New Addition

I know most of you already know that we have a new addition to our family and have been anxiously awaiting pictures. I'm finally getting around to posting our new child.

Meet Maggie.

So the story goes like this:

I've been trying to convince Del into getting a puppy for a couple of months now. My desire actually escalated when a friend of ours got a new Golden Retriever puppy, Champ. Since we were already scheduled to drive home for Christmas, Del convinced me that we couldn't do anything about a dog until after Christmas. Little did I know that there was a puppy waiting for me back in Norwalk. It seems that on the weekend that Maggie #1 moved away Del emailed his dad asking him to look for a golden for me. Two days later, Maggie #2 came into our family. This, of course, was about three weeks before Christmas, though, so Del's sister, Laurie and her husband, Bruce, became Maggie's foster parents (in the meantime, they became the actual parents of Lily - read the story here). Thanks, again, guys for taking care of Maggie for us!! We so appreciate it. Christmas day brought a big surprise for me...

So our drive home was pretty good, other than one little accident in the hotel room. I rode with Maggie in the back seat all the way home and she did so good. Here is a picture of Maggie sleeping on her little pillow in the car.

Since we've been home, we've had less than a handful of accidents in the house and they are only after an extreme puppy play session (Maggie can be quite the spaz at times). We crate her during the night and during the day while we are at work. Del comes homes at lunchtime to let her out and feed her.

Yesterday, we had our first session for puppy training at PetSmart. Our little girl was the most vocal in the class of six. Del thinks we might have a problem student on our hands. :o)

Chalupa still is not so sure about her new sibling. She mostly keeps her distance and keeps her eye on Maggie at all times.

She has at times allowed Maggie to get close enough to smell her and lick her ears a couple times, but that's about it. They are not exactly best friends just yet. But at least Chalupa is no longer hissing at her.

Maggie is a lot of work and is wearing us out at times, which I guess is normal for any new parent, but she is so very sweet (most of the time)!

And Aunt Laurie - you will be happy to know that her favortie toy is still the loofah you gave her (or she stole, anyway!).

Sad, Sad Weekend

We're very sad this weekend. We knew it was coming - the sign has been up for several weeks now, but the time has come....

Our neighbor dog, Maggie, is leaving us. They sold their house and are moving away. The moving truck was here last night. We will no longer have her greeting us as we pull into our driveway. Del talked to our neighbors last night and told them that we would be willing to take her off their hands, if they wanted to give her up. They didn't concede, so our friendly, cute, sweet greeter is really leaving us. A very sad, sad weekend indeed...

Can it really be over already?

Day 8
Our last full day in Hawaii was pretty uneventful. We spend some time just walking around the resort.

The beautiful coast line…

The dolphins…

We then took a drive and were blessed with this incredible rainbow…


…followed by a beautiful sunset…



We finished the day with the most unbelievable Thanksgiving Day buffet.

Day 9
We slept in on our last day, dreading the inevitable task of packing to go home. After that was finally done, we checked out and then had a leisurely breakfast before heading to the airport.

The flight home, which started at 1:00 p.m. Hawaii time, was a very long flight with a stop in San Fransisco again. It doesn’t help when both legs of the flight are booked solid and you’re stuck in your seat for 5 hours each leg, not forgetting that we are both still pretty sick. I’m sure the people around us were loving that they were stuck in these cramped quarters with two sick people.

We arrived back in Charlotte around 6:00 a.m. on Saturday. Since Del couldn’t go another day without having Brueggers for breakfast, we stopped on the way home before crashing for 7 hours.

Now with laundry almost done and bills all paid, we are gearing ourselves up for having to get back to the scheduled, routine work day tomorrow. But before then, we can say we had another successful vacation.

Until next time…

More Volcano Park...

Day 7
My cough has gotten worse, but Del seems to be on the rebound. I do have a voice, but it is very scratchy. We got a later start than we wanted to, but headed out to the Volcano Park once again just the same.

After our normal stop for breakfast in Waimea (we’ve become regulars at the McDonald’s there), we moved on. We got to the park around 11:30 and started our hike on the Kiluaea Iki trail (which is a hike across this crater).

Moving on to the Volcano House (on foot, of course) we had a quick bite to eat and then headed across the big crater on the Halema’uma’u Trail.

This next picture is a huge crater that is along this walk, but you can’t go in for fear of it erupting.

How awesome is that??

Because we were afraid of running out of daylight, we decided to take the Crater Rim Road back to the car instead of the trail. This probably saved us a couple miles. Since most of you have not been here, this may seem like a leisurely walk. Although the terrain wasn’t too difficult to navigate, this walk was anything but leisurely. When we got back to the car, Del calculated that we did close to 15 miles today. My feet were screaming at me right by the end of the day – but, surprisingly enough, no blisters!! (Jen – I’ll bring the maps of the park to show you what we did and so you can plan your day there!)

On our way back to the hotel we stopped in Waimea (again!) and had Chinese for dinner.

We both were extremely glad to be back in the hotel room to take our shoes off and shower the grub off from our 15 mile hike.

Today – lounging by the pool (at least that is my plan!!)

More Hiking and a movie

Day 6
Although neither of us were feeling very well, we were not going to sit around in the hotel room another day while we were in Hawaii. We headed back out to Polulu Valley to hike.

We were afraid we might not be able to hike since it seems to have rained in the morning. The trail down to the beach is extremely slippery when wet. Although it looked a little slick, we decided to take our chances.

This was a shot from half way down the path to your left …

And this is a shot to your right…

After about 15 minutes you are on the black sand beach with these views…

So awesome!!

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a state park and got these pictures…


How can someone not fall in love with this place??

Because this trip was due in part due to a potential time share purchase, we were obligated to sit through another 90 minute presentation, which really only lasted 60 minutes after they realized we weren’t buying.

After a quick bite at the golf course grill, we headed to Kialua-Kona to see the Bee Movie. It was a little disappointing, but cute to watch. I’m not sure, had I known, I would have paid to see it – I would have waited for the DVD.

More golfing...

Day 5
Well, it is officially – Del and I are both sick in Hawaii – it seems to have hit me more than Del. Since be both woke up sick again, we decided it would not be a good idea to hike the Volcano Park again as originally planned. So instead, we ate a leisurely breakfast, lounged around in a hammock on the resort grounds…


and then decided to go ahead and play another 18 holes of golf. We played the King’s Course today. They are doing a lot of construction around the first few holes, so it wasn’t very peaceful. This course was definitely not as nice or pretty as the course we played on Friday, but it still had its beauty.


We even had some spectators on the sixth hole…where else would you play golf with goats next to your hole?



After golf we came back to the room to clean up and head to dinner. Nothing special tonight – just ate at one of the hotel restaurants and planned to call it a night. As the day has gone on, I have managed to go from a low sultry voice to losing it completely.

We are planning the hike at Polulu Valley tomorrow, so I’m really hoping I feel a little better. I bought some Niquil at the hotel store (for a mere $12.99 for a small bottle) to knock me out to get a good night’s sleep. Sure hope it works.

Anniversary #6

Day 4
Happy sixth year anniversary to us! This morning we were a little nostalgic, so we went to the hotel we stayed at the year we got married and had breakfast there. After that we went to the cove by the bay where our ceremony was and although the sprinklers were on, Del insisted we could dodge them to get a smooch in our cove. It was like a scene from a movie – we didn’t dodge them very well and ended up getting quite wet. It was pretty funny.

We both woke up with a sore throat this morning so we decided to start knocking back the Airborne and Vitamin C tablets and take it easy today. It was also extremely windy so instead of golfing, we decided to drive to a couple of our favorite spots here on the Big Island. The first stop was Upolu Airport. This was down a long single lane road bordered by a field of large windmills.


The next stop was Polulu Valley.

This has to be one of the prettiest spots, if not THE prettiest spots on the Island. There is a trail you can hike here, which was closed last year when we were here due to earthquake damage. We were pleased to see they opened the trail back up, so we plan to come back to this spot later in the week to hike it.

We then ate lunch in Waimea before heading to Waipio Valley – the next prettiest spot on the Big Island. You can also hike down in this valley, but since we did that last year, we’ve decided we weren’t going to do it again this year.




(A self portrait shot at Waipio.)



After our day driving, we came back to the room to clean up for our anniversary dinner at the most romantic restaurant anywhere! It is called Pahu i'a. It is the place we ate our wedding dinner with Tina and Kim and returned last year on our anniversary. It has now turned into somewhat of a tradition for us. Whenever we are in Hawaii on our anniversary, we will be going to this restaurant. It is an open air restaurant right on the ocean at the Four Seasons hotel down the street. It is pretty expensive, but so worth it.

It is hard to believe that six years ago we said our vows in this beautiful place. I am so thankful we are able to come back here as much as we can.

Happy Anniversary, Honey. I'd marry you all over again in a heartbeat!

Hiking

Day 3 (Nov 17)

The intent was to get up early to make it to the National Volcano Park early - we got up around 7:00, which is early, but not as early as we wanted. We stopped in Waimea again for breakfast and then drove the rest of the 2-1/2 hours to the park. We got to the visitors center to get our map and then headed to "the hole."

The Ka'aha hike starts at the Hilina Pali Overlook. The above picture is taken at the very top/beginning of the hike. I highly recommend going to the overlook - it is amazing - and again, the picture does not do it justice. However, I strongly do NOT recommend the hike (although Del strongly disagrees with me!) This has to be the hardest hike I've ever done in my entire life. Del says it is in his top two hikes, ever.

It starts out with a 2.2 mile steep descent - quite a few switchbacks. Here is a picture about 1/2 way down the descent.

And here is a picture at the bottom of the descent looking up.

Then you start a 1.4 mile hike over rough, but fairly easy-to-negotiate terrain. The only thing marking the trails are these piles of rocks (I think they are called karns??) along the way. These are some of the shots we got from this point.

Then the work begins - another 1.4 miles over the same type of terrain, but on a slight continuous incline. Once you finish that 1.4 miles, you are half way done. Another 1.2 miles gets you back to the bottom of the steep descent you came down and now you have to ascend the 2.2 miles you originally came down. The footing is very treacherous in spots because it is all broken lava. The total trip took us a little over 5 hours to complete. I'm sure Del could have completed it quicker had I not slowed him down. We definitely did not have enough water with us, so I think I became extremely dehydrated and was close to getting sick on the way back up. But we both made it and can say that we hiked "the hole."

Golfing

Day 2
We started our day around 8:00 a.m. with a drive to Waimea for breakfast and then took the scenic route back to the hotel through Hawi. Del claims this to be his favorite drive in the whole world. That is where the picture I posted with yesterday's update was taken.

We then spent the afternoon golfing the Ocean's course in Waikoloa Villlage. This picture is a Par 3. Del would only let me take a picture of his practice shot, not his real shot. Yes, the hole is over that water in front of him.

This shot is the same hole, just from the other side.




On the back nine, there is this incredible hole that overlooks the ocean (ergo...ocean course!!). It was so beautiful - this picture really does not do it justice.

Along side that same whole was this...

I didn't do so well, but Del shot a 40 on the back nine, so he was pretty happy. I did have an awesome drive (220 yards!) during the day on the back nine, so the rest of the day really didn't matter :o).

Later that night, we dined at a Japanese restaraunt called Imari and then retired early - still not used to the time change.

Aloha!!

Almost four whole months since my last post. Wow - I can't say that not much has happened since then - just lazy! I will fill in the blanks a little later. But for now....we are back in Hawaii!!!!! (Can you tell we love this place?!?)







Day 1 (November 15)

I always forget how long the flight is to here - I guess because it is so worth coming here, that part never seems to matter much once you're here. Although I can say the expereince connecting in San Francisco was NO fun!!! Really do not like that airport!! - (Jennifer - beware for when you come in February!)


We arrived in Kona around 4:00 p.m. Hawaiian time and went straight to the hotel (Hilton Waikoloa) to change clothes. Walked to the new Queens Market place only to find most things were not open yet (Tina - this was right next to the hotel we stayed at. Jen - This is next to the hotel you will be staying at). We walked back to the King's Shops and had dinner at Big Island Steak House. Two Mai Tai's later (for Del, anyway - I stuck to the Diet Coke) and we were back in the room ready to crash at 2:00 a.m. NC time.

More updates later!!