Merry Christmas

Just had a Merry Christmas... Just thought you would like to know...
Sorry no Pictures yet.
We will see in the new year...

Time for a new blog post...

Ok so it has been about a month... Lots of stuff to think about.

Mazda's... talk about I hate you/I love you. For those that don't know both Stephanie and I drive Mazda Vehicles... Steph drives the MPV know as the Silver Bullet... or as it has more recently been named in the car pool... the Silver Short Bus... It is a 2003 model which I guess is getting older but really folks should the plastic be rotting out of the door locks? It also recently required repairs for an engine hose that failed. The last concern is for the engine oil leak that I can't seem to stop. What is the deal. The van is the van. A grocery getter. I am really not too worried about it. But I don't want it to fail. And I certainly can't afford a new car payment.

So I said Mazda's... Plural. The 3. The little car. The car that has been kept immaculate. The kids are not allowed to even have food in the car. A 2004 Mazda 3 with lower than average miles 57000. It's Never missed an oil change. In August the engine light comes on. The machine begins running rough. phuc. So I take it to the dealer there is a part.../ Valve that needs to be replaced. The Repair will be about $500. The service agent is kind enough to tell me that he thinks the clutch is getting soft and will need to be replaced in the next year or so... So we take her home... The next week the battery is completely dead... won't even take a charge. So we jump it and run over to Sears... Batteries are too damn expensive it was another $114 for the cheap option... no extended warranty. The very next day the clutch completely fails. As I was researching options for repair of the clutch I learned that Mazda put shit clutches in their cars. It is not unusual for them to fail at 17000, 33000, 60000 miles. I should be happy to have gotten as far as I did. So... $1500 and two weeks later the car is back and seems as good as new. For now.

In the past two months I have had to spend almost $3000 in Auto Repairs. Not great for a guy that just took a $18000 a year salary cut... How many hours am I going to work overtime to make that up...

Whatever.

More to think about but I have to go set up the basement for Braden's Homecoming dinner

which might mean more to blog about... That is if I am not at work when the deal goes down. I happen to be on-call this weekend.

My back hurts

I hate it.
My back and butt cheek hurt.
The end.

More Hawaii Pictures

18 Months 2 Weeks and 3 days...

The count down begins... That's how long until we get to go back to Kauai. We had a great trip. I am suffering from post vacation depression. To be more specific, or should I say more "Pacific" Post Kauai Reality Disorder. I had to mow the lawn this morning. It was cold. Real life sucks.

We spent 7 days total on Kauai. We left last Sunday morning early and spent the day traveling. We had one layover in LA. Everyone there is stoked about the NBA finals. Lakers in the finals? Who would have guessed that. Braden and I were both more interested in the new BMW z4 add than the life size Kobe Bryant on the kiosk.

We ate at McDonald's twice on this trip. Once in the airport, and once on Kauai for the locals breakfast. More about that later. I have filled my McDonald's quota until next time we go on vacation.

We stayed at the Cliffs condominiums in Princeville, Kauai. Very nice place. Our unit had an ocean view. The pool area was awesome, the tennis courts were great. Brooklynn learned to play shuffle board. The condo was 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, my bedroom had an ocean view, we could hear the waves as we went to sleep. No air conditioning, but I didn't complain the temperature was consistently between 75-85 degrees day/night. Perfect.

Look for the sunrise picture and the pic of Brooklynn imitating the rooster. This was our first morning on Island. Of course at 5:30am we were wide awake... that is about 9:30am SLC time. Needless to say we had some very early mornings, and were just getting used to island time when we had to come home. I slept until 10:45 this am. Think 6:45am on Kauai. I suppose I will eventually adjust.

Day 1: we went to the island orientation at the club house. Basically a sales pitch for different activities, and the condo lady will help you schedule the activities that sound fun. I had a free massage from the lady that was selling in room massage therapy. It was nice. I would have left a tip but... I didn't know she was going to be there so I wasn't carrying any cash...

So we drove into Hanalei and rented some snorkel equipment. We spent about 5 hours in the sun at Tunnels beach snorkeling... look for the pictures with the kids snorkeling, and the Monk Seal. The seal was cool they are endangered. There are only about 1200 left which is not very many we were able to see two in the wild while on island. So it was hot on the beach. The snorkeling was good. It was highly recommended at this beach. But I was more impressed with snorkeling along Napali Coast (boat tour) and also my favorite beach which is still Hide Away Beach. So at the beach there are some pictures that you will want to match up to this section... Of course the Monk Seal... I named him Larry.

There are pictures of Kara on the catwalk in her bathing suit carrying the beach umbrella that blew out of the sand and nearly hit her. As she grabbed it she did the model walk with pivot and all... imagine "I'm too sexy" playing in the back ground. Look for pictures of Braden and Brooklynn running up the beach from the water.

They were running because the sand was so hot it would fry your tootisies if the toes were in contact with the sand for more than 2 seconds. I thought the kids looked like members of the cast of "Baywatch" as they were running and kept waiting for Steph to start running so I could make a comparison between Steph and some other "Baywatch babe" I am thinking a younger Pam Anderson before she got all sick looking. With that I should add that there will be many pictures of Steph in her bathing suit, bikini, cover-up, fully dressed, etc... Because whether she likes it or not she is still my favorite subject. The Island is good for her.

So after getting completely sun stroked the first morning on the beach we decided it would be cool to hike the Napali Coast. The Kalalaua trail is hikable without permit for the first 2 miles and goes to a place called hanakape beach where they don't recommend you get into the water. Tides kill people there. Chris says that the beach used to be where the nudists would go... I didn't see any last time I was there but figured it was worth a shot... so we hiked. Either I was exhausted, dehydrated, feet were burned on the sole or my back was injured, or all of the above because this was much more difficult than I remembered last year. I limped through just the same. I was the last to make it off the trail. I am so old. But I suppose I still looked cool in my Chili Peppers t-shirt. Oh wait most chili peppers fans are old now too... when the hell did that happen! Anyway, stroked and limp we drove the blue Subaru back into Hanalei. We were going to cook dinner at the condo but decided we were all too tired to cook so we went into the Hanalei Gourmet Cafe for dinner. The waitress was a grouch but the food was excellent. I would say overpriced but all of the restaurants were. I had shutome fish and chips... yum. I highly recommend them, also try the da kine nachos.

Day one done... Oh yeah except we had a special visitor on Kauai. Oooga Chucka Oooga Chucka.... the divine Hawaiian trickster God Kapua visited Steph and the kids each night and left them a tiki totem and a token gift to ensure they had extra fun while on his island. He left things like Hawaii Cards, Frisbee, pack towels, hand sanitizer, treats, misting fans, pj's, lotions, etc... Look for pics of tokens and treats... it was fun for me to help this trickster, and to play with my family.

Day 2: is the Boat tour of Napali coast. I have mixed feelings about the day. Some of the things I felt were awe and wonder, but the overwhelming feeling was nausea. I have spent alot of time on boats in my life, I have never been motion sick. Until now. I still managed to get lots of pictures, the dolphins were awesome and chased the boat, they played and did all kinds of acrobatics right off our bow. It was really cool. The snorkeling was awesome. I have to take some credit for the great snorkeling because I puked over the edge of the boat as everyone was getting in the water and all of the fish swarmed the vomitus. Luckily besides drawing the fish in, they also cleaned it up. Most of my family didn't even realize I had been sick. Steph was the only one who was near enough to witness the event. Not one of my best moments to be sure. I did manage to get some awesome pictures of the dolphins.

Everyone else ate on the boat. I mostly just tried not to blow chunks again. We made it back to land. I felt better. We went to Hanalei and exchanged Braden's snorkel which had a broken purge valve. We went into town and bought shave ice. I had a turkey panini at Java Kai. It was excellent, not bad priced either. We went back to the condo, and I napped for 3 hours. It was awesome. I got a little bit of grief from my love for sleeping for too long but I think it was the best nap I have ever had.

We stayed at the condo and BBQ'd this night. Probably one of the best meals we had, least expensive too. If it wasn't so much work to cook each night while on vacation we could save a bunch. We ate in every morning, lunches were mostly provided during activities, we ate at a variety of places for dinners... Tuesday night we played skip bo and decorated the condo for Brooklynn's Birthday. It was very funny to watch Steph and Chris do the decorating. Now I know where Steph gets it from...

June 10th, day 3, Happy Birthday Brooklynn! We woke up and made pancakes at the condo for Brooklynn, they were perfect!

Brooklynn opened presents, and we played some Tennis before getting ready to head out for the Zip Line adventure.

This was fun but way overpriced. In all we spent about $500 for a family of 4 and the best part was the rope swing, and water fall at the end which is free and open to the public... Doh! See the pictures. Steph gets the best marks for her entry. Other members of our group voted she was give an 8.5 and was the most graceful on the swing. Great job Steph!

I think this post is too big it won't let me include any more pictures... So here is the story and I will try to set up a slide show for the rest.

We met back in Lihue for dinner, the Kalapaki Beach Hut. So this is a hamburger stand near the beach with seating on top of the building that overlooks the ocean. The food was good. The fries were excellent. We spent about $50 for 3 Hamburgers, an order of fish and a side salad. Save up if you are going to eat out! The atmosphere was fun, we followed up dinner with shopping in the nearby tourist trap. We then went back to the condo for Cake and Ice Cream for Brooklynn's Birthday.

Thursday was a very fun day! We woke up, and went down to Hide away Beach and did some snorkeling. We only spent about 1 hour there because we had to hurray back for our back country tubing adventure. The tubing is done on property that was once a sugar plantation. Our tour guides name was Brooklyn. She was very excited to have another Brooklynn on the tour because she hadn't before met another Brooklynn. Ok so we rode tubes in a ditch for about 4 miles. It was fun though the irrigation ditches were very clean and there were 5 tunnels of varying length. About 80% of the ride was inside the tunnels. Steph got some cool shorts that say Back Country across her back country. I took a picture. After we were cleaned up we went back to Hanalei for dinner. We went to the "Dolphin" my idea. The food was great. I had the teriyaki Ahi, fresh delicious, Braden even said it was awesome. I should have took some percocet before we went because the bill was painful. The four of us spent 170$ on one dinner. Ouch. And some people wonder why I work 2 jobs.

Friday, we wanted to go to a good surf or boogie board beach so we went south shore. Kalapaki Beach is basically the beach in front of the Kauai Marriott. They are to be commended on how nice the beach is kept. Fun in the sun, all day. A wedding at the Kauai Hilton that night, followed by a seafood buffet. Braden ate crab legs... My little boy, growing up, trying new things with out being pressured. It was cool.

Saturday was sleep in day, play tennis day, Bubba Burger day, and shopping day. We finished off all of that action by touring the lighthouse and bird sanctuary before heading back to the condo and packing up.

Travel Home started Saturday night about 2100 and finshed up Sunday about 1200. We unpacked and slept. Back to reality.

I plan to plow through e-mail tomorrow, and get back into the OR on Wednesday

Maholo and aloha!