Venus and the Sun

We had the idea a couple of weeks ago...we would rent a cabin at Hapuna Beach State Park on July 5th to watch the planet Venus move between the earth and the sun. I was amazed to find one cabin left, so I quickly made our reservation and we had our first fun trip of the summer booked!

 This is Hapuna Beach...it's about 90 miles from our house, on the other side of the island.

 The lone boy in the ocean is Kyle...

 Our bella Stella

 Our cabin....look! we found one of the boy's friends from school!! He and his Dad had come to watch the celestial event as well. Later that afternoon we were joined by another friend from school and his family. It was a super fun day at the ocean playing with friends, boogy boarding, and watching Venus slowly inch it's way across the sun. We had special eclipse sun viewing glasses and we shared them with other peeps on the beach. Many had brought telescopes with sun filters. We watched the transit on a UH telescope that broadcast the image on a computer screen.

I was pleased with the cabins. The were clean and simple and had a breathtaking view of the ocean.

Sungazers in the distance...and then I tried to get a picture of Mauna Kea's Observatories in this picture (below), but I can't see them now.

Venus has passed. Yes, it just looked like a black dot, but I found it really surreal to see a whole planet between earth and the sun. The distance and size of it all is hard to fathom, but seeing that black dot helped to put it all into perspective.

Below...my little venus between me and the sun.

Stella, their friend, and Kyle...the last in our party to leave the beach.

Good night sun...

Good morning sun...next day...looking left...

looking center...see those rocks? It's low tide in this picture, but the day before when the tide was higher we snorkeled there and saw some honu (hawaiian green sea turtles). We also saw honu just swimming by us when we were just swimming/walking around in the water.

looking right...there were lots of swimmers that swam from the left point (above) to the right point (below) and then back for a mile swim.

Family Exercise

It's been great for the past couple of weeks we've been able to work in our 1.5-2 mile walk every evening before supper. Well...we did skip last night (pouring rain) and the night before (we had taken an epic family bike ride...see below), but other than that we're back in our walking rhythm.
We've found that going left from our driveway is a nice walk...not a lot of barking dogs or car traffic.

 Stella loves these walks! She doesn't let us forget. It's really great for the kids to run and get out a lot of energy before we have our evening meal and wind down for the day. The boys told me that they were very happy we're walking again.

It's hard to see in this picture, but this is actually a very steep hill...right over an old lava tube.

 The halfway point for the 1.5mile walk is a huge Albizia tree. At the base of the tree is what you see below. Incredible, viney, lushness.

 Some exotic flowers along the way...

 The Albizia tree, a non-native invasive...could the same be said for our family...are we non-native invasives?

 The walk back. If we're up for another 1/2 mile then we walk to the next street and head back. The boys walk on ahead.

Our epic bike journey. We have not been riding our bikes lately and the boys were itching to go on a bike ride. Reeve's goal was to ride his 10 speed on a "real" road, with no gravel, exposed lava, or cinder. They have a friend that lives 5.3 miles from our house and they begged for me to call and see if it was okay for them to ride their bikes to his house. Not wanting them to feel like caged animals we said okay. We made sure they had helmets, water, and their safety vests. They went on ahead and we decided to follow them with Stella in the Burley (her coach ride). We are mauka (up mountain) of their friend's house. It was a lovely 5.3mile ride downhill to get there...lovely...beautiful vistas, bright blue ocean in the distance, wind blowing to cool us off as we glided makai (toward the sea). It took us 30 minutes to get there. We hung out and played at the park, and talked with their friend's mom.

 They were watching a cute little 14yr old dog that was the perfect size for Stella to walk

 and to hold.

After the playground we went back to their house to refill our water bottles and enjoyed eating some frozen blueberries. Then we decided we'd better head home. For me, it was grueling! All up, up, up...no nice gentle down at all. It took 1hr and 5minutes for me to make it back...I lagged behind the whole way home. My legs were like jelly when I got off my bike. I had a nice long shower and I was amazed at how energized I felt. The whole way I was dreading and thinking I would not have the energy to make dinner...not so! I felt great and had tons of energy to make a great meal. Exercise is good for me :)

Turkeys and Weeds

GobbleGobbleGobble...we were shocked to hear the sound of a Tom Turkey in our backyard. We knew there were turkeys on the island, but we've only seen them up in paniolo country up in Kamuela.

We had no idea they were in our neck of the woods. He's pretty well hidden in the bush...can you see him? He was huge!

Must be our week for wondering birds. In addition to the large Tom we had a stray black chicken walking up the driveway to our house. Mrs. Drake (one of our ducks) was staring her down while I tried to coax her to stay by throwing her some organic feed. She was chicken and ran into the woods. Mrs. Drake just stood, stupefied, and then our lovely red cardinal couple swooped down and had a feast.

Remember that ulu'he fern I said the boys and I are going to tackle this summer? Well here is a couple of pictures of it. It's great in some areas because it chokes out all other weeds, but right now it is choking out some food and plants that were previously planted.

It is very easy to weed. It is a short lived fern and fairly brittle. It takes a looooonnnng time to decompose, so we will pile it up and break it down to use for mulch.

Above: Our drake Jemima (named before we knew his sex)...um Jemima you better move before we start a fire :)

Above: The boys helped me find these pineapple plants which were completely buried in ulu'he. Below: Reeve weeded and found this coconut palm.

I do not have a before picture for the after picture below. I went to town with our weed wacker, now decked out with wire whips vs. the plastic ones. The plastic ones broke too easily. I went through 10ft of wire ones the other day...it was well worth it! Before the weeds were right up to the cabin...now there is a nice clearing. This is the cabin we lived in when we arrived last year. We lovingly call it the Aloha Cabin...the one we are living in now we call the Ohana Cabin. The overturned blue 600 gallon water tank in the background was our catchment. We're working on this cabin...needs a catchment and electric.

There are some nice banana trees around the Aloha Cabin.

O'ahu Trip

Tom had a two day project on the island of O'ahu. These are the pics he took on his phone. One of these days we need to make a family trip there.

 Nice park in Honolulu

 This guy was exercising with this heavy log of driftwood...

 Where Tom had dinner...

 He was happy with the prices and the fresh food...

School is Out and Our Daily Duck Egg

Do you see me doing my happy dance? School is OUT! Hooooo-Raye!!! I'm celebrating the freedom, the days where the kids can sleep in, the boys playing and engaging with Stella, the suppers I can make without having to think if they will be good for lunch leftovers at school, the added help we'll have around the yard (hello ulu'he you will be pulled up and put to good use as a mulch), and the adventures we will take!
(Stella and the Egg Photos taken by Reeve)

 We have been gathering one duck egg a day fairly consistently now for the past couple of weeks. In the morning there is usually one egg right at the edge of "duck lake" on our driveway. One egg. That's it. We have three laying hens, and I am wondering where the other two eggs are hidden?!? Or, could it be that they are taking turns and rotating who will be laying the egg each day?

 It is a mystery!

 The eggs are large with large yolks.

Just two pics that Tom took while he was in Honolulu this week. I'll post more later, but they haven't all uploaded. Our connection speed is very, very, very slow. These were both taken from his street-view hotel room. He said the lines at the restaurants were so long!

Wrapping up at School, Hula Show, & Night Volcano

Last night we went to Reeve and Kyle's "Closed" House in their classrooms. It was a potluck and most of the families were there. The students produced their yearbooks and they were distributed. Each class had an Awards Ceremony. Kyle's Award was titled: "Oh My Gauss, that was Rayediant." Kyle's teacher explained how he and Reeve's teacher were very impressed when Kyle re-worked mathematician Carl F. Gauss's (1828) Equation and Kyle simplified it for the class. Kyle's teacher said that Kyle likes to rework all the math equations, he was a budding entrepreneur (Reeve & Kyle's Juggling stick business is called Rayediant Fun) and that he was a fun guy to have around. Below Kyle is working on his last school project (a presentation on juggling sticks) and Reeve is studying for his final exams on our way to a Hula show at Volcanoes National Park. 

Reeve's award was titled: "Unbridled Pencil and Cognition Sharpener" I think the first part was an inside joke. Reeve was in the most "Top 5" categories for best scores in all his subjects. We also watched video interviews of each of the students. It was a great way for the kids to wrap up the school year. Today they wind down by cleaning up, putting the finishing touches on a video yearbook, and time to autograph yearbooks. Tomorrow is a Fun Day at the Main Campus for their last day of school. Then they have 9 wonderful weeks off before it all starts again (all too soon imho!) on July 30th!!!

 It was a fairly clear night when the Volcanoes National Park had a free Hula Show, so we had our dinner and traveled the 24 miles up to the Kilauea Visitors Center.

 It was an interesting show.

 Reeve took some videos...

Then we went over to the Jagger Museum to look at the awesome glow of the Halema'uma'u Crater. It is completely amazing that we live so close to the world's most active volcano! How often do you find yourself saying, "Oh it looks like it's going to be a clear night tonight, let's go up and see the Volcano!!".   

 Reeve took the above and below picture of the glowing lava lake.

 The following pictures were taken by me. I had put the camera on the rock wall to stabilize it. 

 The little white dots in the pic above are stars. It was a crystal clear night and about 57F at the Crater, which was 10 degrees cooler than our place 24 miles and 3200ft below the crater.