Mele Kalikimaka

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....well, Hawaiian style!  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...!
It looks pretty good from 12,500 feet away.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Spear fishing

I think this will be a new friday after Thanksgiving tradition. We don't have it all figured out yet but we had a lot of fun. So far the fish are winning. Scott, Rob and I went and hope to go again soon. Lots of fast fish. Or maybe we were just slow after our big dinner the day before

My new office is located at the north end of the Kohala Coast, overlooking Kawaihae Harbor.  I've gone from working upstairs, alone without windows, to working in an office with three other people, my own office, and a view of the ocean.  The work is an easy transition (all my accounting and bookkeeping and HR experience is paying off).  The people are friendly, easy-going, and the pay is generous.  In my first week the payroll service company was pretending to recruit me (after I spoke up at a meeting with them) and the people I work with were telling them to leave before it sounded appealing to me.  It's kind of fun being fought over so quickly.  I've sent along pictures of my office and the view.  My office is just inside the little building.  The other building is the processing plant and visitor's center.  The two corner windows on the left of the picture are in my office.  The picnic table is for the office personnel and looks out over the water.  The other view of the harbor is the view from my office window.  Yeah, this is the life!  The last picture is of Bruce at the hospital last night.  We think he touched his eye with pepper juice and it caused an abrasion.  They had to irrigate his eye and he is on antibiotics for a week.  I hadn't seen him in this much pain since the kidney stones.  :(  Today he is better.

With Bruce being able to work on the house full time, we should be able to move in by spring.  Every month we don't have to pay rent is money in our pocket!  And with Rob Malouf here for a couple of months to help with the framing, we are hoping to have it closed-in by Christmas.  I can't wait!  The view at the new house is better than the one at the rental; we can see the ocean, Maui (on a clear day) and the Kohala Mountains.  I hope everyone is planning to visit sometime.  I can't believe it's November already.

New job!

Just an announcement!  I have a new job.  I start work on Monday, October 25th.  I will be an assistant to the finance manager for the Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company; cleverly disguised as a "bookkeeper".  I am very excited about the position.  I won't be doing dailies anymore (someone else does the accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll).  I'll be working with job costing and projects related to bottom-line boosting.  It's full time and comes with benefits.  Take a look on their website:  google Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company.  (Don't be confused by their address in Kona.  The office where I'll be working is located in Kawaihae which is about 16-17 miles from here and relatively close.)  I'll be working days, Monday through Friday, so I'll have my weekends off and be home by 5:00 everyday.

I've attached my latest painting.  I'm not giving up on art; but this will help while Bruce is building the new house.

Garden Update

How does your garden grow? Ours is going gangbusters! We are so excited so see how well our garden is doing. I can't believe Bruce and I have finally found a compromise between my childhood experience of a garden (tomatoes on the deck) and his childhood (1/4 acre of garden). See the progress:

Our first official visitor

After nine years, our first visitor to Hawaii was Tomoko Ino and her sons. Many of you may remember Tomoko. We met when she came to America at 15 years old as an exchange student. It was another one of those times when we were in the right place at the right time. She stayed 3 weeks that first visit and we became family. She called us Mom and Dad and we called her our Japanese daughter. She visited several times after that, even joining us in Florida in 2000 when we took the family to Disney World. The last time we saw her was the summer of 2001. After 911, her new husband didn't want her to travel to the U.S. It was too dangerous.

We have known her now for 18 years. Now that we are in Hawaii, travel for her is so much easier and she asked her travel agent (a former student of hers) to watch for a travel deal she could work around. She e-mailed us the middle of August, just before Amy went back to school, that she could come from the 20th to the 30th of August and would that be okay. Of course! We were thrilled that she would come to see us so soon after our move. She told us she would be bringing her two boys. What a treat for us. Their names are Reima and Ryoma.

When she arrived, she announced that she was pregnant. Three children in Japan is a big family. We are very happy for her. She is hoping for a girl this time. We met her adorable boys. They warmed up to us quickly and when we asked her what she wanted them to call us, she said 'grandma' and 'grandpa'. We were hoping she would say that!

She stayed with us for most of the time, staying at a local resort for a couple of days so her boys could enjoy the amenities there. We did lots of shopping, went to the beach, went to the zoo and the famous Big Island Candies company, and took the boys snorkeling. Bruce had a great time playing grandpa. She cooked for us twice and brought our favorite goodies from Japan.

Saying goodbye was just has hard this time as it was every other time she visited. We would really like to go to Japan and see her. Her invitation was very gracious and if we get the house done next year, we may just have to plan a trip there. The idea of an eight hour flight seems so much easier to take than 14 hours.

We miss her already.

Our First Square Foot Garden!

Denise and Cory should be pleased to know that they have inspired us to build our own square foot garden and here is the result.

We used old wood that Tom wasn't using and gathered our supplies from local home improvement stores. We bought some small plants and some seeds. It is very satisfying when after only 4 days the beans are 2" tall! We built the garden boxes about 2 weeks ago and see how well it's doing now. We already have a tomato about the size of a marble and the three older pepper plants have multiple peppers beginning to grow.

We can hardly wait to enjoy our first harvest, which may be sooner than we thought!