It's Autumn

The leaves had barely started to change when I left to go to Hawaii, and on the return flight home, it was obvious that fall was here when we looked down and saw all of the color change. And then with the drop in temperature down to the 60's on Sunday, and having to break out the jeans and sweatshirts, I was left craving apples. I bought some grocery store apples on Monday night, but they just didn't fill the niche. So I took a detour on the way home from work tonight and bought apples from the orchard- and pumpkin ice cream. And I came home and made an apple pie from my Mom's recipe, with my faithful cooking assistants Elleigh and Austin. Austin is an apple connoisseur, so he was delighted that I bought a few different kinds of apples to put in the pie. I didn't do anything fancy with the crust, in fact, I didn't even make it from scratch. But the pie tasted wonderful anyway.

One Vacation Over, Next One in the Planning

It was back to work today; it was inevitable. My vacation had to come to an end eventually, or I wouldn't continue to get pay checks. But I can report that this was the best return from vacation I have ever had while working at Concord Hospital. Brandi did a super, excellent job covering for me and taking care of the emergencies. I don't think anyone has ever worked so hard for me in my absence. Brandi is the best!

I'm so excited about how great my vacation coverage was that I can't wait to plan my next vacation. (Poor Brandi may have done too good of a job!) I purchased a travel book on Costa Rica at Borders on Sunday and Michael and I are thinking about making a visit to Central America for our honeymoon. I know two people (Alyssa and Deb) who have gone to Costa Rica previously and they are both saying they had a good time there. And the flight is only 6 hours, so it is half what it took to get to Hawaii.

We're Home!

We survived the flight home and Michael's Dad (Grandpa Abberton) was waiting in Manchester to pick us up. We arrived just before noon, having advanced ahead 6 hours with the time zones, and not having been to sleep Friday night. The house was in one piece and, thankfully, Grandpa Abberton mowed the lawn.
We headed out to pick up the four legged children almost immediately, because we really missed them. Miss Elleigh May apparently was exhausted from her stay at pet sitter Susan's house. The little doggy gang staying with Susan had visited the new dog park in Concord frequently. And Susan said Elleigh was a sweet girl. Here's a photograph of Elleigh in her new Hawaiian shirt and the Hawaiian print collar/bandanna that we got for her in Hawaii. You can see she will probably have a permanent scar on her nose from her pre-vacation digger. And she can barely keep her eyes open in this photo. Elleigh has been extra snugly since we have had her home. She also has been trying to catch up on her sleep, passing out any time she can.

Austin didn't seem too overly excited to see us, as he really loves hanging out at "the farm" with his Grandpa Abberton. But he did enjoy the pineapple flavored dog biscuits we brought home for him.

Michael and I were exhausted too. Once we got the kids home, we watched an hour of The Office off the DVR. By 7 pm, we were in bed and slept the whole night through until 8 am this morning. Hopefully, that will be all we need to "catch up" on sleep. Michael has to return to work tomorrow, but I do have one more day to recuperate before heading back to work.

Day Seven- Waikiki Beach

We spent our last full day in Hawaii sitting out at Waikiki beach. We went to a different part of the beach this time. The water gets deep pretty quickly, but the bottom of the ocean was much sandier. It wasn't until I got out in the water up to about my neck that I started to see bits of rock again. The waves were pretty big, but they only seemed to break much further out than we were or right on the shore. Definitely not a beach you'd have children playing at near the edge. This was the part of the beach that the surfers were hanging out. We couldn't quite talk ourselves into renting a surf board to try it out, but I did rent a beach umbrella so we wouldn't blister in the sun. When we weren't in the water, Michael read under the umbrella while I knitted, people watched and took a brief nap. When we had enough of the sandy beach, we returned to the hotel deck area and used the pool and jacuzzi.

Our last dinner in Hawaii was at The Big Kahuna, which is a Hawaiian burger/sandwich place. Our waitress ended up being from Maine, which is one of the few people we have run into here in Hawaii that knows that New Hampshire is still in the United States. Our waitress allowed gave us the update on the Red Sox game last night, but more importantly she let us know the Yankees lost.

On the walk home, we found a cafe selling bubble tea. I am really surprised we haven't seen more bubble tea since I believe it to be a Japanese drink and there are a lot of Japanese tourists. Oh, and we saw our first doggy boutique as well. Michael bought Elleigh a little collar/bandanna in a pink Hawaiian print.

Update on the felted laptop bag

I completely was out of my gourd thinking the bag would be done before going to Hawaii. Significant work has been done on the bag in Hawaii; it has been to Waikiki beach. However, my original thought upon seeing the washing machine down the hallway in the hotel was that I might actually finish the bag and then get it felted and dried in time to use it to carry my laptop home. Since we depart tomorrow, that's not going to happen. Considering that today is going to be a majority beach day, I could come close to finishing it, but it won't get felted while in Hawaii. And hopefully it doesn't bring home too much white sand either.

Day Six- Snorkeling & Shopping

We awoke to more liquid sunshine and a double rainbow. We had our earliest morning start so far when we headed off to Hanauma Bay by 8:00 am. Formed by volcanoes, Hanauma Bay is a beautiful destination for snorkeling. Actually, all of Hawaii is formed by volcanoes, but it is much easier to see the old shape of the volcano in Hanauma Bay. We rented gear and snorkeled in the bay, all the while looking at tropical fish and coral reef. You can see in the picture above and to the right that there are some sandy bottom areas and then big pieces of reef to swim over and look down on. We didn't see any sea turtles, as we were told they skedaddled very early to avoid the crowds, but we saw quite a few varieties of fish. It was well worth the $5 admission fee and the rental of the equipment. We headed out by noon, just as it seemed the big crowds were coming in.

Michael had to run back out to his job site this afternoon, so that left ample time for a trip to Hilo Hattie's on the free trolley for me. Though we were out of the sun by noon, I still had too much for the day, so spending the afternoon in the sun was not an option. But Hilo Hattie's was waiting for me. I enjoyed the trolley ride out, as I got to look at the city and Waikiki beach more on the trolley ride. I was able to find myself a Hawaiian sundress and pick up all of the souvenirs that I needed at Hilo Hattie's. Plus, I found pineapple flavored dog bones for Austin and a light blue Hawaiian shirt for Elleigh May. (Blog to follow with Elleigh dressed up.)

We tried a completely new (to us) dinning experience tonight by going to Gyu-Kaku, a Japanese Charcoal BBQ. This is apparently a chain restaurant in Japan, but now a few cities in the United States have one- two of which are in Honolulu. Basically, we ordered our food raw and it was brought out for us cook ourselves over a built in grill in the middle of the table. Very fun! We ordered a complete dinner series so we wouldn't have to figure out the ordering ourselves. We had beef tongue, several kinds of steak, shrimp and scallops to grill over the charcoal. And for dessert, I had green tea ice cream and Michael had red bean ice cream, and Michael toasted little pancakes over the grill to warm it for the ice cream.

We checked out the International Market on the walk back to the hotel. It was a large, open air market, but basically all that was being sold was the same touristy stuff that is in the regular stores along the ocean boulevard. I did find a locally sewn Hawaiian print shoulder bag, a T-shirt/nightgown for myself, and a jade plumeria bracelet.

And we stopped off at Honolulu Cookie Company. They are shortbread specialists. We sampled the cookie flavors and decided that Lilikoi Mango was our favorite, and the store clerk had to explain to me that a lilikoi was a type of passion fruit.

Day Five- History in Pearl Harbor

I will affectionately call Tuesday in Hawaii Michael's Day. We toured the World War II historical sites at Pearl Harbor.

We checked in first at the USS Arizona Memorial to get our place in line. It's free, but there were so many people there to see the memorial that we had a 3 hour wait.

While waiting for our 1:00 pm tour, we saw the neighboring USS Bowfish submarine. We were able to tour the sub, walk (crawl) through it, and I know that I could never have been paid enough to work on a submarine. The quarters are just too cramped for me. And definitely not enough yarn storage capability. Those men were lucky if they had enough room to store a spare pair of underwear. I've included a photo of Michael playing on a deck gun.

I found the USS Arizona Memorial to be less than I expected. I was envisioning something solemn and emotional. And my anticipation was heightened because you had to wait so long to see the memorial. Instead, and I assume because there are so many people, it felt like cattle being herded through mourning. And the day that we went, the water was so cloudy that you couldn't see anything of the Arizona wreckage in the water at all, just the one turret base that was sticking out of the water slightly. Really, all there was to see was the hall with all of the names of the 1177 men that died on the Arizona in an instant when the Japanese bomb hit the ship. It seemed a bit too concise to just boat out to the memorial, get off, look down in muddy water, and then wander past a wall of names. I am thinking there might be something even more memorializing than that. I will have to think on it and then send in my ideas to the government. And I found that all of the possible photo opportunities I could find had already been taken.

Michael and I took a bus over to Ford Island for the remainder of the afternoon. On Ford Island, we first visited the new Pacific Aviation Museum. It is a restored hanger right on the site of the old Ford Island naval air station that was also bombed on December 7th, 1941 during the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Inside the hanger, there were several planes restored and on display. There was also a great snack bar set up to look like an old officer's club. Michael and I shared a plate of guava BBQ ribs and garlic french fries. Michael bought a hat and T-shirt in the museum store. The museum hopes to raise enough money to restore the lookout post that is on the old airfield as well. It is very run down as-is and it seems like an important piece of history to save.

We gained access to the USS Missouri (Mighty Mo) battleship via Ford Island as well. What a huge ship! Much more spacious than the USS Bowfish, but I was disappointed at the expense that seemed to have been put into catering to the more senior officers. Seems like a waste of money when they could have been sharing the same facilities as the rest of the men. (Maybe this attitude is why I would never work out in the military.) But anyway, the ship is now retired, but everything looks like it still works. And they got the ship back up and running even after it was hit by a Kamikaze in the war. Maybe people would pay to take cruises on the ship, turn it into a cruise line for military buffs? Would have to do something with that green everywhere, but paint is cheap. The historical event probably most famous on the Mighty Mo was the signing of the surrender documents by the Japanese at the end of World War II.

I tried very hard to keep my opinions to myself so as not to wreck Michael's nostalgic jaunt through the military stuff. My favorite was the new Pacific Aviation Museum, probably seconded by the Mighty Mo.

Michael and I were able to spend some time in the early evening in the hotel pool and hot tub before going back to the kitchenette to cook up the super sweet corn, long eggplant, and try to eat down the contents of the fridge.

Our review on the super sweet corn is that it was sweet, but also a little starchier. We assume it is more consistently sweet year round than New Hampshire corn, but still not quite ready to say it beat the sweetness of that one good batch of corn per summer that you buy in NH at the farm stand that is so sweet and wonderful.

Day Four- Polynesian Hawaii

Michael and I traveled the scenic roads once again to go up to the north shore of Hawaii on Monday. We were going to the Polynesian Cultural Center ultimately, but thought we would first drive up past the center and try to locate one of the beaches that the TV show LOST was filmed on.

This was probably the worst of our days weather wise. There has been a lot of "liquid sunshine" as the locals call it when it is lightly raining out but it is still sunny. On Monday, there were more clouds than I had seen since arriving, but they were in patches.

Michael and I did find the Famous Kahuka Shrimp Truck, as recommended by one of the guys at Mike's work site, so that we could try some Hawaiian native shrimp. We shared a plate of the coconut style shrimp for lunch as it lightly sprinkled.

We drove as far north as the famous surfing beach Haleiwa, where we stopped to watch a bunch of surfers catch some waves.

We never were able to find the LOST beach. I will spare you all of they puns and elementary humor that this concept brings to my mind.

We drove by several farmstands, finally stopping at one to buy a fried banana, "super sweet corn", and some prickly red fruit.

We stopped on the side of the road by Waimea Bay Park Beach so I could snap a photo of another scenic beach.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon and the evening at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The center was opened by the Mormans and they bring in students from all of the cultures that they exhibit at the center. The students teach and perform at the center and also appear to get free, or at the very least subsidized, education from the Brigham Young University- Hawaii campus. The center celebrates not only Hawaiian culture, but also other Polynesian cultures including Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Samoa. They have an IMAX movie about saving the coral reefs. I really enjoyed the moai stone statues in the Rapa Nui cultural village. Here's my attempt at trying to be artistic with the faux Easter Island stones. We ate at the Hawaiian buffet before staying to watch the evening show of Polynesian dance. This show included more Samoan fire knife dancing.

Day Three- Hawai'i

We slathered ourselves with SPF 50 sunscreen and headed out to Waikiki Beach, one of the most famous beaches in the world. I thought I was doing well getting my pool into the 80's a few times this summer, but the ocean water was so warm that we could have stayed in it all day. The part of the beach we chose to hang out on had some coral on the bottom, so we had to watch where we put our feet if we went too far out. It also seems to be the part of Waikiki beach that was very popular with boogie boards, but we did not rent them ourselves.

We spent the evening on the leeward side of the island at Paradise Cove, ironically, very near to Mike's job site. We got a bus ride out to the cove to go to a Lu'au & Hawaiian revue show. We were each greeted with a Mai Tai and an orchid lei. We tried our hand at O'o'ihe (spear throwing) which only proved that Michael and I would starve if we had to rely on spearing our own food. I made a braided wrist corsage out of plumeria and orchid flowers. Plumeria is very fragrant, so I smelled oh so pretty the whole evening. After the Imu Ceremony (unearthing the pig from the roasting pit) we had a feast. Not only were we supplied in continuous Mai Tai's and Blue Hawaii drinks, but we had traditional Poi (starch pudding made from taro plants- yuck!), more Lomi Lomi Salmon (Salmon salsa), Mahi Mahi with a macadamia nut cream sauce, and Haupia (which was a square of coconut gelatin, unlike McD's pie) and of course the roasted pig. We sat across from a snuggly honeymoon couple from San Francisco so that helped to keep the evening romantic.

Following the meal, we watched a Hawaiian show that included Hula dancing, buff men in loin clothes, and a Samoan fire knife dancer. The last was the most impressive!

My favorite of the day was seeing the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. It was gorgeous to start, and just when I thought it was over, it got better. You can imagine how many photos I snapped. I will leave this entry with the sunset photo below.