Can you find April? (Click photo for most recent batch of pictures.)

Today we checked out a bike path in Pearl City with my friend April – one of the charter As who lives here now! How lucky for us! I called her yesterday and said be ready for us to pick you up at about 9am – be in your bathing suit with running gear on top. And she was ready, game for anything! We chased Sam down the bike path, spotted some fish swimming in a little stream outside the HECO plant (electic co) and had snacks under a beautiful fern tree in bloom with it’s red blossoms. Then we tooled back by way of a few swings on a banyan tree, then assualted April’s beautiful pool, and finally raided her pantry – our favorite part! The two boys chomped on snacks outside on her lanai – they looked like zoo animals wolfing down pretzels and grapes. Then Sam goes “What ELSE does she have???!” in a little voice that got cuter and higher with each word. So in April went to raid her fridge this time! While she was inside, the boys gathered at the door, peering to see what she was doing. Speaking of that sliding glass door – I totally bonked Ben’s head into it when I first arrived at her house – I didn’t see it was closed because her glass is SO CLEAN! I like to think my house is more safety-oriented, what with the greazy nose prints (boy and dog), paw prints, and dog hair that clings to all surfaces. Not to mention the mouse prints that are probably all over things. April and I had a really good laugh over that one 🙂

I really want April, who has a master’s degree in literacy, specializing I think in preschool/early school years, to start a one-room school house. There’s one for girls here in Kailua. How ’bout one for boys? Or mixed gender? How about Akamai Adventures in Learning – mostly experiential, outdoors, travel-oriented, green (they will grow their own veggies and learn about cultivating natural predators for pests). Any takers? I am trying to get her to start it up next fall.

(ALDEN – that reminds me regarding the mouse! YES they DO climb straight up! That bugger climbed up my blinds, then down my window! I saw it with my night vision headlamp! It had come in to raid my hiking pack – it chewed through the pack to get my trail mix! Did I already relay this story? I feel like I did but I’m still traumatized by it. Totally violated…so I’ve had ants colonizing my toothbrush, making a trail straight to my pillow, and now a mouse eating my snacks! Can a girl get any peace?)