My new favorite font is Maiandra GD. Other favorites include Trebuchet MS, Georgia, Marydale, and Tempus Sans ITC. Like the much-used fonts Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica and Verdana, both Trebuchet MS and Georgia are available on all platforms so they are very commonly used on the web (no need for font substitution). I like that 🙂 But when I’m designing a graphic and embedding a font, it’s fun to branch out and use a different one 🙂 (Maiandra is what I used for my header above.)

I couldn’t grab my camera in time, but the visual I’m about to describe would have been so fun to capture! Sammy was on his way to bafftime when he grabbed our digeridoo and started playing it, naked. The digeridoo is about as tall as Sam and he plays better than we doo! (ha ha! that was a typo but it seemed apt!) Dave got it in Australia when he was on deployment in 2004. Dave has been working late (6 hour marathon meetings) but came home tonight just in time to romp with Sam for a bit before bed. Sam and I had been having some nice quiet time after dinner, reading NG Adventure, watching Beethoven’s Symph. 3 and playing a very silly game we came up with last night. I dare not describe it, but Sam’s reaction was a scream-laugh. He was nearly crying with laughter! We replicated it tonight for Dave. When I asked Sam to show Dave a page from the NG magazine, he pointed to the “big ock” (big rock) in “kigstan” (Kyrgyzstan). Dave thought perhaps I should start with countries in Europe. I prefer the path less traveled. He’ll learn all about the EU soon enough. For now, learning Hawaiian and esoteric Central Asian republics is more fun.

      

Here is a shot of Flat Island from the Pillbox hike. It’s not much to look at, which is why I don’t seem to have many pictures of it, but sure was a lot of fun to swim out to today. I had been planning this “epic” swim for weeks – I hadn’t ever swum in the ocean before and was a little bit nervous about it. I got the scoop from Laurie’s husband, Nate, who swims out many mornings while it’s still dark out. He was very reassuring, reporting that he’s only been bonked on the head by a disoriented bird, but had no run-ins with sea creatures. Mom played with Sam at the tide pools while I went out. I kept looking up and it kept seeming far away, but I gradually made it there. It was a bit of a battle against the wind and the waves (sometimes I looked down at the bottom and didn’t even move after three or four strokes!). Most of the way was very shallow, and I saw some neat fish – a puffer (no stingers on this one) and several weird wormy things that were 6″ in diameter and about 18″ long (Holuthuria atra I think). I certainly didn’t want to step on one so I just tread water while I looked around to see if a wind surfer or kite boarder was passing through. When I finally got there, I had to pull myself in to the beach on the rough coral bottom because I didn’t want to step down. I walked around the island (it’s a bit rough barefoot, but as some of my friends know, my feet have not been exfoliated by a pedicure in quite some time, so they were suitably rough!). I swam back and eventually found mom and Sam at the tide pools. It was fun to snorkel out and come in from the other side. There were tons of fish darting around the rocks. I am so happy to finally have this opportunity to swim in the beautiful ocean. It was such a nice departure from the tedium of swimming 30 laps in a pool, as nice as an outdoor heated pool in Hawaii can be 🙂

all my formatting was dumped. Oh well. Guess it was time for a redesign anyway. All the pictures can still be found to the right in “album.”  Note to self, don’t do any major web overhauls after a nip of single malt. Chief among my errors – I neglected to back up my site first. I had done this before and didn’t expect any surprises. Ahhh… silly me. At least now I have the cool login-screen and posting dashboard. All you WordPress geeks know what I’m talking about…Alden!!! 🙂 Just kidding!

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After a visit to Cinnamon’s for pancakes (SORRY BILL! We thought of you there!), we headed off to the beach with Mom and Pete for a swim out to Flat Island. I really wanted to try my first open ocean swim out to this little island 1/4 mi offshore. Unfortunately, when we arrived the beach was swarming with kite and wind surfers so it seemed prudent to not swim across all that heavy traffic. I was so bummed, though, having geared up mentally for the challenge. It was choppy out, and very windy, too, but I knew that I could manage it, especially because I planned to use a snorkel to make breathing easier. My plan was to have Dave be a kayak escort. Since he strongly advised against the swim today, I decided to run down the beach and check out my intended launch point anyway and maybe snorkel around a bit. I really wanted to swim in the ocean since that’s what I’d set out to do today. I’d been waiting several weeks to line up all the right support people (Mom to watch Sam, Dave to kayak). When I got down the beach there was only one kite surfer out, and I could tell he was experienced by the jumps he was pulling off (so I knew he could steer around me). I also planned to keep popping my head up to look around. I decided to swim out a bit and “test the waters.” After a couple out-and-back trips within the swimming area marked off by buoys, I decided to swim back down to where the family was hanging out. At least that way I’d get my ocean swim in and also stay away from the heavy traffic. Jenni will be laughing when she reads this. I had an AWFUL time steering with the heavy chop, the tide coming in, and the swells. I zig-zagged all the way back. All told, I did just under a mile but who knows how much I added with my inefficient steering. I came back to find Sam and Dave running in and out of the water, romping around and having a great time. It was wonderful to see Sam gaining confidence and playing more independently.

Later, Dave jumped on his Lemond and did a brief 13 mi ride. He’s checking out www.rooworld.com if you’re interested in what the Dave man is jazzed about right now. Speaking of jazzed – he is playing a CD of Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio. We just got back from a nice night out in Waikiki playing tourist at the Hilton Hawaiian village. That place is totally insane. The rooms start at $300/night and they have like a dozen restaurants in there. I remember staying at similar places (maybe not that pricey) while traveling for Merck. One hotel room looks the same as all the others. But we enjoyed roaming around and having some delicious sushi after a sunset drink at the beach. Thanks to Mom and Pete for giving us such a carefree night out on the town! It is so great to have such trusted and loving care at home – having a great time with Sam Pants, too!

Oh – the reason I entitled this entry “surf spray” is this…I decided NOT to wash my hair tonight (although I was actually in the shower contemplating it) for the simple reason that hair stuff is bottled to emulate the surf. Since I had nice ocean water texture in my hair already, I decided to keep it there. It feels crunchy and good, and it was free!

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We had a little after-dinner decaf latte and dessert last night and happened upon a local singer playing his guitar and harmonica outside the coffee shop. In one song he mentioned Mark Twain’s visit to Hawaii in 1866. I decided to find some of these letters from Hawaii and came across a NYT article with the excerpt below. I am curious to read more about the Hawaii that Twain visited.

“Many a different finger goes into the same bowl and many a different kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the virtues of its contents. One tall gentleman, with nothing in the world on but a soiled and greasy shirt, thrust in his finger and tested the poi, shook his head, scratched it with the useful finger, made another test, prospected among his hair, caught something and ate it; tested the poi again, wiped the grimy perspiration from his brow with the universal hand, tested again, blew his nose — ‘Let’s move on, Brown,’ said I, and we moved.”

Sometimes I wonder about how others would perceive our parenting roles. For instance, while Dave enjoyed a massage on base, I took Sam mountain biking around base on a trail we enjoy running on as well, and also through some tank tracks out to the beach. Sam wanted me to go through puddles really badly, so I relented and went through a little one to, quite literally, test the waters. It wasn’t so bad, but because I went slowly, I allowed plenty of time for dirt and mud to accumulate on my legs and all over the bike. Sam thought it was pretty funny and kept saying “Mommy got dirty!” Dave met up with us at a playground right by the beach. It is so peaceful there. I also tried 4-wheeling the Xterra through the sand so that I wouldn’t lose my touch when we move back to snow country. I find that I am far more nervous driving in sand than snow. Of course, in snow you know there’s a road under you somewhere. With sand, I guess I have this notion that I’ll dig myself into an abyss and never get out. When Dave explained that you use the same techniques, and to give the truck more gas, I finally got us out of the deep stuff. So I drove confidently to the Exchange (where we were going to have a food court dinner!) and pulled into a parking spot. All of a sudden I felt a strange pull on the roof of the truck. I slowed down right away (instead of giving it gas – thankfully proper instinct kicked in!) and realized I’d parked under a nice shady TREE with my BIKE affixed to the ROOF!!! YIKES! All is well. We backed up and disentangled everything.

I find that I am very absent-minded now that my hair is shorter. I worry that some brain matter was cut off somehow. I am quite literally lightheaded. I noticed this yesterday, too. I have had trouble with simple math. I’ve been hopping into garbage bins and jumping up and down. Oh wait, that was a deliberate move to help clean up after major landscaping was done for our association of homes yesterday. That one was legitimate. But you can imagine how funny it must have looked to see a crazy guy with only two teeth (but a great smile!) wielding a huge (HUGE) machete to hack up the big palm branches while I was jumping around in a rubbish bin. I bet I’m a shoo-in for president of the assoc with these antics to keep everyone amused. I woke up early early this morning to chase down the garbage guys who have been inexplicably skipping our blue bins full of green waste. I followed all the rules. Nothing poking out. Not one frond. Three feet apart from the other bins. Out far enough in the street for him to grab with his automated grabber. Everything. In fact, i’d lined up 7 such bins for all the other homes to remove all that green waste the landscapers had gathered. It was imperative that the garbage guys pick it up today. I was on the phone with the manager of the refuse transfer station, she turned the guys around and had them come back. I heard them drive by AGAIN, so I called yet again. When I heard them come back, I literally flew out of the house and down the street. Thankfully this time he knew we were serious about those darn bins and I had a chance to thank him for picking them up. I waved (gave him the shaka sign) and smiled, hoping that would endear me to him despite all those calls busting him. I looked down the street and saw lots of retirees (they’re the only ones up and waiting to drag their bins in at that early hour) happily bringing in their blue bins. All of Kihapai St has me to thank today. 🙂

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While romping in the park during a run today, Sam and I found a gecko egg under some bark. All the rest had been broken and/or eaten by something (a rat?). Mom and Sam were on a walk some time ago and a gecko popped out from under some bark and really surprised Sam. So today when he was saying “gago lives day-o” we finally put 2 and 2 together when he pointed into a big knot hole in the bark – gecko lives there! So we looked more closely into the bark and found some eggs! How exciting to find baby gecko! I have a little glass jar with a cork that I keep in the stroller for just these sorts of things. Usually I collect beach glass, but today it was perfect for transporting the precious cargo. We are keeping it moist and the temp will stay around 80 in our home. Because gender is driven by incubation temperature, we expect a baby girl gecko to hatch in about 6 weeks – if the egg was still viable. Temps higher than 85 are more likely to yield males, less than 85, females. Females hatched at higher temperatures (closer to 85) tend to be more aggressive and don’t make for good mating partners. Very interesting preschool lesson today 🙂 Why send Sam to preschool when he and I can enjoy learning about nature’s wonders together? He’s also learning some Hawaiian. It’s a well-rounded mommy preschool 🙂

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I got my hair cut today. In our backyard. By my mom. Not the bowl cut, just a straight chop above a ponytail holder. I have been waiting to grow enough so I can donate at least 10″ to charity (Locks of Love). I last did this in 2003, but that was at a salon. Today, I decided, was the day to cut my hair. Unfortunately the salon I wanted to check out was closed on Monday. So we decided we’d do it the native way and just chop it off. They can always touch it up, right? It doesn’t look too bad. I might go “off the grid” and just keep doing it this way. It’s a lot cheaper! And cooler. It is already nice to wear my hair down without needing to keep it in a pony tail. I loved my long hair (it had gotten REALLY long) but that’s the nice thing about hair. It will grow back! It already is :0 I will post pictures later. Dave didn’t freak out…I had a backstory all planned but he saw right through it. Or maybe it was the ziplock sandwich bag on the counter with my hair in it 🙂

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Caff, Sam and I decided to head off to the beach on base – we found another deserted one – for a little romp while we waited for Dave to get home. He was running late, trying to close out all his business for the week. While it rained in town, we watched the clouds roll past us. We never got wet. It was fun to see Caffrey playing and chasing her stick. Sam was really good about listening to me and not running into the water while I played with Caff. You can see all the sand on her tongue! We also saw a big, fat, dead puffer fish. Caff almost took a big bite before I figured out what in the world it was (aren’t you glad I didn’t post that picture?).

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On Saturday we took a drive to the North Shore with Ang. We had a great time grabbing coffee at one of Dave’s favorite haunts, then went on to check out Laniakea beach for sea turtles. That is apparently a place they like to congregate for basking. We checked with a local for some landmarks to find the beach and within a few minutes of arriving, we saw sea turtles floating around gracefully in the water. Sam was mostly interested in romping and playing, but when one slowly crawled up onto the sand to bask, he was fascinated. We snapped a zillion pictures. (Turtles are such willing subjects!) I was moved by the experience since I’ve been hoping for a turtle spotting since we got here 7 months ago. Finally I got to see one, and a huge one at that! It was really special to share the moment with Dave, Sammy and Ang. This turtle’s name is Woolly Bully and he’s about 200lbs, maybe 50 yrs old, according to the Honu Guardians that volunteer for NOAA at the beach. They educate the public and help protect the turtles from harassment by tourists. I volunteered Sam and I to be Honu Guardians a couple days a month. I am looking forward to it very much.

After the beach excursion, we drove around to Turtle Bay resort so Ang could check it out and Sam could finish a nap (he likes to nap in the parking lot there). Just as we were pulling in we got some terrific news from my brother…but that will have to wait for the official announcements…Let’s just say it was a memorable day 🙂

Today we had to say goodbye to Ang after a wonderful two-week visit. It was so relaxing we hardly noticed how time flew by. She got to read a lot while I was working, and also enjoyed lots of beach time (something she hasn’t gotten to do enough of on previous visits). She even got to the Swap Meet (I’ve been calling it the Swamp Meet since it’s so incredibly hot there on the asphalt!). Saturday was our North Shore excursion and on Sunday we went kayaking then to the O Club for brunch. Our last full day yesterday was spent collecting sand, sea glass and shells for keepsakes – for friends and family. It was a nice time to reflect on the visit and gather some tangible memories. I just might make it a ritual with other visitors.

The Album has been updated to include all Feb shots and the Swamp Romp. Enjoy! (Click link above in header.)

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Video of us crossing the line…thanks to Ang!

It’s the morning of the Swamp Romp and I am downing some coffee and a Clif bar. I’ve got new cammies on (couldn’t find used ones in my size), combat boots, and I’ve got a gear kit full of duct tape, New Skin, Vaseline, antibiotic cream… You don’t want to know about that one. My friend Leo reported in yesterday morning from Wal-Mart that she’d found the final piece of team apparel we needed – hot pink bandanas with skulls on them! We’ll be wearing them on our heads so we can be easily spotted coming out of the mu (there are journalists and photographers looking for us at the finish since we think we’re the largest team ever fielded for this race!). We’ll be decorating our white tank tops with Sharpies this morning (inscribing our nicknames on them) and wrapping up our feet in duct tape to prevent blisters. It’s t-minus-9 minutes before liftoff to the rally point…so I should go and finish putting on my stuff. This will be very interesting and a lot of fun – we get to try being Marines for a few hours. We anticipate it taking at least 90 minutes to cover 6 miles in the mud. I saw the mud yesterday, by the way. There were HUGE tanks, three of them, coming out of the little trail where Sam and I run. They were in there churning up the mud for us. Hopefully the 6″ African slugs found new homes…Stay tuned for pictures – Dave will be at the finish line with Sammy and Ang, and my mom. 🙂

POST-RACE

So I’ve showered up, washed my hair twice, cleaned the bathroom of debris, and even put on foundation to cover up the war paint which didn’t come off so easily. I think I look pretty good now! Dave just looked at me, though, and asked what was on my eyes – “Is that dirt?” he asked. After consulting with Ang and checking the mirror, I realized the “dirt” was eyeliner. He is not accustomed to seeing me wear it, nor apparently do I know how to apply it 🙂 We are looking forward to hanging out with the team at our house in a few hours. Off to get lunch and beer 🙂

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We picked up my friend Angie today for a two week stay! It is like no time has passed whatsoever, but it’s been 6 months since we were last stopping for a latte on our way to a tromp in the snow on Hurricane Ridge or through the nearby woods in Poulsbo. She said she really enjoyed feeling the warm, moist, fragrant air when she arrived. It’s nice to reflect on one’s arrival in Hawaii every now and then – you tend to forget just how different it is here, even the air, after a while. After she and Sam took a nap, we all went to Buzz’s in Kailua for dinner. It was well worth the wait – we had a great time (the Mai Tais took care of that! ha ha!) and Sam really enjoyed himself, especially the surprise visit from Gramma and Pete for dessert time :0 yum!

The weekend was a busy one – we transplanted four palm trees, three our front yard and one in the back, from a neighbor who wanted to get rid of them. We were happy to provide them a good home! It got little complicated when the contractors knicked a water pipe while digging out the first palm, but after 4 trips to the hardware store for brass pipe, wrenches, clamps and other stuff I know nothing about, Dave had it all fixed up. I guess all those drills fixing leaks on the submarine paid off!

And last week was really busy for me – which is why the posts have been infrequent. In the midst of several large projects for work, I have been working on our homeowners’ association budget (as the new Treasurer) to audit it for any areas we can trim. We are very close to reducing our fees to almost half of the proposed budget. Anyway…as previously reported, there are many disparate infestations one must contend with in Hawaii. Right now it’s flea season (not flu, but flea). I was trying to get Caff dipped for fleas, the carpets vacuumed and treated, and Sam into bed all within like 20 min so I could get back to work. Somehow I managed to treat the carpets for weeds instead of fleas. I grabbed the wrong sprayer (they look VERY similar in my defense). After a brief “discussion” about how serious this problem was, Dave agreed that it probably didn’t merit a response like he’d have to mount at work for radioactive contamination. I reasoned that since the weed killer was dry, it would probably be ok. After all, you can walk and play on it when it dries on the grass. As long as Sam didn’t try to eat large quantities of carpet, we’d be alright. BUT, I did end up having to treat with the appropriate chemical, adding to my workload for the day. We laughed later that I have to be extremely efficient with the rework that somehow finds its way into my day. Ahhh….laugh if you must…it is pretty funny. I know I won’t live this one down for a while. At least Ang can rest in peace knowing neither crabgrass nor fleas are likely to molest her in her sleep.

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Gramma, Sammy and I took a much-needed break on the beach this morning and had a great time. I have been really busy with work this first quarter and was up late last night editing a grant application. Since I had nothing on my desk this morning, it was high time to head out 🙂 Sammy really enjoyed himself, and I appreciated the opportunity to switch up my perspective a little, as you’ll note in the collage.

There are other funny stories to share, but they have not been declassified yet. (Meaning, they are not quite funny to certain other members of the household yet.) Stay tuned…but I will give a hint. We don’t have a problem with crabgrass growing in our carpets.

We wish you all a very warm and happy Valentine’s Day! Sending lots of island aloha to you, especially our friends and family getting snowed and iced in. (See if you can spot the Hawaiian “snow” storm that buried a small car in the collage above! We are with you in spirit – I showed Sammy snow in NYC on the news and then we played “snow storm” on the beach. )

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for a run 🙂 We did our “family run” (which we try to do on Sundays, and we’re being a bit more diligent about it than going to Mass, but we’re working on it…) tonight then wound up in town for California Pizza Kitchen and decaf lattes for our walk home under the stars. It was a great way to wind up the weekend. Sam had a good time showing Daddy how he stretches at our turnaround point, and chases birdies up and down the dunes. He didn’t want to leave (as you can see in the top left images of the collage). Dave was asking him “Do you want to get back in your stroller and go to dinner?” “Noo-oh,” Sammy replied, in his sweet little voice. He says “No” as if it’s a question. Cute 🙂

We were thrilled to hear that our former neighbor Matt is doing great in Army boot camp! He is the oldest in his class (by 20 yrs or so?) and just got the highest score on his PT (situps, pushups and run). GO MATT! HOO-AHH! He signed up for the Reserves out of a sense of duty and desire to serve. We are so proud of him.