Happy Thanksgiving!!

This year we are really blessed to have our dear, dear friends here! Angela and Dennis and the kids moved here last week!! We spent Thanksgiving of 2000 together also. That was the year that the guys ate so much before dinner that we had to push it back a few hours. Thanks in part to Dennis making home-made lumpia and the guys were watching a football game and go figure... This year we were just as stuffed. It was great to have such good friends over, especially when family is so far away.
We cooked a 27 lb turkey and had million side dishes. Go figure, I am always worried there will not be enough food so naturally, I made too much. (ya'd think I grew up in the great depression?!)

Dennis carved the turkey, Maddie posed with the turkey, Ryan and Adeline played in the water and Maddie insisted on getting a pic of my cranberry relish that looked like a bloody scene from a horror movie. I guess your only suppose to soak the "mold" in the hot water for a few seconds, not minutes, to loosen it from the mold... It looks horrendous... It's always something, isn't it?
Today (black Friday) Troy is busy hanging Christmas lights on our house. We'll wrap lights up the palm trees... It's still a little strange not to have snow but if we put the AC down low enough we can manage to wear sweaters comfortably.
He just called me from Sports Authority, he has the boys and is SHOPPING for running shoes!!! Today of all days!?? Seriously? With two children in tow? He is crazy! The lights are "half- up" and he is shopping for shoes...ha ha ha Last I heard he said he was taking the boys out to get some bulbs for the lights! Good Lord, what was he thinking? ha ha ha...

Petey The ratty-est Rat Terrier.

So I lost Kai's email. She is the one I got Petey from and I think she follows the blog so I wanted to post some pics to let her see him having some fun attacking and killing his toy.

Hilo Bay Hawaii

Banyan drive, Japanese gardens and Ganja! Pot is big business here...lol The travel books advise you to stay on "state park" trails and that if God forbid, you stray off the well worn park path onto someone's "Pot field" you risk a good old fashioned beating. That'd be my luck. I noticed a lot of young, hippie hitchhikers near Pahoa, go figure... Duuuude.... The Cannibis Ministry? Seriously? What do they do for communion? One cracker wouldn't satisfy the munchies at all!

Akaka Falls, Hilo Hawaii

Drive up about 11 coastal miles north of hilo, take a left inward and a few turns after that and ascend up through the farmland (if you have the same rental car WE did your ascent will be slow. Apparently a Chrysler Sebring does not like to go "uphill".) We managed to not hit a dog running along side of us for a 1/4 mile. We would have stopped but it looked like a pitbull (could you imagine letting it into the convertible?! lol) Anyways, we loved this place. It was as easy as hiking gets... walking on a paved path.
The Gardens here were mammoth in size. Not so much expansive in acreage but each plant looked like something from a Chernobyl garden. Freakishly HUGE! The best part was seeing the amazing plant-life!
The falls themselves fall 422 feet!
After this we cruised back to Hilo Bay.

Rainbow Falls and Huge Banyan Trees. Hilo, Hawaii

Rainbow Falls was as easy as cruising into a parking spot and walking down a sidewalk and There it is, amazingly photogenic beautiful waterfalls. If the sun is shining behind you often a rainbow is visible. Although there was no fun hiking here we did walk up to the top of a small set of stairs that exposed a HUGE grove of Banyan Trees off the side of the path. I have NEVER seen Banyan trees this big and expansive. It would be an amazing place to bring my kids so they could climb around. IT was so expansive, dark and filled with a canopy of tree limbs, roots, leaves and branches. One root in particular looked like a skeletal hand. Creeeeepy!

Boiling Pots and Pe'epe'e Falls. Hilo, Hawaii

Joni and I climbed around and hiked thru here for hours! Its was so much fun and sooo beautiful!
Pe'e Pe'e Falls (pronounced Pay-a Pay-a Falls) is fed by the Wailuku River which also feeds Rainbow Falls further down river. The flow is determined by rainfall. The multi-spouted falls fills up a small pool at the base and the river flows systematically down thru other deep pots and pools. It is freshwater and Joni even spotted a little crayfish. It was bright red!
My morbid side kept thinking if there was a flash flood our butts would be whisked right out of there fast.
This hike was SOO much fun!!!

Volcanoes National Park Steam Vents

Volcanoes National Park Steam Vents

Joni actually has steam coming out of her head?