Summer activities update

WOW! This is definitely the longest I have ever gone in between posts! Life has been unbelievably busy this summer! I wrote this while we were on the plane on our way back from a vacation to Wisconsin. I had about 3 or 4 hours before we got to L.A. to try and catch up, which I did, but then we got back into life and…well, now it’s almost 3 weeks later!! So, here is the update through August 3.

We just spent the past 2-1/2 weeks in Wisconsin visiting family and friends and going to 2 class reunions. We had a great time, but are tired and ready to be home. We went to the fair and watched the tractor pull and gauntlet races and were able to see many people that we know. We stayed at the hotel in Darlington the first few nights and Jenna and her friends were able to go swimming. We stayed at AJ’s sister Sue’s house for several days and visited friends, and got to meet our new “great-niece” Leah, who is very cute with tons of hair! (If we have a great niece, does that make us old??? –naw!) I asked AJ why is the grandparent called “grand” and the aunt and uncle called “great”? I think we should be called “grand-aunt and uncle!” That makes sense doesn’t it?? I don’t know, I guess my logic doesn’t apply here!

Anyway, we dubbed this vacation the “ever-changing vacation.” We called it this because almost everything we had planned changed! AJ was planning to redo the cement in our front porch at the house, but the date got changed 3 times due to his help changing the date or because of rain! He never did get it done! AJ was also planning to take a friend of his to Green Bay to see Lambeau Field, but that unfortunately didn’t work either. Lynn was going to go to Monroe for a day, but that changed too! We did manage to see lots of friends and pretty much everyone in our family. AJ and I both had a class reunion too. It was fun to see our classmates and catch up. I hadn’t seen many of my classmates for 20 years and AJ saw a few he hadn’t seen in many years too. I was on the planning committee for my reunion, so I was busy with last minute preparations the 3 days prior. I had my reservations about how it would all turn out, but fortunately everything fell into place and it ended up being a really great evening! We stayed with my parents for a few nights and got to see the family. We got to see my sister Lisa and her family from Milwaukee – her kids are 3 and 5 now and as smart and cute as ever! I was able to see my brother Al and his wife from Colorado too the first weekend we were here. It would have been great to have everyone together at once, but at least I got to see them! We visited my 93 year old Grandma for a while. She is still witty, but is getting a little forgetful. She still lives alone in her own house – not bad for 93 years old! We visited my cousin Sam’s grave. It was hard, but I’m glad I did it. We left him some flower leis, which is nothing compared to the paradise he is now enjoying, but it’s a little something I guess.

Jenna got to stay at Peach and Papa’s house and got to see many of the babysitting kids she grew up with. Peach and Papa’s grandson, Kaden is 3 months younger than Jenna and he is about an inch shorter than me! Next time I see him, I’m sure he’ll be taller, but I’ve still got him this time!! The last few nights we stayed at AJ’s Mom’s house. We had great meals of sweet corn and fresh veggies from Karen and Dave’s garden. I think we all ate too much the whole time we were there, but it was great! Our niece Melanie and her boyfriend Tom announced their engagement while we were in Wisconsin and we were able to get together with them for dinner at Karen’s. We are very happy for them and it was great to see them!

It was a great trip. We were on the run a lot, but not quite as much as when we are there at Christmas. We’re pretty tired and ready to be home. I think we got rested up a LITTLE…we were pretty wiped out with everything going on before we left. There’s been a lot going on that I will try and summarize without writing a book and/or putting you to sleep!

I think I left off at the end of April. May started off with Lei Day at Jenna’s school (May Day in schools on the Mainland). Jenna’s class performed a hula and sang a song in Hawaiian. It was very well done. The kids choreographed the dance themselves and they did a really good job! I wish I could get it to attach, but the file is too big. Then each child put a lei on a big wooded cross – it was a very nice ceremony.

Jenna’s last day of school was June 4. Unfortunately, I was not able to be at her promotion, but AJ surprised her and showed up in time to see her get her promotion certificate. She did very well in school this year and we are very proud of her! It’s so hard to believe that she will be in 4th grade next year!! Where does the time go??

The first full week of June, our church had Vacation Bible School. The theme this year was a ranch/cowboy theme. The kids were taught how to "round-up" answers they had by asking God. I helped with the snacks in the kitchen. It was a fun week and we are already looking forward to next year - the theme is New York City! That should be fun!!

At the end of June, AJ’s boss again took his managers to the Kona Village for a weekend getaway. Kona Village is the fancy resort we went to last summer that is like “old-time Kona.” It’s meant for people to get away and relax. There are no TVs or phones in the rooms and you can only be on your cell phone in your room. The rooms are like huts, but they are very nice and come with everything a normal hotel room would have except the TV and phone. We even had a hot tub on our porch. We had a pretty good ocean view too! We went swimming and snorkeling and were able to relax. It was really great and we didn’t want to leave!!

In July, Jenna and I were in the 4th of July parade for Hospice. We had fun throwing candy to people and then went out to eat afterwards and stayed to watch the fireworks. It lasted a whole 10 minutes! AJ and I were both off on July 5th for the July 4th Holiday, so we went snorkeling and kayaking with one of AJ’s co-workers, David. We went snorkeling at a place called "two-step." It's called this because there are two steps to get in and out of the ocean - pretty original, huh? Someone took white rocks and wrote "aloha" on the bottom of the ocean. I tried to get a picture, but unfortunately it didn't turn out very well. Oh well, maybe next time! Then, we went paddling around looking for the sea arches, but the water was getting rough and I was starting to get sea sick, so we turned around and headed for smoother waters. We paddled past the City of Refuge, one of our favorite beaches. It was neat to see it from a different point of view. While we were making our way back to the boat landing, David said, “Hey AJ, look to your left.” Of course, I looked too and we saw a black fin sticking out of the water! It was a little scary at first, because, of course the first thing you think of is …SHARK! You could see this dark image in the water; it was very wide but not very long. Then we saw 2 fins sticking out of the water, kind of at an angle and equally spaced. I was thinking, “What is that??” AJ thought it must be a manta ray. David tried to paddle closer to it, but it could swim so fast, he couldn’t get near it!! It was a little scary, but exciting too! We would like to go on a night tour to snorkel and swim with the manta rays. We hear it is very fun, so hopefully someday we’ll get to see them up close and personal!

The following weekend I worked at Camp Erin again. In case you forgot, Camp Erin is a bereavement camp for kids that have lost a loved one. This year we were at a different location which was really nice! It was at a lower elevation so it wasn’t as cold and rainy. We did get a little rain, but it wasn’t cold and damp like last year. We were in cabins this year also instead of tents which made a huge difference! The biggest pest this year was mosquitoes, which was really nothing compared to what we endured the past few days at Karen and Dave’s! (They live near a swamp, which is the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes!) I again had the 6-8 year old girls in my cabin and it was amazing! Almost every one of the girls in my cabin had lost a loved one in some tragic way – it was very sad, yet amazing to see how they were coping. AJ again helped with archery and Jenna even helped this year. She helped get water balloons ready for the obstacle course and got soaking wet! Hard to imagine, I know! She had fun and felt like she was helping in some way, so it was OK. We all enjoy working at Camp Erin and plan to again next year.

Earlier in the year we were dealing with a very severe drought. In fact, we learned that it was the worst drought Kona had had in 50 years! It caused a lot more work for AJ and Kona Queen, but they managed to get through it. Thankfully we were getting rain on a pretty regular basis before we went on vacation and things were starting to look green again.

So as I mentioned, AJ was very busy with the bees because of the drought. He is responsible for 3000 hives of bees and he usually feeds them once every three weeks. Because of the drought, he had to feed them every week! To make matters worse, the Big Island now has the mite (a parasite that affects the bees) and the hive beetle (which affects the bee larva). Both of these pests are new to the Big Island in the past year. AJ has been responsible for his 3000 hives plus the testing and treating of the mite and the beetle. Kona Queen hired a new person to deal with the mite and the beetle, so AJ will finally get back to doing one job instead of two! It’s been pretty stressful and extremely exhausting, but I think things should be getting better now.

My job has been very stressful also. We hired a new person, but she quit and so did one of our other nurses, both for various reasons, so we are short staffed. We have had 1-2 people on vacation all summer so we have had to work longer hours and take more call than usual. We are taking call 2-3 times a week, which was really beginning to take its toll on me before our vacation. They were supposed to be hiring someone new while I was gone. I sure hope so because I’m not sure I can continue to take call like this and still be sane and have my family like me!

Jenna finished swimming lessons just before we left on vacation. She was in level 4 this year, which was stroke development. She still needs a little practice, but overall I think she did well. Her last day of lessons was the day we left for Wisconsin, so were running up until about an hour before we left! We also discovered we had a water leak somewhere in the house or under the ground the day before we left! We got a notice from the water company telling us that we had doubled the amount of water used from what we usually do! AND to make matters worse, the dishwasher quit working the day we were leaving! We talked to our realtor before we left, and while we were gone, so hopefully everything is fixed before we get home!

So we were all a little stressed before we went on vacation. Even though we were busy on vacation, I think the stress level was definitely lower! We did have a little excitement in Chicago…we almost missed our plane!! We flew from Madison to Chicago, but only had a 40 minute lay over. We got into Chicago a few minutes early, but we taxied for 15 minutes!! I’m not sure why, but it took forever to get to our gate! We had to gate check one of our bags, so AJ waited for that while Jenna and I took off running for our gate. We had to change concourses to catch our next flight so it was a long way to go! We were going to take the shuttle, but there was a line and I didn’t want to risk missing our flight. So Jenna and I ran most of the way to our gate. We walked a little, but when we got to our gate, they were already boarding and AJ hadn’t gotten there yet! He arrived a couple minutes after we did. He had to run the whole way! We boarded and the plane left in less than 10 minutes. It was a little stressful, but we certainly got our blood flowing and got a little exercise before our flight to L.A.! I hope that is the end of our stress for a while!

Well, I think that’s it! That’s the update so far this summer, so until next time…aloha!

Guests, WI, updates

WHEW!! What a whirlwind of activity we had over the past several months! We started with guests in February and continued through the end of March. I’ve already told you about most of our guest’s visits; there are just two left. AJ’s classmate Brian, his wife Stacy and their daughter Alyssa came and stayed with us for about a week. We had a great time with them! Jenna and Alyssa hit it off right away! AJ and Jenna went with them to Hilo to see Mauna Kea and the waterfalls (Lynn was working.) Lynn and Jenna showed them around town and AJ enjoyed a luau with them. It was fun having them here and we look forward to seeing them again this summer at AJ’s class reunion!

While Brian and Stacy were here, our friends and Jenna’s babysitters, Kevin and Janette came for a week. It was so good to have them stay with us! Jenna was on Spring Break, so she was their tour guide. I think they ALL had fun with that! I was told that she did a great job as a tour guide. I believe it…I’m sure she knows her way around the Island better than I do!! I think it was a pretty relaxing vacation for Kevin and Janette, as Kevin was recovering from knee surgery. Hopefully, nothing got damaged from Jenna sitting on his lap so much! She loves her Peachy and Papa! It was fabulous having them stay with us and maybe next time, some of the kids will come too!

Kevin and Janette were Jenna’s babysitters in Wisconsin from the time Jenna was 3 months old until we moved. They are like family to us. In Hawaii, they would be considered “hanai” grandparents. Pronounced (han-eye); it’s like an adopted child or grandchild without the legal paperwork…someone who you are very close to, but not related to. They always took such good care of Jenna, and I had to ask them to do it again while they were on vacation! I decided to go back to Wisconsin to see my cousin who has a brain tumor. I left while they were still at our house. I felt really bad leaving, but at the same time, I really wanted to see my cousin. The timing was not great, but it’s what worked at the time, and in hind sight, I’m glad that I went when I did. I was able to spend a lot a good quality time with my cousin and I got lucky enough to have Easter dinner with my family and AJ’s family too! I also snuck in a quick lunch date with my two best friends! All in 2-1/2 days!! Not too bad! Of course, traveling to Wisconsin and back to Hawaii in less than 4 days in not real smart, but it worked. I was very tired and not sure what day it was for a while, but that’s OK! I am very grateful that Kevin and Janette were here because I’m not sure it would have worked otherwise with AJ’s busy work schedule! God is good and He will always provide a way!!

So, now you are updated on our guest visits. We don’t have anyone else scheduled to come at this time; however we have a few people talking about coming! We look forward to having more company!! Maybe by the next time we have guests, we will be in a different house! We have started looking at buying, but we haven’t made any decisions yet. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

AJ continues to be very busy with work. We have had some rain, but it is still very dry. Things are looking good for him despite the dry weather. I continue to keep busy at work too, but not crazy. Just nice and steady. I’m sure that will change, but I’m enjoying it for now! Jenna is doing great in school. She is ready to be done for the summer. She is in Awana, an organization that teaches kids about the bible. She had to memorize about 30 bible verses this year! She had a book that she had to work through and if she finished the book, she would be eligible to go on the camp-out with the rest of the group. She just finished her book last night and she was sooo excited when she came home that she could hardly sit still. It took her about half an hour to settle down before she could go to sleep! We are very proud of her!

I think that’s the latest update! I hope everyone in the Midwest is enjoying the Spring weather. I’m beginning to learn/see the differences in the seasons here. Right now, the plumeria and jack-aronda trees are all in bloom. The Plumeria smell fantastic and the jack-aronda have these beautiful purple flowers on them. They are so pretty! Well, that’s all I know for now. Until next time…aloha!

Easter, AJ and Jenna

Happy Easter to you all! We had a beautiful day here! We got up bright and early and went to the community church service called the Sonrise Service. It started at 6am. We arrived at 5:30 so we could get a seat. The paper said there was about 1000 people in attendance!! It was a beautiful service! There was great music and hula dancing, but the best part was the pastor’s sermon to the children. He was talking about 2 crowns for Jesus – a thorny crown and a crown made of plumeria flowers. At the end of his sermon a HELICOPTER flew over the crowd and dropped plumeria flowers all over us!! It was so cool!! The kids were running all over the place trying to catch the flowers. After this service, we went to our regular church for our Easter Service and then had a potluck afterwards. It was a long, but great day! Praise God for the Resurrection of our Lord!

AJ has been very busy with his bee work lately. We are in the middle of a severe drought right now. People that have lived here for a while say that this is the worst drought they have ever seen. There is very little moisture for the plants so there is not much nectar for the bees to collect. AJ is working hard to keep the hives growing. He and his crew have had to feed them more than usual. We have been praying for rain and have gotten a little lately, but we need a lot more to get things going again. AJ says that there is a lot of pressure to keep his hives going because the nuks where they produce the queens need the bees from his hives. It’s such a snowball effect – he needs to have a lot of bees so they can be used for the nuks for queen production which beekeepers around the world need in order for their hives to be productive. AJ describes it as his operation is the root for so many other businesses and people’s livelihood. It’s very stressful. I pray that we get more rain soon!! I don’t like seeing him so stressed, but am impressed that he is handling it pretty good overall.

Jenna had a Science Fair at school recently. Her subject was “How to Read Invisible Ink.” She did a great job with her presentation. We didn’t spend as much time preparing as we probably should have, but we/she pulled it together nicely. She fortunately has her Daddy’s gift of public speaking! She placed 5th and got a nice ribbon. She was happy with that. Third quarter has ended and Jenna did very well in all of her classes. We are very proud of her! Every time Jenna gets a report card, AJ says “They must grade differently now than they did when I was in school because I never saw grades like this!” Maybe his grades were letters a little further down the alphabet…hmmm. :-)

I'm working on my note about our latest guests visits. I'll be posting soon. Until then...aloha!

Visitors!

We have been enjoying having many visitors this winter! In February our friends Steve and Diane came for a short visit in between visiting other Islands. Jenna and I took them to see the volcano and we all went kayaking to the monument. We didn’t see any dolphins, but the snorkeling was awesome as usual!

In mid-February we had our dear friends Brock and Karen visit. We did so many fun things! We went to Parker Ranch and went horseback riding. Neither Jenna nor I are real comfortable riding horses, but the horses were trained so well that most of them could have walked the trail by themselves. Jenna’s horse was named Buzzy, mine was Geronimo, I can’t remember Karen’s, but hers was a little testy. I’m glad she was on him and not me! Brock rode Tiny, which was one of those paradoxical names for a horse…”Tiny” was huge! We had a great time riding through the pastures of Parker Ranch. It was so beautiful! It was a sunny day and the mountains looked amazing!! Jenna did so good riding her horse! I was a little nervous for both of us, but she was very brave and did awesome! By the end of the ride, she was having her horse trot! She did great! I’ve posted a few pictures.

After horseback riding, we went to Hawi (pronounced ah-vee.) We drove way off-road to see a lighthouse. The lighthouse wasn't much to see, but the scenery was beautiful! There used to be a lot of equipment along the shore for some project, but the coastline has eroded over time and all of the equipment fell into the ocean. You can still see parts lying on the ground. I posted some pictures. After the lighthouse, we went to a look-out at the most northern part of the Island and hiked on a trail to the ocean. The trail was kind of rough, but it was worth it! The sites were beautiful!

We also went kayaking with Brock and Karen. As usual, the snorkeling was awesome! On our way back to the landing, we saw a humpback whale out in the ocean just a little way from the Bay where we were kayaking. We decided to paddle out and get a closer look. I couldn’t see for sure where it was I was nervous that we were getting too close. I kept telling AJ, “I think we’re close enough!” Jenna and Karen were nervous too. As we got closer I realized that we weren’t that close and now I wish we WOULD have gone closer! It would have been cool to see a whale close up! While we were sitting in the kayaks watching this whale, ANOTHER whale came up behind us!! If we had stayed in the Bay like we usually do, we would have been VERY, VERY close to it!! That would have been scary, but really COOL too!!! We had a fabulous time with them and didn’t want them to leave. It was really hard to say good-bye and we look forward to seeing them again soon. We didn’t have much time to lament Brock and Karen leaving because one week later, our next guests arrived!

My other dear friend Julie and her brother Kevin came for a couple of weeks at the beginning of March. We had a great time just sitting on the beach talking, and spent a lot of time snorkeling. After the first week, Julie’s husband John came for a week. We were spoiled by their service while they were with us—we had a live-in nanny, cook, and maid! All of our guests are wonderful and help with things around the house, but I think I relied on them to take care of Jenna more than our other guests – and I am SO grateful for that! We enjoyed their company so much and were very sad to see them go. After they got home, Julie called to tell me that they almost missed their flight out of Kona! United had 2 flights leaving within 30 minutes of each other, so it took a while for them to get through security. I think it was God’s way of telling them they shouldn’t be leaving! :-)

We are now awaiting the arrival of our next guests. A classmate of AJ’s is coming today and Jenna’s babysitters from Darlington are coming on Sunday. We can’t wait to see everyone! It will be fun to show people around the Island we love so much! I will post another update after they all leave. Until then…aloha!

Daylight Savings Time

Just a reminder that Daylight Savings Time starts today! We are now 5 hours behind Wisconsin time. It will make it more difficult to call, but we will do our best! We are enjoying having visitors and I hope to post an update soon!

I will be making a short visit to Wisconsin at the end of March. My cousin has a brain tumor and he is starting to get weaker. It will be a very quick visit but I am looking forward to seeing him and his family.

I hope to post an update on our visitors soon, so until then...aloha!

Tsunami alert!!

There is a tsunami heading our way because of the earthquake in Chile! So far, there hasn't been much action. We are watching the events on TV. Most of the action is on the other side of the Island from us. The water has sucked out from the shore and is now coming back in. The water will keep on doing that until the event subsides. The weather man says it could take hours to days before we see the full effects of the tsunamai. I will keep posting updates as things happen. Thank you for your prayers, emails, and calls. We appreciate your concern.

Jenna's Birthday

January 6 was Jenna’s 9th birthday. It’s so hard to believe that she is that old already! Where does the time go?? We let her have a birthday party with her classmates…thankfully she has a small class!! We had 13 kids there and it went really well. We held it at a park not far from our house. The best thing about that is that I didn’t have to entertain the kids! This park is awesome and has tons of things for the kids to do. I had a hard time getting them to come back for cake and ice cream! Jenna wanted a Hello Kitty themed party, so I asked a friend of mine to make her a Hello Kitty cake. It turned out sooo cute!! I provided a few snacks, the cake and ice cream, and that was it! The park provided the rest of the fun! It was great and Jenna had a lot of fun. AJ and I bought her a stand up paddle board for her birthday. Stand up paddle boarding is just like it sounds. You stand up on a board and paddle. It takes a lot of balance and core strength, which I don’t have much of! We tried it before Christmas and thought it was a lot of fun. Jenna was a natural! AJ tipped over a few times, but he was being a lot more daring than me! I was just glad that I could stand on it and not fall over! The water has been pretty rough since we got it, so Jenna has only had it out once since we got it, but I’m sure we’ll get out there more. That's all for now. Until next time...aloha!