A Beautiful, Peaceful Place - St. Benedict's

John and I went to Mass this week at the closest Catholic church to us, Saint Benedict's Painted Church, in Honaunau, about 10 miles away. They have a 7:00am Sunday mass so we got up with the sun. St. Benedict's is an amazing church founded in 1899 and the interior was painted by a self-taught priest after the fashion of a gothic cathedral in Burgos, Spain. With the windows open, the birds singing and the beautiful views out the windows it is a restful, peaceful place. The congregation is small but friendly and as newcomers we were welcomed with handmade leis and asked to introduce ourselves at the end of Mass.
If you want to learn more this is their website: www.thepaintedchurch.org.

A quote from the newsletter, beautiful in Hawaiian:

O ke kea hemolele kou malamalama. Aole o Satana kou alakai.
May the holy cross be my light. Let not the dragon be my guide.

OUR 4 Wheelin' Green Sand Adventure

Which way to the beach?

John got a Toyota 4-Runner and with a little work it's running pretty good... for a car that passed 200,000 miles as we drove to the Green Sand Beach today! I've been wanting to go to this beach, but not walk the 5 miles at this EXTREMELY windy point on the Island, so when we got this 4-wheel vehicle the first thing I wanted to do was take this drive! You HAVE to have a 4-wheel drive if you don't want to walk and it was a little iffy to the point that a few times we backed up to try different routes.... we finally got there and climbed down the cliff to see what really was a GREEN sand beach! Kinda cool to be able to go see green sand and on the way back we stopped and picked wild guavas (I'm going to make some jam) and then going up our drive we stopped and picked up some macadamia nuts as a lot more have fallen since the pickers were here!

Shakespeare and Rainy Day Hike on the Manuka Trail

Last week we stopped by this reserve to check it out and promised we would come back on the weekend and take the 2 miles hike which included a "gentle 400' raise" according to the sign. I packed a lunch and our ponchos (just in case) and we set off! Two points I want to make; 1.) I realized about 1/4 mile after we started that 400' = 40 stories and 2.) Always carry a poncho!

We did have fun, even in the rain and we had the trail all to ourselves! I posted this video on YouTube!

Also, on a culture note, this week we went and saw a Shakespeare play, "The Tempest"... totally community theater and who can understand Shakespeare I want to know????

Again, it was really a fun time but it was no roller derby!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I am going for a mani/pedi thanks to Carolina and Celly's thoughtfulness and thinking ahead when they were here...they got me a gift certificate, whooohooo! Then John is taking me to lunch at Sam Choy's!

Hawaiian Cinco De Mayo Roller Derby - Say What???

In case you think we don't have the cultural opportunities offered in a more cosmopolitan location here on the Big Island I wanted to share a little of the event we attended on Saturday for Cinco de Mayo - ROLLER DERBY! We saw the poster and made the plan! What we got, a beautiful sunset, sitting in the fresh air, Domino's Taco Pizza, people watching and lots of watching people falling down! I gotta say, I'd never been to the roller derby before, but we think we'll go again!

Let's get ready to rumble!!!! Oh yeah, and they had a pinata at half time for the keiki (children), a fun, friendly family night while the kids watched their mom's rumble on the rink! So funny!

I'm Thinking We Are Pupule!!!

What's pupule??? That's Hawaiian for crazy!!!

I've always heard about having goals (in fact I'm trying to write some for work right now), you know, 5 year, 10 year and so on because if you don't have goals how can you meet them right?? They help you plan for the future and success, right??? So thinking about this is what makes me think we may be pupule!! Follow my thoughts here....

John and I were driving to South Point on Sunday and as usual, my mind was wandering, and I just started to laugh. I was thinking about how our Sunnyvale, CA would no longer belong to us this week and I would not have thought that possible last October 15th. I also would not have thought that 45 days later I would own a farm in Hawaii growing avocados, macadamia nuts and coffee. After all, you would think that took planning and farming skills, right? We are NOT farmers, though my Dad always had a wonderful garden, and we just jumped in and bought a 16 acre farm for goodness sake!!!! What do we know about growing these things???? What happened to planning??? After all there is that saying, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail", how can a saying be wrong?? PUPULE I tell you, pupule.

Here's the thing... I don't think everything needs to be planned, I think spontaneity is a good thing in a lot of ways (that's how I justify my procrastination). John is having fun living up to the challenge even though he is exhasted. He is mellow and happy. We do things together we never did at home, we go the the grocery store together for God's sake, and Costco and home improvement stores... and it's fun. We are exploring life in a way I never thought we would, one day at a time.

OK, I mentioned South Point. We live 35 miles from the most southern US point. Here's a little video of our stop there, really windy, great fishing and really strange tides. Excuse the sound, it was crazy windy as you can see!

PS: Pupule runs in my family (thanks, Mom) so I think we are going to be just fine :-) Aloha