Then and Now

I think this is going to be my last Hawaii post. I mentioned that we went to Hawaii twenty-one years ago. I thought it might be interesting to contrast how we looked then with how we look now so here are some pictures.


This was when we first arrived the first time. Twenty-one years makes a lot of difference, and my what huge lenses on those glasses.


Here we are with our matching shirts that we bought at Hilo Hattie's. This picture was taken just before we went to a luau. We still have the shirts.

Here we are on the first day we arrived on this trip - older - wiser - and a little heavier.

I hope you have enjoyed these accounts of our trip as much as I have enjoyed sharing them. No, I really don't expect that, but I do appreciate all the lovely comments I have received.

Aloha!

Friday Show & Tell

I decided to take a break from my Hawaiian memories to participate in Kelli's Show & Tell. She suggested that this week we talk about a special item in our bedrooms. I decided to feature this dressing table. I put my makeup on in the bathroom and then sit down here to put my jewelry on. See the fairy. That's where I put my rings when I take them off - in the sunflower she is holding up. That way I always know where they are. I really like my long mirror. It was a Christmas gift several years ago. The wall clock I bought at Marshall's.

Below is a view of the table from the top. I bought the silver jewelry box at T.J.Maxx. It does tarnish so I took the opportunity to shine it up just before I took this picture. That is where I keep my jewelry that I wear the most - in the silver box. The lotion is coconut - 100% Pure is the brand. It's fantastic. Some of my Brighton tins are there at the left. The green fold up box with the rose on top holds a necklace from Coldwater Creek, a gift from Hubby.

Aloha! Tomorrow it's back to Hawaii stuff.

A Good Laugh

I just must tell you about this. This morning I talked about how we spent just one night at the Plantation Cottage. It was so funny. After we moved all our stuff in, looked around, and sort of "settled down", we were all thinking the same thing but no one said it. We were all thinking, "I don't want to be here." Something was said, I don't even remember what it was, but we all started laughing. It was one of those laughing things where you get started and can't hardly stop. That was the best laugh I've had in years. Every few minutes one of us would start laughing again and the rest would burst out laughing too. I think it was worth being there just for the good laugh we had.

An update on Hubby. He went back to the doctor this morning. He has the bandage off his eye and the doctor even said he could drive if he wanted to. He can really see good out of that eye now. He has to wait about 6 weeks to get new glasses as his eye will keep changing. The good thing - he can see better now without glasses than he could with them before the surgery because that one eye was so cloudy. He still is not suppose to bend over or lift heavy stuff - things like that. It will be hard for him to keep from doing these things.

Aloha again.

Kauai

You will notice if you have been reading my blog lately that I changed the header. We spent half of our time in Oahu and half in Kauai. This is where we stayed when we went to Kauai. We thought we were going to stay at the Wiamea Plantation Cottages. It turned out we weren't exactly comfortable there. It was a unique place and lots of people would love it. It was highly recommended by a trusted friend, but it was not what we expected. It was very warm when we arrived there and we found that the cottages were wide open. There were screens on the windows, but in order to sleep we had to leave all the windows open as there was no air conditioning. We were all used to having our windows all closed and locked at night so the next morning, we checked out and after checking out a few places checked into the Hilton Resort. Here are a few pictures from the Plantation Cottages. They look really good in pictures. Probably if they had been air conditioned we would have stayed there. After the hustle and bustle of Waikiki, this place was just a little too isolated.

The front of our cottage

The back of the cottage

So we loaded up the rental car and were out of there.

Aloha for now.

Surgery Successful

This is an update to my post for today. The cataract surgery went well and Hubby is happy to be back home. It will be hard for him to keep from overdoing it for a few days. We bought a small palm tree a couple of days ago to put by the pool that he will not be able to plant for awhile. If I don't watch him, he'll be out in the back yard digging a hole for it. We appreciate those of you who said a prayer for him.
Aloha!

Some Unique Things in Hawaii

I am writing this on Tuesday afternoon to be posted in the morning. Early tomorrow morning (it will be this morning when this posts) I will be going with the Hubby to have cataract surgery on one of his eyes. He has been dreading this for a long time, so it will be good to get it done so that he can start recovery.

I thought I would share with you some interesting and unique things we saw in Hawaii.

This is a beautiful blue Macaw

You don't see black swans too often. At least I don't.

A Scottie bench. How cool is that.

Chickens and roosters are not unique, but I thought it was unique the way they are running around wild all over the island of Kauai. They're not wild inthat they would be afraid of you, they are very friendly and not afraid of people.

I don't know what kind of bird this is. It was walking around on the grounds of a lighthouse we visited on the island of Kauai.

This dog was on the beach facing the ocean. He didn't move, thank goodness. He looks rather large, and I am terrified of large dogs, but I couldn't resist taking this picture. How often do you see a pair of dog ears sticking up by the ocean.

Coconuts growing on a tree. I was amazed that there were coconut trees everywhere. We have different kinds of palms growing in Arizona, but no coconut trees. It's probably too hot. I had seen the coconut trees, of course, when I was there 21 years ago but had forgotten that all those palm trees were coconut trees. I'm a "nut" for coconuts so I had to take this picture.

Aloha for now. Tomorrow I'll post some more pictures.

After the Holiday

I've been very busy this past couple of days. I mentioned I wanted to make a DVD of our Hawaiian trip. Well I finished it yesterday afternoon. It was the first one I've done since I started blogging in January. It's amazing how you can forget how things are done when you haven't done them for awhile. It came back to me rather quickly though. Our son and daughter came over at noon today for burgers and a viewing of the DVD. I made them a copy of it also. (I wrote this last night to be posted this morning. I see that kinda messed up the time-frame. Hope it isn't too confusing.)

After looking through all our Hawaiian pictures, I decided to post these today because I think the story behind them is interesting.

I have no idea who these people are. We watched from the rocking chairs on the front porch of the resort as limo after limo pulled up and a bride and groom got out and went inside. This happened at regular intervals. I think it's about every 15 minutes. Evidently traditional weddings in Japan are extremely expensive. It was reported they can cost up to $100,000. so this resort offers a package deal, wedding, reception, pictures, a stay at the hotel, even the wedding dress and tuxedo loan plus other essentials for a wedding for $10,000. There seems to be no end to the couples who took advantage of this plan. It was interesting to observe.

I put the following picture on our computer as wallpaper because I thought it was so pretty. I wanted to share it with you.

This was in the lobby of the resort. That's hubby standing in the doorway on the right. Those doors go out to an area where you can get something to eat or drink and then to the beach. Wow! I wish I was still there.

Aloha!

More Hawaii pix

Aloha again! I've been busy since I got home sifting through over 500 pictures and working on a DVD. I'm about half finished with it and thought about not doing a blog post today, but decided I would go ahead and post a few more pictures.

In the lobby of our hotel

The daughter, the son and the hubby rocking on the front porch of the hotel watching the comings and goings.

Me taking their picture

Since this is Memorial Day weekend, it seemed appropriate to go ahead and post the pictures we took at the Arizona Memorial. This, of course, is a must see if you go to Honolulu. We were told we needed to go early if we wanted to get in. 6:30 am was the suggested time, so at 6:30 we jumped in a cab and headed out. When we got there there was already a long line, but it wasn't open yet and the longer we stood there the longer the line got. We were glad we came early. However, when we left, that line had all disappeared. I'm thinking if we had gone later we wouldn't have had to stand in line at all. We could have just gone in, but who knew.

I don't know the people in the above picture. Just wanted to show the wall with the names of all who lost their lives on the USS Arizona that fateful day.

It is so awesome to see the remains of the ship under the water with parts of it sticking out of the water, and see the oil still rising to the surface after all these years. It really brings tears to your eyes.

Mahalo and Aloha!

For Show & Tell this week I wanted to share with you the things I bought on our trip to Hawaii. If you are coming here from Kelli's Show & Tell, and if you're interested, you can click HERE to go to my main page for more on our trip that we just came back from.

A coffee mug, of course.

Some special coffee, of course.

A shell necklace.

A cap

This is something I'd never seen before. I hardly know how to describe it. Maybe you can get the idea by looking at the pictures. The little thing on the side turns to twist the bottom of the moisture cream "thingy", which by the way is a freebe from Clinique. As you twist it, it forces the cream to the top. Not a good explanation I know, but it's the best I can do. The picture below is the other side of it.

This is the only thing Hubby bought (besides food items) -- a windchime for our patio.

No explanation needed for the above.

I thought this small dish was pretty. I sat it on top of some books in the living room.

I can never resist coconut lotion.

Remember the chocolate shirts from a few days ago? Well this is made by the same company and it is dyed with Lavender. Mmmm smells good. They also had shirts dyed with coffee, mango, and a few other things. I had a hard time deciding between the lavender and the coffee. These shirts are made by Crazy Shirts. They have shops all over in Hawaii. They had the chocolate ones there too and I was tempted just to buy another chocolate shirt. They also make Key Lime, but they didn't have them at the stores I went to. That was the one I really wanted -- Key Lime. That will give me something to look for next time I'm on vacation. Or, I may just have to go to their website and order one.

ALOHA!!!