Monday, January 30, 2012

Hawai'i, the Big Island

We said good bye to Maui and boarded our 9 passenger plane.  Have you ever been on a commercial flight with 9 passengers and the pilot?  The girl at the front desk, check us in, took our bags, weighed us with our personal item, then she and the pilot loaded the luggage and she walked us out to the plane and assigned up our seats according to weight and then she closed the airplane door. On a side note it is rather depressing to get weighed on a scale at the airport...in front or your family, PREGNANT, with clothes and shoes on...and holding your large personal item/purse...after you've eaten breakfast.  That was not a fun number and I'm not looking forward to getting "fluffier".
Flying over Maui

The main crop is still sugar cane

The 45 minute flight to the Big Island was great.  We flew over Maui, saw the Molokini Crater, saw the other islands around Maui...Lanai and some other name, saw whales off the shore of the Big Island, and flew over the lava fields. It was great and I didn't even get motion sick.  Speaking of motion sickness that is one of two down sides that I have found with being prego and travelling.  I am much more prone to motion sickness.  I vomited at the top of the Haleakala crater-I got out of the van and started to feel better but then walked passed the foul smelling outhouses and that put me over the edge-literally and figuratively. I also felt queezzy on our flight from SLC to Phoenix.  The other downer of vacationing is NO hot tubing and I love sitting in the hot tub.

Molokini Crater-has great snorkeling and scuba diving with one of the smaller islands in the background.





We made it! Only a couple minutes of bumps and turbulence but a much noisier flight than a jet.

We read, napped, walked on the beach and....ATE, after landing in Kona.  Bart found us an "all you can eat crab and prime rib" buffet.  Can you guess how many crab legs Bart ate? Just Bart? 20, twenty, two zero.  Yep that's my boy-I told him he can gain all the sympathy weight he wants to with this pregnancy.
Bart's crab

Aloha and mahalo to all those that left such nice comments about our "announcement"/Bart's goal making :)

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Art of Goal Making

As I'm sitting here on this geologic equivalent of a ticking time bomb - and enjoying the false sense of "I've made it in life" - I would be remiss if I did not do a blog post. The topic I have been assigned to blog on today is goals. The blogopric asked that I keep my thoughts short and to the point, and since the youth blogger has already taken care of our blogging needs in the last couple of days, I feel inclined to shorten this even more.

Goals are something many of us make each year, and even more of us fail to fulfill each year. However, this new year, I learned a very valuable lesson from my wife. It is a new method of accomplishing goals. I have coined the term "canecessarily accomplishing your goals".

A couple of weeks ago, i was out of town for work. In the evening, as is our custom, I called to chat. Our conversation went well...... Well, that was until I learned of one of her new goals. Her goal was for me to update our finances. In case you could not tell, this necessarily requires me to do something in order for her to accomplish her goal. I must admit, the hardest part of the goal was convincing me to do it, so I must give her some credit.

Anyway, she thinks she had the upper hand by cleaverly manipulating me into accomplishing her goals (this was just one example), but in truth I am the one to have pioneered this method in our relationship several months prior.

It may not be common knowledge, but I have had a longstanding goal of procuring offspring and an heir/heiress. Little does she know, but my wife is "canecessarily accomplishing MY goal" this year.

So I Guess this ought to be considered our official announcement to those that may not know...... We are expecting our first baby around the end of June/beginning of July. We will find out if we are having a girl/ boy on February 15th. We are very excited.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Middle of the Mid-Pacific.....

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Haleakala National Park

We heard from numerous people that while on Maui we should go see the sunrise over the Haleakala crater and then bike down the mountain-so that's exactly what we did. We got picked up from our hotel at 2:50 AM from Bike It Maui and shuttled to the 10,000 foot elevation of the crater which is 7 miles across and 22 miles around.  The stars were beautiful when we first arrived and we left with a lovely sunrise.





If you are wondering why I am wearing a beanie, 2 coats, 2 pears of pants and gloves it's because it was COLD. 30 degrees with a wind chill.

After the sunrise we shuttled out of the national park and started our bike trip.  Big sturdy bikes, comfy seats, full helmets, and a 7000 foot decent over 28 miles. Lots of fun.  I loved the wind in my face and the different smells-we went through a eucalyptus grove and then a street with lots of plumeria flowers.




This last photo is of a pineapple plantation that we stopped at. It was a fun day but I was pooped by 2:00PM.  I'm lounging around the hotel tomorrow for sure :)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Maui

We are staying in Kaanapali, in Maui. The resort is lovely, the beaches are nice but the water is too cold for my liking. I got in anyway and I'm glad I did because Bart and I ran into 2 sea turtles munching on moss. It was fun to float over them and see the other marine life.


Other than snorkeling, we have sat, read, ate, napped, swam, did some site seeing and watched whales out in front of our hotel.  We are waking up at 2AM today so we can drive over to the volcano, watch the sun rise and then ride a bike back down the volcano. I'll let you know how it goes but I plan on napping on a beach chair tomorrow afternoon.

Monday, January 23, 2012

O'ahu

Since Bart has never been to Pearl Harbor, I thought it was worthwhile to spend a little extra time and money to go over and see the USS Arizona Memorial.

Bart likes to read and watch movies about World War II and he truly appreciates the men and women who fought that war and those who are in the Armed Forces today. Bart's Leeflang grandparents were in the thick of the war over in Holland and Germany and my both my grandfathers were involved in WWII-one on a boat in Korea and the other doing engineering.

The movie that the Memorial plays is touching and shows actual footage of the attack on Pearl Harbor.


We also decided to go tour the USS Missouri-were the peace treaty with Japan was signed. It was fabulous. I've never been on a battleship and I loved it.  I would highly recommend that you spend the extra $22 and 2-3 hours over at the USS Missouri.




It was a quick 24 hours but I'm glad we went.  Next up Maui.
Aloha

Oops, kinda forgot to blog

Merry Christmas everyone...and hope you had a happy New Year. Oh yea, and belated happy birthday to me.

Since I got so far behind with blogging this last month, I decided I would just pick up with what's happening now.

Hooray for Hawaii.