Big Island of Hawaii Vacation - Day Two

After expecting to sleep in for hours, we found ourselves awakened to a monsoon-like rain storm. And what time was it? 6:30 a.m. Hawaiian time. Yikes. The rain dumped by the bucketful. I was almost tempted to go outside and see if it was warm, but decided why bother. Rain is rain, right? And rain in Hawaii is supposed to stop and let the sun through as opposed to Oregon, so why worry.

Regardless, we got up and had a rousing breakfast of cold cereal and leftover local pineapple. Our morning lattes were jerry-rigged from Starbucks Via packets, some sugar found in the refrigerator, and steamed milk from the stove-top. Not bad. I told you were on a serious food budget.

Before heading out for the day, we walked down our steps into our private access to the volcanically heated lagoon for a little snorkeling with fish and the three resident sea turtles. Pretty fascinating. It didn't take too much time in the water for Bill to get a rousing sunburn even wearing sunscreen. Not sure what happened there since he's pretty good about slathering it on.



We loaded up with more sunscreen and cameras and headed south to inspect lava flows. There were signs aplenty along the road..Turn Back...Road Closed Ahead...No Trespassing Between 10 p.m. and 2 p.m...but our tour book, Hawaii, The Big Island Revealed, assured us we could keep driving down the county road. They said Hawaii is funny about their signage, so we took them literally. When we finally did get to the end of the road, we met another group of visitors who assured us that the road really was open to the public. They explained that the lava flow that had abruptly ended the road and where we were standing on had just occurred this past Thanksgiving. Somehow they were in the know. It definitely looked new. We walked a ways on it and were able to feel heat coming from cracks in the contorted flow. Hmmm. We sure hoped the road was really open to the public. Truly fascinating.




We drove further and took a look at the Lava Tree State Park (which we found out wasn't officially open. Another oops), made many more stops at lava cliff beaches, and finally made our way to a naturally heated lava pool.




This dictated returning to the rental house for swim suits and snorkel gear and bite to eat for lunch. We made an impromptu stop at a local fruit stand where fruit prices did seem less than at the grocery store. We stocked up on everything local...bananas, pineapple, lychee fruit, avocados, papaya and mango. No going hungry now. But instead of heading out to continue to explore, everyone was back in the lagoon for some more snorkeling right out the back door. By this time, the clouds had parted for the most part and the sun was out big time.





Not long afterwards though we took off for the volcanic area of the island. It was a bit disappointing that we could not drive the complete route around the crater, but we did get some fantastic views into the crater, the steam vents, a hike through a lava tube, and the drive down to the coast where we had hoped to be able to see the current lava flow into the ocean. Luck would have it there were no eruptions into the sea that day.



So back home to our “cottage” and a spaghetti dinner out in the tropical air. Being so close to the equator, Hawaii doesn't experience the long daylight hours that we were beginning to have up north. We were having daylight there until 8 p.m. or so. Not so here. But it is hilarious that we were ready for bed before 9 p.m. Hawaii time. Definitely a drop-dead tired night, jet lag and all.


Links to other posts in this series:
Intro
Day One
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight

Big Island of Hawaii Vacation - Day One

Two hours sleep, two sets of departures and arrivals, two trips to Starbucks, two airport terminals to navigate, two hour plus layover, and two cat naps. All to arrive at our destination...the big island of Hawaii to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with our immediate family. No doubt about it that traveling all day takes a toll on everyone, but we're a family of troopers. We tend to be creative out of necessity at times which included Nicole finishing a college assignment with the netbook online while we were all sprawled out against a wall in the Honolulu airport...for everyone to gawk at...but our first taste of such warm weather made us want to be outside. Besides it was fun seeing how close we could toll in the doves that seemed to be everywhere.

Yep, we just made ourselves at home.

The cutest little doves which we saw everywhere.

At least the flight to Hawaii was only an hour long, but still it had another set of take-off and landings. Two sets in one day were plenty for me.

Do have to admit the aerial view was fabulous.

We picked up our rental vehicle and decided on the Suburban even though the older kids wanted a Jeep. Not going to work for a family of six and their luggage though.

From the airport we made a quick trip to Safeway and Walmart for groceries, because although we were vacationing in paradise, we had decided to eat in as many of our dinners as possible. You just need to do that sometimes.

On our way to the rental house we drove through scenery that reminded us first of Southeast Asia, then South America, and then Africa...not that we'd know personally of course.

But we did know upfront that the rental house was not 'resort' material but the location was right on a series of thermally heated tide pools.

Back view of house. Too afraid to show the front :)

That was the draw factor...knowing that we could walk down a flight of steps from the backyard of the house and begin snorkeling. The fact there was no cell phone service or internet was a bit of surprise. Not as much to us as the teens. Just a bit of angst there. We promised there would be no regrets at the next place. And then had to promise again and again.

Who couldn't resist this view...

or snorkel right in the bay?

So after an extremely late dinner of bagged salad, French bread, and chicken alfredo we hit the sack, listening to an enormous chorus of frogs and night insects and feeling the island breezes drift through the entire house.

Stay tuned...day two will be on its way shortly. Will we survive the rental house?


Links to other posts in this series:
Intro
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight

Our Big Island of Hawaii Vacation Adventure

I'll admit that two occupations I would never choose would include being a pilot or a scuba diver. That said, our family embarked on a five hour plus flight to vacation on the big island of Hawaii where plenty of snorkeling awaited us. The occasion? Celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary and a well deserved and long awaited family vacation. No, I don't like flying and should have probably suggested straight through flights but double take-offs and landings were just the ticket to rely a little more heavily on the Lord. Why Hawaii? Well everyone else in the family is a waterdog extraordinaire. Me? I was just anxious for a chance to relax in the warm temps and a pick up a good dose of vitamin D with no hectic schedule to follow. As hoped, we had a fabulous time with no one experiencing the sunburn of a lifetime as could be expected with the majority of the family being pretty fair skinned. We kept busy seeing the sights but still had time to just hang out...for the most part...for six solid days. Stay tuned as we experience our eight days of adventure.

Links to subsequent posts in this series:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight

Reinventing the "What's for Dinner?" Wheel

What can I say? I'm not easily satisfied with preparing and eating the same o', same o' dinner fare every night. I like variety. I like to use what's in season. I like to use what's on sale. However...it is not always an effective use of my time. Definitely time to reinvent the dinner wheel yet another time. Sigh.

But this time around, the effort I put into this little project will be there for me to fall back on anytime I need a break from being overly creative or frugal in the kitchen.



This is what I did:

I went through my recipe collection and pulled out 20 different main dishes that my family will eat without a lot of complaining, that don't require a ton of effort, that contain a variety of proteins, and are fairly inexpensive to prepare. In addition to that I pulled four crockpot recipes to use for Sundays. I spread them out over a four week period of time taking into consideration that we might not want to eat something with burger in it three nights in a row. I also arranged them so that an extra chicken could be baked or grilled providing the leftovers necessary for the next night's meal of say, enchiladas. Saturdays were reserved for trying out something new.

I starting using BigOven.com to type my recipes in several years ago, and I love it. But that would be another whole post. Anyway by having the recipes readily available to me, I used BigOven to put them together into a menu plan by week and created a master grocery list. From there it was simple to print everything out and place it in a binder with four tabs, one for each week. The first sheet is the menu plan by day of the week, the next is the master grocery list, and then come the individual recipes. I am beginning to fill in the side dishes that would be standard to include with each meal as I follow through with this plan.

It's a no-brainer to realize that with a plan in place, I will follow it. I won't stand as perhaps many others do before the refrigerator at 4:30 p.m. and wonder why I forgot to defrost this or that. I won't have to wrack my brain for something different that we haven't tried for awhile. I will have already made those decisions in advance for my tired little brain.



And so far it's working. By making notes on each master weekly plan as I go along, I will be reminded to pull out the steak for the fajitas the night before, to start the pizza dough in the morning, or to soak my beans overnight. A welcome relief for my worn out thinker as of late.

Perhaps after I've spent some time following this plan I will be ready to head back to my old ways, but in the meantime, I will relish the fact that I know what's for dinner today, tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Yeah!

The Return of the Swallows

There are some dates on the calendar that deserve annual recognition every year such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. And then there are those dates that just mean something special. As my kids would say, I'm dorky enough to get excited enough to remember every year the date on which the swallows return from the southern hemisphere to our property...March 28...give or take a few days and then later in the year the day they will depart.

March 28 represents the end of their six month absence. Every fall they mass together above the house for one last swoop and dart session catching up whatever mosquitoes or flying insects are available before they take off heading for warmer climates, all reminding me of the six months of cold and gloom to come.

Regardless that the calendar recorded the coming of spring a week earlier, spring doesn't really come for me until they make their appearance. Much to the rolling of their eyes, my children have usually been dictated to include their arrival in their nature journal as part of their homeschool studies. It is just one of those predictable phenoms of nature; their God-given instinct to migrate at the same time each and to return back to their homes six months later. They are such fascinating little birds that I've done a little research on their annual return which is celebrated the end of March in California at the San Juan Capistrano mission at which their return has been recorded for the past two hundred years.

Today I've kept my eyes trained upward hoping to catch them as the return. Perhaps they will still make their arrival later on this afternoon or perhaps it will be tomorrow or the next day. But you can be sure, they will be here. And they will make me smile.