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!

La'ie Falls Hike, gardening, cat(s), Mt. Tantalus

Aloha!

I've been lazy in my blog writing and I apologize. Hopefully you'll find this blog sufficiently interesting to make up for it.

Everyone in Sam's CE squadron were required to hike up La'ie falls trail today for a fitness challenge. It took us 3 hours round trip. It was a good hike, very pretty, but the falls weren't that great. The water was muddy and the falls weren't that big. It also didn't help that when we got there all the guys stopped for a smoke, clouding our fresh air. It's another 2 hour hike to the summit. We almost did it except that Sam had to be back to work by 1 pm, so we had to turn around. A little bummed we didn't. 

 These got mixed up a bit. This is us at the falls. I looks so gross....

Local Hospitality 

Atop one of the mountain ridges. It sheers off on both sides. 

Nope, don't know these people, just looking back on the trail. 

I think this is the only guy who swam in the falls. Like I said, kind of muddy water. 

This was a cool part of the hike. We were enclosed by these trees that looked like mini madrones. It got really muddy through these parts. 

The damage- and this was only at the half way mark!

On our way back we stopped for some grub (literally) at the "Shrimp Shack". I ordered spicy garlic shrimp and Sam got the coconut shrimp. Both were really good. Mine was a bit messy because I had to suck and peel my shrimp free. Worth a stop for anyone in the area.

Oh, and we saw this store on the way...

When I got back I decided that since I was already muddy and gross from the hike to finish up planting in the front yard. I've developed a love for growing things. We have a vegetable garden outback, including cucumber, tomato, a pineapple plant, bell peppers, and beans. It's growing really well. It's amazing what you can do with a little sunshine and water. 

I've just about completed the front yard.

Ta-Da! So let me tell you what I did. If you'll remember, Sam repositioned the cement stones into their current configuration. We then filled up the space with left over grass clippings as filler and top soil. I wanted our yard to maintain that tropical feel, so I planted golden duranta (which I love- can't you tell?), which usually grows into a bush, but I'm going to try and keep as low as possible (ie, ground cover). I don't remember the name of the bright red plant- I've been googling it and I can't find the name. Anyone know what it's called? Next to it are Hawaiian green ti plants. The palm trees were already there when we moved in.

It took me some time to figure out what to do for the next patch. I didn't want to recreate the same plant work in the other section, but I wanted to tie in similar elements. I did that by including the golden duranta again. Next to the golden duranta are two celosia plants. They can grow to a good size, about 2x2 feet. In front of the bright blue pot are two dwarf/Mexican false heather plants. They got a little thirsty being out in the sun, so you can't see their bright purple flowers, but they are there and they look great. Hickam has a no "no planting" policy that a lot of people ignore and they let you get away with for the most part. They still don't let you plant trees, so I'm not sure about what to do with the two palm fronds. I might risk planting them or find pots for them. Overall, I'm proud of myself! I can't say I have a green thumb, because I only just planted them- heck, they may all be dead in a week (knock on wood).

And the tail-end bits of the blog.
I finished reupholstering the outdoor lawn chairs. The fabric doesn't quite match like I thought it might in the store, but eh, anyone who sees them will know we've been to Hawaii! Our owner Scruffy (he adopted us, not us him) made it his new hide out. I don't mind so long as he doesn't pee on them. I smell pee it's dead kitty for dinner. 

Don't look so innocent cat. 

Scruffy has also attracted a friend we've affectionately named crack head- okay, that's not his real name. His actual name is "the cowardly tiger" because he has stripes. We called him crack head because he has big, wide eyes, and he's very skittish and has jerky movements. Basically he acted like a cat on crack. We've now decided that he's just very timid, hence the cowardly tiger.

My photography skills leave much to be desired.

Anything else...Oh! Sam biked up Mt Tantalus last week. I would love, love, LOVE to live on Tantalus, heck with the commute. The city is tiresome, and the wind and the views are amazing. It's not a far out dream because people do live on the mountain. It's quite an amazing sight to see these homes resting on the ridge of the mountain, taking a beating from the wind. There are several hikes around Tantalus and I'm excited to do them all.

Living the Pono life,
The Groovers