Yum! for sushi

"it's my favorite food!" says Nim... Of course, her tastes run towards
the more pricey varieties ;-)

Bike parking

Honolulu has these cool bike-shaped fixtures all over, for locking up
your bike. Unfortunately, the streets down town have no bike lanes,
and most of the cyclists I have seen have been riding on the sidewalk.

Rainbow in Honolulu

We've been in Honolulu since Sunday - we drove leisurely down the
windward side of Oahu to get here, taking in the scenery along the
way.

Honolulu is a dense, bustling city, but the weather has been great and
the locals are very friendly. We have been having a lot of fun finding
good food, playing in the pool and in the ocean (although Chad has had
to go to his conference during the day.)

Greetings from the North Shore

We're happily relaxing on Oahu's laid-back North Shore.

Nimue has been having some excellent kid-fun -- she got to learn how to make a lei this morning, in Waimea canyon, where we strolled through an amazing area of tropical plants, cultivated from all over the world, and saw a nice waterfall... then we went to a nice little beach at Shark's Cove, where we found colorful fish to watch, close enough to the beach that Nimue could go look at them with us! It's protected by a reef, and is small; there were only a few (friendly) people there, the coral sand was delightful, the water warm.

Yesterday, we woke at 4:30 to get ready and go to the airport, arriving around 11:30 in Honolulu. After picking up a car, we drove out here, to Turtle Bay where we are renting a nice condo adjacent to a huge golf course. If we played golf, it would be exceedingly convenient! There's a nice beach we can walk to, as well as pools, and plenty to see and do pretty close by.

There are fruit stands, and shrimp shacks, along the side of the road. We haven't tried the shimp yet, but did pick up a pineapple this afternoon. The lady asked if we wanted it cut -- and proceeded to peel and slice it with a big, curved knife, with what was obviously many, many years' practice. It was perfectly ripe, and delicious.

More reports to follow...

Peaches!

I just finished the peach harvest today. Mmmmm....

Nimue tried to help the other day after I told her not to pick any yet; the picture above was taken right after she was caught in the act of trying to hide the evidence in her closet.

also a birthday!

Though we celebrated it a few days late, we made Chad an excellent 41st birthday cake -- enhanced with Nimue's paper cake decorations.

projects Chad forgot...

Among recent things going on that Chad neglected to mention in his last post, we've also had quite a bit of work done on the house in the last month or so, including getting some rotted-out siding replaced and a new coat put on the foam roof. Quite disturbing to have the house's clothing removed...

Catching up

We've been so busy lately, that we have had no time to post to the blog; I have a big backlog of photos and stories, and hopefully I'll have a chance to put some of them up tonight or this weekend. To summarize what we've been up to:

- Anna's mother, Eileen, came to visit
- We went camping with family and friends at the Lakes Basin in Sierra County
- We all drove up to Castle Rock, WA to visit Anna's parents, brother Joe's family, and attend the Shinner family picnic
- Chad then flew from Portland out to Dallas for a business trip, then home to Sunnyvale
- Anna and Nimue drove home, arriving Thursday night

Chad has a trip out to Houston this Monday and Tuesday; Nimue has Sports Camp all this coming week; and from the 13th - 25th we'll be in Honolulu -- Chad has a work meeting, and we'll take advantage of the opportunity.