Kauai Christmas — Mele Kalikimaka

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airline, ballroom, brother-in-law, brunch, camera, christians, christmas, christmas eve, churches, climates, customs, declaration, decorations, dslr, equipment, fish, gallery, grand hyatt, grandiosity, hawaii, host, hotel, island, jesus, kauai, lord, mega church, minivan, photoblog, photography, photos, pog, praising, sister, snorkel, snorkelling, surfing, tourists, turkey, video, videos, waterproof, website, wife, wood carving, woodworking, write

I asked my wife to start filling in the customs declaration as we flew to Hawaii. I was tired and needed some snoozing time. She woke me to ask a question, or something, and I read through the form to see what she had done. When I saw she had indicated this was her fourth time to Hawaii, I was amazed. Then she reminded me that she had worked for a charter airline and they had sent her to Hawaii at least a couple of times. Well, this was going to be familiar to her, but, not for the rest of the family. It would be be new to everyone in our family to have Christmas away from home.

We landed and were met by our hosts, my sister and brother-in-law in a minivan. They have already been here three weeks and come every year. That means they have plenty of extras, like snorkel equipment, and really know the island of Kauai.

Christmas in Hawaii seems, well, quite unusual. There are some Christmas decorations that are similar to what we see at home. They do seem out of place indeed. I suppose they do it for the tourists, however, the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus, is alive and well in Kauai, due to the large numbers of Christians. There are many churches. On Christmas Eve, our first night, we went to the Grand Hyatt for a Christmas Eve service that rivaled any modern almost mega church service, certainly matching the name of the Grand Hyatt. The massive ballroom of the hotel was full and the service was not particularly geared for the tourist, but, for those who regard praising the Lord part of their life. Fine for some of us in our group, others, they just had to come along.

After the service, we looked around and saw some wood carvings in a shop that were so unbelievable they left my son and I puzzling on how they might have been done. My son likes woodworking. With such mild weather in Kauai, many halls and rooms simply do not have walls, making for an unusual experience walking through the building for those of us from other climates.

The Grand Hyatt is truly a sight and the grandiosity was exhibited with flair at the Christmas brunch we attended the next day. Such an endless array of food that I could barely walk out. No turkey though.

So, that was Christmas. Oh, I forgot to mention my Christmas present from my sister, a small waterproof video camera. I am used to my dSLR and this little fellow is quite different. Not the same quality, but, the convenience is great. Even greater is snorkelling with it taking videos of fish.

I have so much more to write about and will get to it as I can. Also coming up will be photography and videos that I will put on my photoblog and my gallery website. The problem is deciding from the hundreds and hundreds, just which are the best photos. We have been so busy and I have taken so many photos and videos that all I seem to have time for is to dump the files off the cameras and go take more. I am running out of storage space. I also need to talk about surfing and about POG.

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I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas — Hawaiian Sand, That Is

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a&w, airport, alaska airlines, b-line, breakfast, bustling, carollers, carry-on, checking-in, christmas, christmas eve, commercial, cookie, customs, dinner, dollars, entertainers, exercise, extravagance, fairmont, fairmont hotel, flying wedge, food, hamburgers, hawaii, hot tub, hotel, jet, juice, long-term, luggage, morning, n gate, ocean, parking, piano, plane, quartet, river, sauna, seatac, seattle, shuttle, sleep extravagant, snack, snooze, snored, spa, splurge, suitcase, taxi flight, train, unicycle, vancouver international airport, vancovuer, wake-up, water, yvr

It’s off to Hawaii we go for Christmas and it is a very early start. This is our first time and it has taken us weeks to decide just how to begin our trip. There were several choices. The first leg of the journey would be to actually get to the airport. Several options were considered, including driving to the airport and parking in one of two long-term parking lots. Other possibilities would involve asking someone to drive us, or taking a taxi. We had a notion, since the main flight would be leaving from Seattle, that a drive south and an overnight stay might be nice. Then there was the big splurge, the one my sister recommended. It was an expensive idea that made us cringe a bit, because we would stay at the Fairmont Hotel at the Airport. With check-in at three in the afternoon and our wake-up call at three the next morning, it seemed like two hundred dollars for 12 hours, most of it trying to sleep, was extravagant.

A splurge of extravagance was it. We drove to the YVR (Vancouver International Airport) Long-term Parking and took the shuttle to the Fairmont. We had borrowed carry-on luggage with wheels and only one of us had a suitcase that would require checking-in. Once at the Hotel, the rest of the family went exploring dinner options and I made a B-line for the spa. I enjoyed the hot tub and sauna and had some interesting exercise in the swimming pool. When I say swimming pool, I mean you swim against a jet stream of water, sort of like swimming up a river.

For dinner, we ended up sharing A&W hamburgers, because my son was craving it and then went to the Flying Wedge. We then attempted to sleep and found it a difficult prospect. I was told I snored, but, I felt I was awake all night.

So, here we are, half way across the ocean to Hawaii and we are tired. We got up at three in the morning, went through customs, and then took off at 6:20 AM for the short hop to Seattle. We had to wait couple of hours, not to mention, a long walk and train ride to N Gate. Along the way we had some breakfast and bought some food to take on the plane. The SeaTac Airport on Christmas Eve, was bustling. At breakfast, we had live piano playing. As we walked, we saw entertainers, including a guy on a unicycle and a quartet of carollers, just to mention a couple. Now that we have finished our food and we are about half way through the trip across the water, I think I will try to have another snooze.

Here is a bit of a commercial. I should say a bit about Alaska Airlines. Not only do they seem to be everywhere at the SeaTac Airport, but, the flight has been really good with several servings of water and juice and even cookie and a little snack pack. At SeaTac, Alaska Air is everywhere.

Beginning to move away from summer

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adjustment, alderwood mall, august, balance, baron, baron of beef, baseball, BBQ, bed, beef, bike, birch bay, birthday, birthdays, blogging, border, bread, busy, butcher, changing, chocolate, chocolate chips, cook, cookies, cool, cooler, cousin, crab, curious, curling, curtains, customs, days, deal, demonstration, demonstration forest, dinner, dogs, don, eaten, eight, endless pasta bowl, fall, favourite, feast, feelings, florian, food, forest, form, games, german, gordon, happy, hauled, hill, home, hot, hunk, I-96, jumping, kids, kilometers, labor day, labour day, lanes, life, lineup, loaves, macys, malcolm, mall, market, meat, memories, michelle, mind, molassas, night, nights, office, olive garden, parties, party, patti, paula, photography, pillows, pne, queensdale, queensdale market, raisin, relatives, resist, ride, rotisserie, routines, school, seasons, seattle, shocked, shopping, signals, sister, sleep, summer, temperature, thought, trip, umpires, uncle, uncomfortable, us, ventured, vowed, weather, wife, winter, work, year, years

It is Labour Day and that signals the start of the Fall routines. Let me take a moment to wrap up my Summer for you.

Such a busy summer it seems to have been. Michelle and Florian were here for over a week again. It was a nice time. I have sure eaten a lot of food. We had parties and I did a baron of beef on the rotisserie. This was interesting. Patti went to Queensdale Market and checked out the beef. On the day of the BBQ, she sent me to get it. The butcher was one of the umpires from some of Malcolm’s baseball games. I explained that my wife had talked to someone about a baron of beef and that it would cost about $30. He went into the cooler and came out with a huge hunk of meat. I was a bit shocked at the size. As we talked about baseball, he carved away and then handed me the most perfect chunk of beef for $31. Wow, did that cook nice. What a great dinner.

Days before that, my sister had a party for all the August birthdays. I think there was eight of us. That was a pretty good party.

We made a trip to the US and Michelle and Florian wanted to go all the way to Alderwood Mall, almost to Seattle. I vowed never to do that sort of long trip and shopping in one day again, and that was last year. On the way down, we were in a modest lineup and then got hauled over. It turned out that Florian, being German, is required to file an I-96 form every 90 days. So, there we were for the first time held up in the customs office. Once done, we headed to all the usual shopping spots, including Alderwood and the Olive Garden for the Endless Pasta Bowl special. While we waited for the kids to shop, Patti went into Macys and found a $400, 20 piece, bed set for $65. How could we resist such a deal and chance for Patti (and I) to have a wonderful bed set. It even includes curtains.

Yesterday, we ventured back to the US for my Uncle Gordon’s 90th birthday party at Cousin Don’s at Birch Bay. On the way, we shopped more and ended up with a car full of pillows. When we got to the party many relatives I have not seen for years were there. There was so much food and I had a really great time. It was a long tough wait at the border to get back. Everybody was jumping lanes and making new lanes. Not great. Then we found out that Malcolm, who was looking after Paula’s dogs, was not given a ride home when they got home from the party at Don’s. Malcolm had been there for 16 hours and we had to go get him late at night.

I wanted to go to the PNE today, however, we all wanted to sleep in and spend the day with Malcolm, who did not want to go to the PNE. So strange, I always wanted to go to the PNE when I was young So, we went on a tough bike ride up to the Demonstration Forest. Malcolm, of course, was able to out ride us, but, we still managed to get plenty of kilometers in, some of it was up hill too.

When we got home, we had a feast of crab given to us last night at the party. Such a treat. As I write here, Malcolm and Patti are making cookies. Tomorrow, we start getting back to the routines that happen after summer.

I have not been making much bread over the summer, except when Michelle and Florian were here I made a raisin bread with molassas. We were short of raisins, so we substituted some chocolate chips. It is pretty good and I gave the kids one of the loaves.

I have had a curious thought on my mind the last few days. It started with my feelings around the time of the start of Summer. I had a routine and was sort of used to getting up earlier and taking Malcolm to school, then heading to work. I knew that an adjustment to life was coming as school was ending and thoughts of hot days entered my mind. The thing is, I am uncomfortable in hot weather. I feel best when the temperature is in the low 20s C and the nights get cool. As things turned out, the first half of the summer was not hot and August has been my temperature. For many folks, is has been less than Summer like, yet, I have been busy and not too hot. I am used to this routine now and just as I have reached this point, I am faced with changing again. What sort of winter is in store for us this year? Have I really made good attempts to enjoy the Summer days and make the most of them? Part of me is happy with this late Summer routine and part of me is looking forward to getting back to other routines. Curling is starting soon. I may be able to get more blogging done and even photography. May favourite seasons are Spring and Fall. Photography is better then too. I think I am experiencing perfect weather, plenty of interesting things going on, lots of work and it seems hard to leave all that behind or, in some way begin to move away to find a different balance to life. Late Summer has been pretty good and that has brought happiness. Perhaps the months to come may balance out in some way as Summer has. At least I have some good memories and perhaps that is what counts.