekend getaway to Maui, Noel mentioned going to Haleakala on Friday afternoon, heading straight out from the airport. I jumped at the chance. Although we've been to Maui a few times since the last time we were at Haleakala (December, 2006) we've never managed to make it back to the crater. Later Noel would mention something about "moonrise" and I spied a calendar entry/entered time on it on his iPhone, but I didn't know what he was talking about. It would finally make sense when we were there - the time when the moon comes up and you can see it, even though it is still daylight. I shot this picture with my iPhone. (Noel did drag one of his nicer cameras up with us, but didn't shoot much as we were all kind of tired and a bit sick.)
We took turns going up the short hike with Robbie to the view the crater from the highest point. He scared me more than once getting to close to the non-fenced edge (read: fall over and fall into the crater!). He was pretty fearless. Instead I steered him toward the rocks away from the edge, where he seemed to have fun anyway.

We're baaaack

Hope everyone had a nice Fourth of July. Sometime last month we got word that good friends from high school were coming out to Maui. So we joined them there for a quick getaway this weekend. Flew in on Friday afternoon and drove directly to Haleakala National Park. (Crater shot above, taken in the late afternoon on my iPhone.) One of my favorite places. When the boys get older, I'm looking forward to hiking within the park...maybe even camping one day. For now, we'll stay at comfy resorts at sea level like the Hyatt Ka'anapali, where they have a fantastic kiddie pool. We spent the two nights there before coming back to Oahu Sunday. Overpriced food, but a good pool. Robbie said this morning, "Can we go on an airplane and go back to Maui?" Sadly, no, we can't right now. We want to, as well. Trust us!

We're starting something here

I read ages ago (or maybe saw on Martha Stewart) that you can grow butternut squash in your own yard using the seeds from a squash you picked up at a grocery store. Last month I decided it was time to try it. I saved the seeds after making soup one day, put them between damp paper towels, zipped them up in a sandwich bag, placed them on top of the fridge, and covered them with an over-turned cereal box. And waited. After a few weeks they sprouted and on June 1 I put them in our backyard planter box. They're thriving! I planted seven sprouts and four are doing well. The other three? I guess when a 4-year old likes to help and "waters" them with rocks, they were not meant to be.

Gecko penny!

I remember when my sister and family were visiting last year they mentioned something about getting souvenir pennies for Johnny while they were at the Pearl Harbor Memorial sites. He already had a bunch from various locations. You know those pennies, from the small, hand crank machines you see at a lot of tourist sites? I didn't think much of it until she said it again while we were in Maui in January. I went online to see if there was a site that told us where we could find them, and of course, there is! We found a machine literally a block from our rental and we (or maybe just me) instantly became addicted.
Back on Oahu, I checked out all the locations and have run around when I'm in various areas to get extra pennies. Lots of machines, with lots of pennies with local designs. And, yes - there's a gecko penny.

Back at the Kahala for Sunday Brunch

We returned to the Kahala Hotel for their Sunday Brunch yesterday. It is the best brunch buffet on Oahu that we've had and the food and the service is first-rate, but for someone who doesn't eat a lot of meat, I'm not all that crazy about it. Still it was a fun half-day and it's easy to get the kids there - all you say is, "Ready to see the dolphins?" and they're in. After brunch we wandered down to the pool level to watch the dolphins up close. I wanted to get out of the sun and away from the open pool during a dolphin "break," so we headed upstairs to the lanai right off the lobby. The kids soon lost interest in the dolphins and instead had fun hiding behind the planter boxes. Go figure.

Butterfly stickers

It's only the third full day of summer vacation and Robbie managed to cover the furniture with self-adhesive postage stamps. I'm not even sure where he found these...they're $.24 butterfly stamps - post card rate a few years ago. I don't know where they were tucked away, but I found them later in the afternoon as shown. He was saying something about "butterfly stickers" earlier in the day, but Cub had my attention and I didn't turn to see what Robbie was up to. Luckily they are easy on, easy off.

This reminds me of a letter my Grandma (Dad's Mom) wrote me in May: "About the drawer of stamps you have. My Brother Hollis was a stamp collector and he was the one that started Robert [my Dad]. The set (of four) United Nations stamps he bought for one of the Birthdays. Whenever we were at Hollis' home he would always show his collection. As Robert grew older and in Boy Scouts he worked to get a badge. Later it was one with his penny collections that my Mother started with him. My Mother had a few Indian Head pennies and gave them to Robert and [my aunt]. I think your Mother might have the book he filled." [She does!] So it will hopefully be a fourth generation who will be interested in stamps.

World Ocean Day

Not quite sure if it's today or if it was over the weekend, but World Ocean Day is here. One of the world's leading authorities on plastic pollutants in the ocean is in Hawaii for a series of events. He was on the news last night to highlight the issue of the tiny pieces of plastic that are threatening our ocean and food chain. It's not all the large, intact plastic bottles and bags that you see on the water's surface that's the problem (but it can't help, can it?). It's mainly when plastic breaks down into micron-sized particles as shown above. This is what the fish and other sea creatures are eating that causes the chemical concentrations now found in fish that worries scientists. Another sad, related note? Search teams scanning the ocean 700 miles off the coast of Brazil are finding mostly ocean garbage and not the wreckage for the downed Air France jet. I hope that the scientist is a believer that we can turn it around; otherwise this is just a very depressing foreshadowing of the future.

Balls!

Or maybe he just didn't know he misplaced his ID card. If anything, he obviously doesn't read the newspaper. The brainiac who left his ID behind when he robbed a bank earlier this week was caught after robbing another bank. On the day the story ran in the paper with his name and picture saying he was wanted in a bank robbery. Anyway, he was located in Waikiki on Thursday and is now in police custody. One more stupid criminal off the streets.

This picture is completely unrelated to the news above. It was taken a few months back, early one morning when I was out in the back. I'd never seen geckos this color, but they do get this dark to blend in with the night and the surroundings. This guy evidently was still waking up, as it looks like I caught him before breakfast.

Hawaiian Monk Seal at the Waikiki Aquarium

Last Saturday found us in Waikiki for Noel's softball games again. We wandered over to the Aquarium to beat the heat, and Robbie got upset when I headed into the inside tank exhibits. Didn't want to go in, and once in, wouldn't stay in. I do not like this development; I would prefer to be inside! So we hung out near the outdoor exhibits and I got a few pictures of the Monk seals lounging and trying to beat the heat, too.

Read this in the paper today and thought, "Wow. It's not just in other parts of the US where criminals are stupid. We've got 'em, too!" This from the Advertiser:

"At 2:24 Tuesday, a man approached a teller at [a bank], handed him a note and demanded money. He fled in an unknown direction. CrimeStoppers and police (editor's note: when did they become different groups?) are seeking the public's help in finding Gregg Inoshita, whose state-issued ID card was left behind at the bank counter."

Countdown to summer!

Public schools here get out soon for the summer. Robbie's last day is Monday (and they only go in for a few hours). Pretty much a light week this week, too. Friday a field trip where they will head to a local park with a playground, then off to...yes, you guessed it: McDonald's for lunch. We have no immediate summer plans to keep the kids "busy" during the free time, I'm guessing our days will be a lot like our weekends with more beach runs and monorail rides at the mall thrown in for diversion. I suppose the more appropriate title of this post should be "Countdown to July 31!" because that's when school starts again.

Here's some recent preschool art. I believe they read the "Hungry Caterpillar" book and then drew some of their favorite parts. Our son is not much of an artist (yet!) but his teacher is a really good one, so I think she aided heavily in the drawing outline. :)