Kayaking!

Today we kayaked out to the Mokulua Islands (aka the Moks) which are actually pictured in the photos we took last weekend I believe. We borrowed Neecie and Jeff's two person kayak and headed out this morning. It only took about 20 minutes or so to get out there and was kind of overcast which is good for me to not get QUITE as much sun! We walked around part of the island which is actually a seabird sanctuary. As you can see in a few of the pics there was a baby bird in a hole, and another hole had an egg in it. This was a common sight out there.

This afternoon we're heading to Nicholle and Jaron's wedding on the beach. It should be a lot of fun and we also get to see my good friends Katie and Nick and Autumn who I haven't seen for a while.

Enjoy the pics!

Starting point

If you look reallllly close, you can see a house with a red roof, that's where we started!

Another hike in paradise...

Well, first things first... I think those of you who read this already know by now, but Renee has been offered the athletic trainer position at Kalaheo! Woohoo! So to celebrate, Friday night we went downtown to First Friday which is something that takes place (duh!) every first friday of the month. We enjoyed a drink at a martini bar, then had dinner at a noodle house and walked around and looked into various art galleries that were open for the festivities. Then we checked out a small improv theater that was doing short 30 minute shows to get more people in and out of there. It was actually pretty funny and I think we may go another time to see the full length show. We also got to hear traditional Bon Dance music and see a Chinese dragon (operated by one person) on the corner. We topped off the night with a little slice of cheesecake from a local business... yum!

Saturday we didn't do much... ran a few errands and then went and saw All About Steve. Pretty funny movie, lots of the funny stuff is in the previews, but still a good laugh. Then we relaxed at the studio, swam in the pool with the fam (Lily loves the water!) and had them over for dinner.

Sunday entailed church, and then lunch with Mom at Pinky's... SO good... and then nothing but vegging and TV the rest of the day as it was very overcast and rainy the whole day. We watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Breakup on TV... gotta love holiday weekend TV.

Today we were determined to do something outside, so we got up this morning and headed to Lanikai and hiked to the pillboxes. These are old, leftover bunkers from WWII... interesting pieces of history. It's a relatively short hike, strenuous at the start, but SO worth it... the pics (the first is from the beach entrance, looking up to the pillboxes), can't even fully illustrate the views... amazing! After that, we headed down to the beach that you can see in some of the photos and hung out for a few hours. That's it for now... until next time...

Hiking and learning...

Our latest adventure took us to the westernmost tip of Oahu. This is somewhere I had never been since I lived here. I had been close to this area for various school camping trips, but, had never actually gone into Kaena Point State Park. The unique thing about this park/reserve is that it's the only part of the island that does not have a road on/through it. It's the area that keeps anyone from being able to drive completely around the island. Renee and I met up with a small group of people to hike this area as part of a Native Plant hike/tour with a well known native plant expert and nursery owner. It was a good learning trip for me, and fun for both of us to be out there. Gorgeous weather, despite the fact that this is the hottest, driest and windiest spot on the island. Then we drove back along the north shore for some more fun... and of course had to stop at Matsumoto's for some delicious shaved ice!

Enjoy the couple of pics, the last one was from atop an old tower/bunker looking back. The north shore is to the left and the south/west shore is to the right. This site gives a little more info and photos http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/23990/Our-Hike-Along-Kaena-Point-Trail-and-Nature-Reserve-Park-at-Sunset-Waianae-18

Lily and fun...

Thought I'd post a few pics from the last couple of weeks. We've had a lot of fun with friends and family in town recently for Lily's baptism. Also, my friends Jake and Wes from high school were both in town with their girlfriends so we hung out with them several times and had a great time. I don't have any of their pics yet, but hopefully sometime soon. Below are pics of us with Lily, a photo from the baptism, us at the Pali Lookout, a shot of us at the ASLA awards from the other night, and a shot of me with my boss Lester at the Hawaii Chapter ASLA awards. He actually took home a merit award for a recent project he designed. It was a neat water feature designed outside of a new performing arts building at the all girls school in Honolulu, Sacred Hearts Academy. I actually found a short video of it, it was still under construction around there, but you get the idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh_FCjj2eD8

Until next time...

Been a while...

Well as the title says, it's been a while since I posted any updates... but frankly that's because we really don't have a whole lot going on these days! Over the last few weeks it's pretty much just been work, eat, sleep, relax/do nothing. Which isn't bad from time to time, but we would like a little variety in our days. Actually last weekend, Renee and I became a two person cleaning crew and attacked mom and dad's house (with their help) and went through closets, shelves, boxes etc. and tried to help them declutter the house a bit (which also involved removing some of our boxes that are still there). We cleaned out/threw away about two to three pickup truck loads of stuff to the dump... unreal! It was two full days of cleaning/throwing away etc but it was very productive. My aunt and nana are coming out next week for Lily's baptism, so that has given extra motivation to clean house... it will be great to see them again!

Last night, my boss Lester and his wife Carolyn took me and Renee to the final concert of the summer at the Waikiki Aquarium. It was a sold out show and took place at the aquarium in an amphitheater/lawn area that was actually designed by Lester several years ago. The photos (and 1 video) are from the show... the entertainer was Willie K who is very big here, and has won numerous Hawaiian music awards. He also was telling the audience about his recent month long tour through Europe with another band, and that he was doing that to try and spread Hawaiian music to that part of the world. A really great show, he was a lot of fun and an amazing voice. Enjoy!

Day 8 and misc photos

Since we last posted, there hasn't been a whole lot of news. We've spent some good quality time with the family... relaxed around the house and went by my new office late last week. The first couple of days this week I actually went in early to help out on a deadline for today. Now I've got the rest of week to hang out with Renee and the rest of the family before starting the real first full week of work on Monday.

The photos below are of a few things in San Diego from our visit to Balboa Park, and then the garden pictures are actually from the backyard of the home/office that I am working at now... not a bad place to walk out to and just relax for a couple of minutes during the day. The pictures of the family are just a few from the photos that a friend of Becca's took for her earlier this week...they are really great! Until next time...

Home Sweet Hawaii...

Well, the big road trip adventure is over, with a little bit under 5,000 miles travelled in the CR-V!! We spent some great time with a few more family and friends in LA and San Diego. Got to watch the fireworks on the 4th from a boat in San Diego Bay off of Coronado which was really cool. Spent some time at the beach and biking around Coronado. Then got a brief tour of La Jolla with our friend Nicholle who will be in Hawaii in a couple months to get married. We got our car processed and dropped off to be loaded on to a ship... should be here the end of next week hopefully.

We got into Hawaii yesterday afternoon and have been enjoying family time, especially with the new baby... Lily's adorable! I'll get some pics up soon probably. Nothing else really new around here... will update this from time to time probably, but not as religiously as on the road trip. Until next time...

Vegas and Beyond...

Since we last posted, we have explored Las Vegas up and down the strip, and inside many of the popular hotels. We spent SOME time in the casinos at the tables and slots, but didn’t lose too much! I think Renee had more success than I did, but in the end, we still ended up on the overall losing end… pretty sure that’s the story most people have to tell when they return as well.

We did see a couple of shows while we were there. We saw Mesmerized, which was a hypnotist show in a smaller venue. Then we saw KA, which is a Cirque du Soleil show that is running in the MGM Grand where we stayed. It was a really cool show and we definitely enjoyed our time there. The acrobatics and stunts are amazing! Speaking of the MGM Grand, you’ll also see a photo of the Lion Habitat which is within the hotel, and is really neat. The shot I got was of the lion playing a game of some variation of volleyball with the trainer… he’s in mid-spike!

While we were walking on the strip we did see the construction progress that has been made on the huge City Center project (see http://www.citycenter.com for more info) which is really cool (for architecture/design nerds like me). When visiting some of the other more opulent/newer hotels, it’s amazing the amount of money and detail that is spent to create these places as you can see in a few of the photos.

Some of the other photos below are of the Hoover Dam which we stopped by on our way out of Las Vegas. We didn’t take the tour, because we were a little tired of all the walking and tourist things, as we’ve gotten our fill over the last few weeks. It’s still a pretty cool site to see though. In one of the photos you can see the new Hoover Dam/Colorado River bridge project that they are working to complete. The new bridge should help reduce the traffic that we experienced getting to the Hoover Dam.

We got to the Los Angeles area yesterday evening and had some drinks and dinner with my mom’s cousin and husband in Arcadia where they are kindly hosting us for a couple of nights. Then today they played tour guide and took us around LA and downtown to see the various sights. We didn’t really take many photos but we saw Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Dodger Stadium, the Rose Bowl, the USC campus, and the photos we did take were at Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall which is a really neat building. Now we are relaxing around the house and will be traveling to Irvine and San Diego to have lunch with friends and finish our last few days of our road trip… until next time!

Faux Po-Po

Now that I’ve got your curiosity going, I just thought I’d enlighten you to the fact that as we drove through the little town of Kanab, Utah, we passed not one, but TWO police cars that had dummy cops in them…and I’m not insulting the police, I mean actual dummies, with the aviator sunglasses and all… sadly we didn’t stop to get a picture but hilarious nonetheless.

Well it’s been a few days, but seeing as that we were in the middle of nowhere, it’s not a surprise that the internet connection was a bit hit or miss… we spent the last two days exploring that Grand Canyon and words and pictures will not do it enough justice, but hopefully it’ll get the general idea across… this place is HUUUGE and gorgeous. We had two picture perfect, nearly cloudless days and enjoyed seeing the many colors, shapes and sizes of various areas of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. For those who don’t know, there is a North and South Rim to the Grand Canyon. The South Rim is the more photographed and commercialized part of it, and it sits about 2000 feet lower than the North. The North Rim sits at about 8000 feet or so on average and is much more laid back. The place we stayed at, Jacob Lake Inn, was about 45 miles from the North Rim, and there were only two or three places any closer, but those are very tough to get. We had a quaint little “half” cabin (the picture shows TWO separate rooms) that was probably half the size of the studio we’ll be living in when we get to Hawaii!

During the course of our day and half exploring the Grand Canyon we took several shorter hikes, and saw the sunset from two different areas… so cool! There isn’t really much to say, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Today we left our cabin and checked out at about 530am and headed for Page, Arizona and took part in the Colorado River Discovery tour that Renee had signed us up for a couple months ago. This was a 3-hour pontoon/raft ride down 15 miles of the Colorado River within the Glen Canyon. It started at the Glen Canyon Dam which holds back Lake Powell, and we wound down river to Lees Ferry. It was a really neat experience and was cool to get a different perspective being down at the water level looking up instead of at the top of the canyon looking down. One other cool experience on the tour was a stop we made to visit a panel of Anasazi petroglyphs that the National Parks Service has preserved and added as an educational element. The panel dates back nearly 3000 years. After that stop, and before heading back down the river, some of the guides challenged as many of the passengers to dive into the water for fun. I decided what the heck, and with about 10 other people we ran and dove into the 47 degree water of the Colorado River… man it was cold, but awesome! And it was easy to get out and warm up because it was about 85 degrees out of the water!

After the boat trip, we got lunch, gassed up and headed for Vegas! Nothing real exciting along that drive except watching our temperature gauge. When we left this morning and 530, it was about 47 degrees, and by the time we got to Vegas, it was reading 109! Now we’ve gotten checked into our room at the MGM Grand, after fighting through traffic and the confusion of just getting to the hotel entrance! We ate some room service and are gonna get ready to go down and check out a few of the attractions downstairs.

The last item is about a 30-second video from the end of an overlook. It's a 360 degree view. Hopefully all (or most) of you will be able to view it. It may take a minunte or two to load for some of you. Until next time…