It's been over a month since we've been in the water due to chilly temperatures, work, and hiking. We were ready to surf, and looked forward to it all week. Friday, we at least ended our drought with some terrific boogie boarding waves at Brennecke's (we don't get a lot of great days during the winter months).
Friday night, we tuned in for our nightly Olympics hoorah, catching some Jimmy Fallon at the end. Did you see the thank-you note jokes? Hilarious. "Thank-you, Apolo Ohno for being to frozen water what Michael Phelps is to regular water. Oh no he didn't. More like Ohno he did!" You know comedians have been dying to use the Ohno pun.
Afterwards, we saw the news on Chile's 8.8 earthquake, and heard that the ramifications could include a tsunami. We were interested, but not particularly concerned.
5:15am: Our home phone rings, and we get an "urgent message" telling us a tsunami is imminent and we need to prepare.
6:00am: Calls from family and friends start rolling in by the dozens. (Thanks for everyone's concern!). The first sirens ring, and continue to do so every hour.
7:30am: Still answering calls, and looking at each other like, "Now what?" We decide to go running.
9:00am: Back from our runs, we are both a little freaked out. Roads are closing, resorts are closed off, and the streets are empty. It seems that everyone in our neighborhood is packing up for a major disaster--generators, deep freezers, tons of water coolers, etc. are filling up the backs of trucks and our street is nearly deserted. (We are considered the flood zone, since we're only 100 yards from the water.)
9:15am: We start moving our important things to higher surfaces, filling up water bins, and packing up our computers. We move wedding albums, unplug our appliances, and pack up several days of clothing. The TV is still blaring with messages from President Obama, our govenor, and newscasters reminding us that "this is no false alarm." It's feeling kind of surreal.
10:30am: We pull out of our driveway, watching as a helicopter flies over our house blaring, "MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND." We drive to Lihue, observing all the tourists pulled over on the side of the highway, not knowing where to go besides "higher ground."
11:00am: We get to Nic and Heidi's, and stayed glued to the TV for ages, waiting for the tsunami to hit Hilo at 11:05am. We wait, and wait, and wait. The tide starts to rapidly change, and all of us got really excited and anxious. Then the water just filled back in slowly.
11:30am: We get tired of waiting, record the station that's showing Hilo, and watch BYU get beat by New Mexico.
2:00pm: The tsunami threat is over and beaches reopen.
So goes our first experience with a tsunami. The wave in Hilo was 3 feet, and same for the wave in Oahu. We were "hit" with a smaller wave.
5:00pm: We boogie boarded in 6 foot waves.
The whole event was so anti-climatic, but an interesting exercise in emergency preparation. What struck me the most was the feeling we should be doing something that morning, but not really knowing what we should do. It was strange to look around our house in terms of, "If we have several inches of water, what will get damaged that we want to preserve?" and "Geesh, there's nothing we can do about our garage storage at this point." I'm glad nothing disasterous happened, especially considering the horrible circumstances in Chile.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Remember When...
...I went with Zac to Ohio for Christmas? This is way overdue, but here were some of the Ohio highlights. The pictures were sent over email (I was the worst at camera work while we were there), and then minimized, so they are pretty small!
Meeting Mr. Leo for the first time! Zac and I both caught a cold/flu, so we couldn't hold him and squeeze his cheeks, but we were able to eat lunch and say hello.
14 years and counting! Love you, Jillian!
Meeting Mr. Leo for the first time! Zac and I both caught a cold/flu, so we couldn't hold him and squeeze his cheeks, but we were able to eat lunch and say hello.
14 years and counting! Love you, Jillian! Zac kept saying "bee bee" to Leo.
I also met Christina's little Graham. What a handsome fellow! Again, no pics!!
Zachary also drove my siblings crazy, at first. He eventually won them (partially) over, but more than once I heard, "I don't really like Zachary." HAHA! The honesty of children. You just can't take that stuff seriously!
I can't imagine why they didn't appreciate him...getting crawled on all week...
Mom cooked us all sorts of goodies.
I can't believe this girl used to be my 4 year old darling.
I can't imagine why they didn't appreciate him...getting crawled on all week...Mom cooked us all sorts of goodies. I can't believe this girl used to be my 4 year old darling.Eric getting gussied up for the New Year's Dance. 
Beautiful Mindy Sue.
We played plenty of Around-the-World ping pong.
Kristen made Zac whole wheat pancakes, and he literally ate 6 in a row, even after cereal. Wow.
My mom thought it was hilarious that Zachary wanted to lay down on the weights.
We also experienced snow the first day we were there. Zachary HATED his coat (which I think is just about worth moving to the cold over, it's that cute). He threw a full-out tantrum the first four times he had to put it on.
He clearly doesn't know what he thinks about sledding. Notice his gigantic socks--Mom saved me by loaning them out, as Zac refused to wear boots (and mittens and a hat...I know, I'm a pushover!).
Another view of the socks, and Kristen, who Zac just loves. Talk about a girl who just immerses herself in family: she doesn't love sledding, but came along to be with the fam, and ended up freezing her tail off and not complaining for a minute.
I almost ran over a kid on the way down.
After a couple of runs, Zachary had enough, and sat in the car. Just like at the park, he kept kissing me through the window. 
We also went bowling. I bowled a 61. I would like to say that's because I had Zac helping, but truthfully, I probably threw more gutter balls than he did. 
Thankfully, 7 weeks later, the memories of the horrid flight home are getting fuzzy. I still claim that I will not go that far again without Brady, but I've said that before. We'll see. See you in ___ year(s), Ohio.
Beautiful Mindy Sue.We played plenty of Around-the-World ping pong.
Kristen made Zac whole wheat pancakes, and he literally ate 6 in a row, even after cereal. Wow.
My mom thought it was hilarious that Zachary wanted to lay down on the weights.
We also experienced snow the first day we were there. Zachary HATED his coat (which I think is just about worth moving to the cold over, it's that cute). He threw a full-out tantrum the first four times he had to put it on. 
He clearly doesn't know what he thinks about sledding. Notice his gigantic socks--Mom saved me by loaning them out, as Zac refused to wear boots (and mittens and a hat...I know, I'm a pushover!).Another view of the socks, and Kristen, who Zac just loves. Talk about a girl who just immerses herself in family: she doesn't love sledding, but came along to be with the fam, and ended up freezing her tail off and not complaining for a minute.
I almost ran over a kid on the way down.
After a couple of runs, Zachary had enough, and sat in the car. Just like at the park, he kept kissing me through the window. 
We also went bowling. I bowled a 61. I would like to say that's because I had Zac helping, but truthfully, I probably threw more gutter balls than he did. 
Thankfully, 7 weeks later, the memories of the horrid flight home are getting fuzzy. I still claim that I will not go that far again without Brady, but I've said that before. We'll see. See you in ___ year(s), Ohio.Sunday, February 07, 2010
"Hiking" Maha'ulepu Trail to Ha'ula Beach
Kristen, Natalie, and the Nufer family know this as my #1 favorite run of all time. While they probably don't share the same opinion, I think the cliffs, continuous ocean views, and contrasting colors of green and blue make this a top Kauai destination. While I was in Ohio, Brady took his bike on the dirt road that leads to Keoneloa Bay (this can be reached via car or hiking trail), parked his bike, and then "discovered" a new beach: Ha'ula beach. We were anxious to explore it together, so yesterday morning, we hit the trail.
Possibly the best thing about this hike: the start is minutes from our house. No drive time!
I put "hiking" in quotations for a few reasons. I have some qualms with this trail. In my opinion, a hiking trail leads you somewhere you cannot reach by another means, or it is at least difficult to reach by other means. You explore and see things other people are unable to see. The serenity and calm of a rarely-hiked trail is one of my favorite experiences. Because you can drive to the Bay, there are not masses of people, but there are quite a few without the sweat, dirt, and effort that should be required to get there. My other qualm is that this hike is a little too easy, although when I had my 32 lb son on my back for all of 20 minutes of our hiking, I thought I was going to die. I'm seriously so sore today. Those two factors make it a better trail run than a hike.
However, hike a mile past the cars, and this is the reward: an exclusive beach.
I may or may not have edited my sweat stains out of these pictures.
Zachary immediately found a walking stick and hiked around while eating his goldfish...
...until he found a rock, and then he didn't care much about his fishies.
Goodbye, gorgeous beach. We'll see you again when we convince a visitor to check you out.
Love the blue, blue water. 
The rest of our afternoon consisted of cleaning and yardwork. Funny story about that:
In our contract, we are responsible for mowing and trimming the lawn. Someone is paid monthly by the landlord to maintain the exterior bushes that surround our house. We were surprised to learn that the landlord expected us to also maintain the trees and all the weeding in an exceptionally overgrown area of the backyard. No matter--we weren't going to complain. We are getting this house for $1000/month cheaper than the last tenants, and we want to stay. We've done our best to fix many problems in the house without doing more than letting him know it was done.
We set aside time to take care of the overgrown area yesterday. For three solid hours, Brady worked and worked, and frankly, it looks fantastic. (He saw the biggest centipede of his life, too!) In one part of our yard, there was a sage bush that was taking over--way up to the windows and it went about 6 feet in width. Brady trimmed it down to about 1/10th of it's original size.
Our next door neighbor came over on Friday of this past week to let us know he'd be having a huge 60th birthday party in his backyard last night. He wasn't kidding. There were so many people there, and a live band, caterers, the works. During the chaos next door, Brady took out the trash. He RAN back into the house, and said, "Karen, you have got to come out here!" I was sure it was something funny by his expression.
I walked outside and WHAM! It absolutely REEKED of sage. You wouldn't believe it. It was like being deep in the woods, with 10 fragrant sage candles also burning. Oh man! The party next door had to have smelled it all night long! We felt so bad, but it was also hilarious. We're taking them some treats for his birthday to try and smooth things over and apologize.
Possibly the best thing about this hike: the start is minutes from our house. No drive time!
I put "hiking" in quotations for a few reasons. I have some qualms with this trail. In my opinion, a hiking trail leads you somewhere you cannot reach by another means, or it is at least difficult to reach by other means. You explore and see things other people are unable to see. The serenity and calm of a rarely-hiked trail is one of my favorite experiences. Because you can drive to the Bay, there are not masses of people, but there are quite a few without the sweat, dirt, and effort that should be required to get there. My other qualm is that this hike is a little too easy, although when I had my 32 lb son on my back for all of 20 minutes of our hiking, I thought I was going to die. I'm seriously so sore today. Those two factors make it a better trail run than a hike.
However, hike a mile past the cars, and this is the reward: an exclusive beach.
I may or may not have edited my sweat stains out of these pictures.
Zachary immediately found a walking stick and hiked around while eating his goldfish...
...until he found a rock, and then he didn't care much about his fishies.
Goodbye, gorgeous beach. We'll see you again when we convince a visitor to check you out.
Love the blue, blue water. 
The rest of our afternoon consisted of cleaning and yardwork. Funny story about that:Our landlord wrote us the other day, asking to come over this Thursday. He lives in CA, and is visiting for the week. He wants to get his golf clubs (in our garage), and check out the bathrooms with a contractor.
In our contract, we are responsible for mowing and trimming the lawn. Someone is paid monthly by the landlord to maintain the exterior bushes that surround our house. We were surprised to learn that the landlord expected us to also maintain the trees and all the weeding in an exceptionally overgrown area of the backyard. No matter--we weren't going to complain. We are getting this house for $1000/month cheaper than the last tenants, and we want to stay. We've done our best to fix many problems in the house without doing more than letting him know it was done.
We set aside time to take care of the overgrown area yesterday. For three solid hours, Brady worked and worked, and frankly, it looks fantastic. (He saw the biggest centipede of his life, too!) In one part of our yard, there was a sage bush that was taking over--way up to the windows and it went about 6 feet in width. Brady trimmed it down to about 1/10th of it's original size.
Our next door neighbor came over on Friday of this past week to let us know he'd be having a huge 60th birthday party in his backyard last night. He wasn't kidding. There were so many people there, and a live band, caterers, the works. During the chaos next door, Brady took out the trash. He RAN back into the house, and said, "Karen, you have got to come out here!" I was sure it was something funny by his expression.
I walked outside and WHAM! It absolutely REEKED of sage. You wouldn't believe it. It was like being deep in the woods, with 10 fragrant sage candles also burning. Oh man! The party next door had to have smelled it all night long! We felt so bad, but it was also hilarious. We're taking them some treats for his birthday to try and smooth things over and apologize.
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