It's been a while...

Aloha!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I last wrote. Life falls into a schedule and before you know it weeks have past. Here's my sorry attempt to make it up to you :)

These next few pictures speak for themselves. I begged Sam to hike Tantalus with me. And so it happened. What started out as a 4 mile hike turned into a 9 mile hike when we discovered that the trail we were on wouldn't take us to the summit. Sam used his amazing orienting/navigating skills to redirect us up and around the mountain. The trail was really muddy and the weather was humid, although it was cooler being up in the mountains. It was fun, but I don't think I'd do this hike again.

The pre-hiking picture (pre-grossness)

The vinage hung like a sheet between the walls of this ravine. The hike took us right through and underneath it. Kinda cool. 

Reaching the top

This is looking out at Diamond Head and Waikiki. 

 The "please stop taking pictures of me" face

Not sure what these structures are. Any guesses?

Feeling really sweaty.

But he'll kiss me anyway :)

Get that stick out of my face. 

We found this bamboo forest along the path. It's made me real inspired to make bamboo...anything: trellis, bench, chair. I haven't made anything yet, but the ideas are percolating. 

Next I have some random pictures of more day to day life. You might call these next few pictures the "things I love about Hawaii" pictures.

Fresh fruit. Pineapple is about $2.70-3.00 here. 

The clearance aisle at the Commissary (that's $1.50 for cereal people!)

People leave their junk on the side of the streets here. Trash pickup is Tuesday morning, so every Monday night we drive/walk around the neighbor and look at the week's picking. We're hobos like that. It's not uncommon to see plates, lamps, tvs, desks, chairs, tables, just about anything and everything. 

Having a husband who'll mow the yard for you :)

A nice kayak from the parents (oh, keith, kathy, fyi, the Kayak had a manufacturer's defect. There's a hole in  the side and it's been leaking water. We have some apoxy to fix it, so no worries).

 

Veggies from the garden! This is about all we've had so far. 

Tthe Airman's Attic. It's like a goodwill, but everything is free. I found two of these chair and decided to give them a new look. I've also found fishing poles, badminton rackets (as you'll see in a moment), clothes, a lawn chair, and fabric for pillows. 

It's the wrought iron that drew my attention.

I borrowed a friend's sander and got to work...

...and learned a valuable lesson about sanding. I've never stained before and I guess I thought the stain would mask imperfections in my sanding, but unlike paint stain accentuates the wood. 

I'm going to get my hands on a detailed sander, if I can, to redo my bad areas. Lesson learned, but hopefully you'll be able to learn from my mistakes in case you take on a project like this for yourself.

And last but not least, our flea bitten alley cats. Remember Tiger and Scruffy? I've been very close to having cat for dinner because tiger digs his claws into my flowers and scruffy sleeps on my carrots and zucchini. They've since stopped (perhaps because I've stricken the fear of god in them). Their one redeeming quality and really the only reason we keep them around is because they eat the birds. Birds in Hawaii are not scared. They aren't afraid of cars and it's very easy to drive over birds. It's one of Sam's favorite past times.  While watering the garden this week I found this lovely site behind the cucumber plant. At least their doing their job. 

In honor of the Olympics we took out our badmintons and swung them extra vim and vigor at one of the courts on base.

It was actually really hard to play because of the wind. We gave up and went to the gym, where we reserved the racquetball court for our next Olympic game (good news, the racquet and ball are free!). 

Well that concludes this rather sorry post from the beach bums. I'll try to do better.

Mahalo!