Christmas & Bicycling the Coconut Coast

Our Christmas was pretty quiet and uneventful, but here's a couple of pictures. 

 We all three got Broncos shirts from Santa.

Joey got more board shorts.  It's pretty much all he wears, except on Sundays, so he needs a lot of them. 

 My honey and me.

I found a sprouting coconut.  Too cool. 

 Yesterday we rented bikes and cycled the bike trail along the Coconut Coast in Kapaa.  We had a great time.  Here's my boys.

 The ocean was beautiful, as usual. I could sit for hours and just watch the waves.  It's kind of like watching a fire burn, always changing, always beautiful, always amazing.

 Water break.

 Father & son.

 Mother & son.

The bike path follows the coast.  It's so beautiful.

At the end of the trail.

 This sign shows a map of the bike trail.

Visitors From the Mainland

We really do love having company come from the mainland.  We were fortunate to have my mom and dad come for Thanksgiving.  They stayed two weeks and we had such a great time with them. 

I tried to teach my dad how to snorkel.  I thought we might have better luck in the pool than in the actual ocean.  The snorkeling lesson ended up pretty much as a failure, but at least we tried.

At the Coconut Marketplace, they do a free hula show every Saturday.  During the show they pick men from the audience to come up and learn to hula (they picked Mike once; I might have posted pictures).  I knew Dad would be a great hula dancer and he did not let me down.

We took Mom and Dad to the Fern Grotto.  It's such a beautiful place and they loved it.

We also went to Smith's Tropical Paradise for a luau.  It was wonderful, as always.  Mike arranged for the MC to say happy anniversary to Mom and Dad, since it was their 55th anniversary the day after we went.  They danced to an old Elvis Presley song.  It was very touching.  Brought a tear to my eye.

 Every week we have visitors in church, so at the end of the meeting we stand in front and sing a song of aloha to all the visitors.  Mom took a picture of it.

Mom and Dad liked the replica of a Filipino village, but they were a little too tall for the house.

 Here we all are at Lydgate Beach.

Our favorite place for Hawaiian shave ice is The Fish Hut in Kapa'a.  Grandma and Joey loved it.

 Mom & Dad above Queen's Bath, where the view is fabulous...

And at the Kalalau Lookout up in the mountains of Koke'e, where the view is fabulous, too.

We were sorry to see them go home, but we sure were glad they came to visit.

New Grandbaby!

One month ago, my precious grandson Brayden was born.  He is SO ADORABLE!!!!!  We love him SO MUCH!!  

 I was able to go to the mainland for a week and see him.  It was wonderful to spend time with my sweet daughter and her family.  I loved bathing him and caring for him.  My favorite time was when I kept him with me during the night.  He slept next to me and I held his tiny hand all night, until I had to wake his sweet tired mama to feed him.

 Brayden's big brother Andrew loves him.  I had so much fun with Andrew and Megan.  We read books and went to Chuck E Cheese.  We stayed so late we were the last ones there.   I am so thankful for all seven of my grandbabies.  I can't even express in words how much I love them.  Each one is precious, priceless, and PERFECT.

Cane Spider

Since we moved to Hawaii, people have told us about cane spiders.  I was told that cane spiders have been known to send many a Haoli screaming back to the mainland.  Today we finally saw one.  It greeted me in our garage when I got home from work.  Like all of our Hawaii pictures, this one doesn't do the real thing justice.  It was very big and impressive.

The stick in the picture is a broom handle, so you can sort of tell how big the spider is.  Because I had been expecting to someday see one, I didn't freak out.  I just did a little gasp and called Mike the Mighty Bug Hunter to come get it.  He got it on the mop and took it outside.

I honestly don't think I have ever purposely allowed a spider to live before, but this one was magnificent and I know that he is not only harmless to humans, but beneficial.  He eats mosquitos, flies, and cockroaches.  I am WAY more afraid of cockroaches than of spiders.

Botanical Garden

There are several botanical gardens on Kauai and I finally went to one of them.  The movie Jurassic Park was filmed here, and the scene where the dinosaur eggs hatch is in this garden.
These trees are ficus trees and they are so AMAZING. 

Joey is wearing pajamas because it was Halloween and that was his costume.  He was Rip Van Winkle.

 I knew the trees would be big, but I was astonished at how big they actually are. 

 The garden was so beautiful.  If I didn't have a job I would volunteer there.

I don't know why this photo turned pink but I think it's kind of cool.

Mindy & Ashlyn Visit

I'm way behind on blogging, so I hope to do several posts over the next couple of days to catch up. Mindy and Ashlyn came to visit and we LOVED having them here. It was wonderful. Ashlyn loves the water and really took to the beach. Here she is at Polihali beach. There's a long story about that night that I might blog about later.
Ashlyn at Anini beach.

Granny, Grandpa and Ashlyn.

Joey likes to pretend he's meditating.

Our BEAUTIFUL girls! We love them so much!

Ash, Min, and me hiking the Kalalau trail.

More Kalalau. Ashlyn really didn't like hiking.

Grandpa, Granny and Ashlyn at Po'ipu beach.

I love this little bikini girl.

Mindy & Ashlyn with the hula girls at Coconut Marketplace.

One of the hula girls gave Mike this flower and then asked him to come on stage and dance the hula.

He did pretty well, for a Haoli.

We love our Ashly girl! This was taken at Lydgate beach the first night they arrived.

Also at Lydgate beach.

We had a great time with them here and we wish they could stay forever!