Tsunami? What Tsunami?

Thursday night we were up all night watching the news of Japan's earthquake and listening to the local tsunami sirens go off every hour. It was quite exciting listening to the news reporters talk about the wave that was heading directly to our little island. When the sirens started, we noticed a lot of our neighbors getting into their cars to go who-knows-where, even though we are in a safe zone. I think they were heading for the grocery store since the news reporters kept stressing the need to have at least a week's worth of food on hand.

Joey was a little afraid and wanted to spend the night in our room. We all watched TV until the wee hours. The tsunami was expected to hit Kauai around 3:00 a.m.

I fell asleep before anything happened other than the sirens.

About 4:00 a.m. our phone started ringing, a couple of people from the mainland (where it was later) asking if we were okay.

We were fine.

I thought maybe things would be interesting at work on Friday. I wondered if I'd do ER-type work. I wondered if I'd even be able to get to work since the road there goes right along the beach.

Well, the drive was totally normal. The road was totally normal. Then work was totally normal. The strangest thing about the tsunami was that it didn't seem to hit Kauai at all, at least from my point of view.

So it turned out to be kind of fun, because we had all the excitement with none of the bad stuff. Kauai is still heaven on earth!

Flat James

We love having visitors from the mainland, and we've had quite a few lately. One of our very special visitors was Flat James. He is my nephew, who is related to my other nephews James, Aaron, and Alex. Flat James arrived via the US Mail and we're enjoying his visit very much.

Here is Flat James at the Kileauea wildlife sanctuary, looking at pictures of whales. He did get to see real whales, too.

Our condo has a pool, where Flat James loved to sun-bathe.

Here is Flat James enjoying the water. He didn't have a swimming suit, so he had to swim in his clothes, but he didn't mind.

One day, I took Flat James to work with me. He helped me care for my patients, including this cute little girl.

Back at the Kilauea Lighthouse.

Sorry the pictures are out of order, but while Flat James was at work with me, he felt a little sick so we put him on the monitors, but he was fine, just a little Island Fever.

Flat James went with us to a luau. The hula dancers thought he was so cute!

These boys did the Imu Ceremony and Flat James helped them.

Flat James loved the playground at Lydgate Park. He played all day.

We have been to the beach several times since Flat James arrived, but, for some reason, he never goes with us. I think he's afraid of the water. Once we can talk him into going to the beach, he will be ready to return to the mainland to tell his school class all about his Hawaiian adventures!

Precious, Precious Grandbabies

February 6 at 3:40 a.m. two precious, precious babies came into the world. They are our newest grandbabies. They are so absolutely beautiful. I love them so much and hope and pray for them to be strong and to thrive.

Baby girl is Jaylyn Taylor and she weighed 2 lbs, 13 oz at birth.

Baby boy is Craig James and he weighed 3 lb 6 oz.

I'm wondering how I can have so much love for people I haven't even met yet.

Beach Car

If you hadn't heard, we bought a little beach car. It's a silly little VW Beetle and we are having fun with it. Gas is super expensive in Kauai and so we wanted something that gets good mileage, we wanted something we could buy for cheap, and we wanted something fun. Our little Beetle fits the bill. We keep it loaded up with the boogie boards and beach chairs and use it as our fun car. I also use it to drive back and forth to work (about 54 miles a day) because it's better on gas than our Ford. I think we will never be able to get the sand from our feet vacuumed out of it, but we don't care.

This is a view of the NaPali Coast taken from a look out at Koke'e. This is the closest you can get to the NaPali Coast unless you take a helicopter or boat. The day we went the air was really "voggy" so the view is hazy. "Vog" is a smog-like mist that comes from the volcano on Big Island and it looks like you're in a cloud. You can't smell it or anything; it just makes the air hazy.

At Koke'e we saw lillies growing wild. I took pictures because I knew I had certain daughters who LOVE lillies.

There were also hydrangeas growing EVERYWHERE. It's cool to see things growing wild outside that I've only seen in houseplants and floral shops before.

So, So Sad!

Look at our sad, sad swimming pool! Closed for repairs for two weeks. Joey is going through swimming pool withdrawal.

Oh, The Humidity

A while back I mentioned on my blog that there was an unidentified fruit in our yard, then later I mentioned that it was passion fruit, or liliqoi (I'm not sure I spelled that right). The plant now has blossoms on it and they are amazingly beautiful. I know, I'm always saying that things on this island are amazingly beautiful, but it's always true. This island is AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL! Here is a picture of the passion fruit blossom from our yard.

Don't you agree? Amazingly beautiful?

On to the humidity topic. It's probably common knowledge that Hawaii (tropical jungle) is more humid than Colorado (high altitude desert). It's especially humid here in the so-called winter. There are some things about the humidity that I really like and some things that I don't care for so much. Some things about the humidity that I like:

* I can breathe better, less stuffy nose.

*My skin is softer. I have not put lotion on my hands one single time since I moved here and in Colorado my hands were so dry in the winter that they would crack and bleed.

*Bottles of stuff like soap and sunscreen that have a pump-top don't get a dried-up blob on the end of them that makes the pump not work.

*Wet wipes stay wet, even in the hot car, even in the hot car for weeks and weeks.

*Amazingly beautiful plants grow everywhere.

Things about the humidity that I don't care for very much:

*Gum gets really gross in my purse. It gets wet and sticky. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but when you try to open a piece, it sticks to the wrapper and looks and feels like ABC gum.

*Food gets soggy. We have all our cereal, crackers, stuff like that in plastic containers in the cupboard to keep them from getting soggy.

*My hair is straight and when I curl it, it goes straight again after about five minutes.

*Mold grows in the shower if you don't clean it often enough. Yuck.

*Towels get stinky if you try to hang them up and use them more than one day.

*Hard candies liquify and melt into their wrappers and on to the counter tops.

*If you set a glass of cold liquid on any surface, you end up with a huge puddle of condensation. We even get a puddle underneath the glass table, clinging to the upside-down surface (does that make sense?).

Happy New Year!

For New Year's Eve we drove down to Poipu Beach and spent the day there. We had a great time relaxing, soaking up some sunshine, and swimming. We waited all day for New Year's Eve fireworks.

We have never been so close to fireworks before. It was awesome! We sat in our lawn chairs on the beach and watched the display.

It was really cool to see the reflection of the fireworks in the ocean and how the waves lit up when the light hit them. I wish I could have gotten better pictures of the water.

The weird thing was that I kept thinking it was the 4th of July, not New Year's Eve. It was warm and we were sitting there watching fireworks and people were barbecuing and it just felt like the 4th of July. Very strange.

The coolest thing happened while we were at the beach. We saw whales! There were at least three or four whales going along the coast. We saw them coming up for air and blowing their blowhole-things and one flapped its tail. It was an amazing experience. Then, when we were on the beach waiting for the fireworks, I saw a shooting star. I haven't seen one of those since I was a little kid sleeping out in the back yard. It was just an amazing day.

When I went to upload the pictures from my camera, I found that Joey had taken pictures of some of his Christmas toys. Here is one of his Lego creations. Thanks Jessie and TJ for the GREAT Lego set!