Sunday, August 8: We had a golf t-time this morning at 8:54. To our surprise, it was a little crowded and we ended up as a 4-some with an older couple. It made us both a little nervous but we got through 9 holes. It was not our best efforts.

We tried lunch at Banjy’s and the fish tacos were quite good with the new owner/chef/menu.

Sandy spent the afternoon putting lasagne together and we had invited guests Pat and Gene and Sandi and Darrell over for dinner. We had garlic bread from Sandi and lemon meringue pie from Pat as additions. While she was doing that, I found a recipe online to “defog” the Subaru headlights from the frost over they have. 3 parts toothpaste and 1 part baking soda applied and buffed worked great. Saves from purchasing new lenses! The left front turn signal lamp was replaced as well and I got the ideas to replace the headlight bulbs as well.

Saturday, August 7: Today Anna returns home and we begin preparation for the kids coming. Cutting it a little close, we met up with Anna at the airport for their departure. They were happy they came and sad to leave, next time they are headed Maui for Bart.

We did a few errands in Kona and we went to Church in Waimea at 5:00 p.m. to free up our golf time tomorrow morning.

Friday, August 6: Today we had the Alala scheduled for a morning snorkel cruise. Instead of leaving from the Marriott and A-Beach, Ocean Sports called and said they were changing the boat and the pickup location due to Sea Smoke problems. We left out of Kawaihae harbor, meeting at 8:30 or so at the little blue shack right at the interesection in town. As with last year, Ocean Sports does do a nice program and the holo-holo card discount was ＄93.00. The boat cruised around the bay and headed for 69 beach to snorkel. The water was perfectly clear and we had very little wind, yesterday it was blowing.

The Fuji FinePix XP10 worked amazingly well underwater. For the price it is really worth not having to deal with the worrying about my Canon camera and seawater. I should have picked up one a long time ago. Costco again, to the items you need at the price you can afford (＄159.00).

After the onboard lunch, the bar opens up and the sailing begins. Its interesting that the sail is just really a short distance back to the harbor but they are PR masters of stretching things out!

The afternoon was a lazy beach day at the Mauna Kea and dinner at Roy’s in the King’s Marketplace. My Chili Pepper Ahi was delicious as was Anna’s butterfish. Sandy’s Ono was a little off tonight. But … the chocolate souffle dessert was awesome.

Strolling around King’s after dinner, Anna and Katie took us to an art gallery where we saw work from the artist Alex Gupton, he has amazing pen and ink drawings, click here.

I soaked the Fuji in water for about 10 minutes, I am anxious to see the photos and videos!

Thursday, August 5: Sandy worked in the morning and I got on the phone to book ourselves on Anna’s tomorrow snorkel cruise. The local price started at about ＄108 per person and ended up with the holo-holo card at ＄93.00. I’m not sure why they don’t just give the locals the rate to begin with. I know that it is business but …

Sitting here booking the cruise, I got the brilliant idea (Sandy had been after me all summer) to find a waterproof digital camera for underwater filming. I talked to the local Costco and they carried the Fuji FinePix XP10. Googling opinions, I determined that it was worth the purchase and trip to Costco. Off I went and Anna and Katie came over to do laundry, again. They spent the morning snorkeling in the bay.

Dinner was flank steak from Costco, it is quite good. The Mauna Kea night sky telescope observation was the night’s activity. When we tried to book the Mauna Kea visitor’s center afternoon trip, the only time they has was on Friday, so this was the second choice. While interesting, the presenter was tired and the activity was pretty boring. Nix this activity for future reference.

We are anxious for tomorrow’s snorkel cruise. They did call me and, due to boat problems, rebook us on the Alala leaving Kawaihae harbor instead of the Sea Smoke for A-Bay. Oh well, no worries.

Wednesday, August 4: The days are now flying by. Anna and Katie sceduled themselves on the morning Dolphin Cruise from the Mauna Kea and had a blast. They jumped in the water with the dolphins as soon as they were spotted. Sounds like a lot of fun!

This morning I worked on the patio table. I used the power sander and the polishing compound doing 10 minutes per quarter. I followed that up with a Turtle Wax coat and that is as good as it is going to get, at least for me.

Golf at 2:30 wtih Pat and Gene. They are both, for their age, quite good. Gene is very fluid and Pat is pretty accurate. The thing that I notice is that they are both very relaxed about their strokes. In their day, they both were pretty good. I think we all had a good time. We were out from about 2:30 to 5:30 or so.

Wine tasting at 6:00 at the Mauna Kea with Anna and Katie before dinner there at their Manta Restaurant. The wine tasting was entertaining and fun and the dinner was quite good, an excellent outdoor restaurant for future reference. It was interesting pulling up at the guard shack in the Subaru, it was like “what do these local want” type attitude. As soon as I said we had reservations, the attitude changed 180° hmm…. Just a funny observation!

Tuesday, August 3: Today we had Anna and Katie come over in the late morning for laundry. They only took carry-on and are limited in clothing. We had our 2nd game on the course today at 2:30, just Sandy and me, tomorrow it will be with our neighbors, Pat and Gene. The morning was spent doing schoolwork and work and waiting for them to come over. I am reading the new Common Standards developed by the federal government for math, this stuff should be interesting to implement given that we have no money.

Oh well, it all worked out and they came over after their snorkeling afternoon adventures for dinner.

The golf game was pretty enjoyable. With an original tee-time of 2:38 and 18 golfers in our pack, we were worried, but Cal (the golf guy) told us people had cancelled, so we need not worry. He was right, we let 2 singles play through us and we had the course pretty much to ourselves. We finished 9 holes in about 2.5 hours (about 5:00 p.m.). I had a great time and am anxious for tomorrow!

BBQ tuna and Fettucini pasta for Katie. She needs to expand her 8th grade culinary tastebuds to other things! As long as the fish is not raw, Anna is ok with it, but she too … is not a big fish lover.

Monday, August 2: Today was get Pat ready to return home day. It takes her most of the day to pack, but she got it all together. A phone call from SuperShuttle at 5:30 in the morning had them waiting for her at LAX – a slight mixup. During breakfast, Super Shuttle agreed that it was their mistake, she is taking the red-eye tonight arriving 5:30 tomorrow! Oh well.

As Pat packed, we went to the range to practice, it was my worst day ever and I was depressed. Tomorrow we are supposed to go out, just Sandy and I. I am bummed big time.

We headed down to Kona and the airport to get her loaded up. First stop was dinner at Huggo’s beach bar for one last view of the ocean. I would have preferred the main dining area, but it doesn’t open until 5:30 p.m. Pat wanted Don’s Mai-tai bar, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat there again.

Sunday, August 1: Argh … it’s the first of August. Only 17 days left! Today we went to Church with Pat to 8:00 mass. We had beakfast at the Paniolo Inn and then went to look for the Hawaii Preparatory Academy to turn in my application. The deadline was August 2nd, tomorrow.  We found the elementary/middle school and high school campuses, interesting. We drove to Foodland for suppplies and then down to Kawaiae to explore the beaches.

We checked out Spencer, Hapuna and 69 beaches, all beautiful. We drove to the Mauna Lani and the shops there as well. The economy is doing a number on the little mall there and the food prices for lunch at the Tommy B store are ridiculous, so we had lunch at home.

We practiced on the range after lunch and we both realized that we need consistent practice to get better.

Woah … gues who showed up at the Dinner at the Blue Dragon in Kawaiae tonight! Anna and Katie, they decided at the last minute to come on over and surprised me with their visit. Everyone but me knew they were coming. They are staying at the Mauna Kea up the Kohala coast. Live 40’s big band music!! Excellent meal and great music, dance floor – highly recommended!

Saturday, July 31: We went down to Kona to explore and find some authentic Kona coffee. We started at Kona Joe’s (expensive tourist trap), at milepost 114 and worked our way backward to Kona, ending up with a lunch at Bubba Gump and a movie, Inception, what a mind-breaker!

Dinner at home, wine and cheese!

Friday, July 30: 9:00 a..m. water aerobics today – good exercise, should do it regularly! After aerobics, we headed to the beach today, A-Beach, but first lunch at the Marriott. We relaxed at the beach with their banana chairs and took a few winks in the afternoon. Found some vodka samplers to try at the market down at Queen’s marketplace for our martinis later.

Movie at home was Miss March, a WASTE!

Thursday, July 29: This morning, I had a golf lesson with Matt. Sandy was working in the morning. We did about 7 holes on the back 9 and he told me what clubs to use for what situations I found myself in. After Sandy’s work, we had lunch here and then headed down to the King and Queen’s Marketplace for wedding dress shopping for Pat. Aprelle is getting married sometime in September or October and a goal of this trip for Pat was a “proper” beach wedding dress! We found it too!

Dinner was Ahi tuna from the Village Market. The interesting thing is that the same fish is ＄24.99/lb and ＄12.99 at the local market, talk about a markup! The market down at the Queen’s had however, some small sample bottles of different vodkas, so I was able to pick up a few for my Martini skill building, a cheap way to test out different flavored vodkas!

Wednesday, July 28: This morning we hung around but at 1:00 p.m., we had our appointment with Fr. Bob up in Waimea. Sandy and I left feeling very good and the last week when the kids are here should be very cool! After returning from Waimea, we decided to use the ＄100.00 Hilton dollars for dinner at the Kamuela Provision Company, the high end restaurant at the Hilton. Beautiful view and beautiful prices but an excellent dinner considering the dining credit we picked up. Sandy had the surf and turf, with the turf being tempura battered. I had the Ahi tuna encrusted in sesame seeds.

Photo ops were aplenty with the resort photo girl. She did a nice job, one of those, you-can-view before you leave type things. Reminded me of the things you do at Universal Studios. Self part is ＄15.00 and valet park is ＄24.00, ouch!

Tuesday, July 27: Golf course, finally. After a leisure morning and lunch, we FINALLY headed to the golf course, just the 3 of us. We used the discounted afternoon price for 2 carts and managed through 7 holes! It was awesome, we didn’t know what we were really doing, but it was BLAST! For dinner, we BBQ’d the flank steak that we had purchased yesterday at Costco.

Monday, July 26: Today we went down to the Hilton Hawaiian Village to listen to a timeshare pitch. It sounds good, but it’s all about points and the cost is expensive. It is probably better to do all this stuff om the open resale market. Luckily, we decided to think about this decision with a 24 hour option granted. We went down to Kona, saw a movie, Salt, in the afternoon and did some errands. We picked up a flank steak again, these are hard to come by. Pat was coming in for the week, so it all worked out with her flight delay of about an hour. We wisked her off to Don’s Mai-Tai bar down in Kona for drinks and a light dinner. She was tired, but glad to be here. While sitting and relaxing, we got to see and hear the luau show at the Kona resort next door, it was nice and relaxing.

Sunday, July 25: 10:00 a.m. Mass at Ascencion Mission in Puako. We had those Peruvian tamales for breakfast.

Hung out at the beach access point across from the church and saw turtles in the Puako Bay, this might be a good place to snorkel if you can get past the rocks. I saw a couple of people doing just that.

Practiced our golf swings and had Ahi for dinner BBQ.

Saturday, July 24: Spent the night at the Hilo Seaside Hotel after taking in the sites at Kalapana. For breakfast, we went to the Coconut Grill, right next door to the motel. Food was OK, Sandy had the Hawaiian Sweetbread French Toast and I had the FlapJack, a mix of 3 pancakes, 1 egg and 1 slice of ham. After breakfast, we strolled the local Border’s that is closing, the Walmart and then the Farmer’s Market we saw by the Cafe Pesto downtown last night.

Beautiful jewelry from a local lady that uses lapidary gemstones and makes her own necklaces. Flowers for sale and we ate wonderful tamales from Peru! We even bought 5 more for breakfast!

On the way home, we went up to the Mauna Kea Visitor’s Center to check it out. It has beautiful views from the center but the Subaru struggled just a bit for the last mile or so. It is 6 miles from the Highway 200 turnoff to the center and the first 5 miles or so aren’t too bad. At the 9,300′ elevation, the little Subaru was in first gear, but … we did make it. I’m not sure if we could with 3 other people in the back. It is a dependable car.

Dinner was steak salad.

Friday, July 23: Off to the Volcano side to watch the lava flowing about noon. We picked up a room at the Hio Seaside Motel for the night because I really didn’t want to drive back over Saddle Road at night.

We went up Saddle Road and it is in pretty good shape, better than last year. There is the one portion from mile 11 to 19 (coming from Hilo) that is hardpacked because of the road realignment activity. The only bad parts left are the climb from the 190-200 junction (on our side) up to the new paved section before the PTA military camp. A pleasant drive.

Arrived in Hilo and checked in about 3:00 p.m.. The Seaside motel has seen better days, but they are clean and give local rates. Lots of Hawaiian staying there. We looked for dinner places.  We chose Cafe Pesto, the same place as in Kawaiae and it was quite good. We had a 9″ build your own pizza, it was light and fluffy. Next time, we should try (based on reviews) the Hilo Bay Cafe in the Walmart shopping center.

We then headed to the lava field in Kalapana, it is about 23 miles from Hilo via highways 11 and 130 to roads end. This year, the lava flow stopped into the ocean, but it is stariting to back up into the Kalapana subdivision. I went imagining getting really close, but the Civil Defense folks kept us back a way. The view after sunset was pretty cool but I wish that I was closer. It was interesting that the viewing area from last year, supposedly, was covered over by the fresh lava. I found, after the fact this guy’s website with some good information. I bookmarked it for next year.

I think some better opportunities could have been had on highway 137, coming in the back way. Next time, study the maps and read the blogs!

Thursday, July 22: Caught up with pictures taken over the last 3 days. Worked on marble table outside with the new marble polish. The buffer wheel didn’t work, but working it by hand with the sanding block brought up the polish. The work required left some spots that were not uniform, so an orbital sander might be a better approach. We’re getting closer.

Dinner was flank steak, purchased marinated at Costco yesterday. Flank is very rare here on the island, so we really should pick up some more for when the kids come. Movie afterwards was “Young Victoria”, from Netflix.

Wednesday, July 21: This morning we went for a walk on the east side of the beach here at Turtle Bay and we discovered another part of the Pirates movie being filmed. This is a beach scene with a Spanish captain who discovers Capt. Jack.

The guard was nice enough to let us take pictures on the set, they should be cool.

Farther down the trail, we ran into a monk seal with pup on the beach. It too was ropped off and volunteers were monitoring their living. Very cool to watch too. An eventful walk this morning.

This is the first time that I am typing on the screen and it is actually pretty do-able.

Drove back west stopping at Banzai and Sunset Beaches for pictures. I bet they are huge in the winter, the water was pretty calm.

Lunch was had at Killer Tacos in Hale’iwa. Just like the ones in Kona, ok fare.

We flew back on a 3:45 flight instead of the 5:05 Iflygo (Mokulele) and had dinner at KBC. Did a few errands at Costco and Home Depot and were home by 7:30 or so.

Tuesday, July 20: Got up for sunrise, clouds obscured the view.

Headed after hotel breakfast to the Kuilima Cove on the hotel property. Free one hour snorkels and we were in the water by 9:30. Very murky and hard to see, we’ve seen much better, oh well.

We saw the Opana Radar Site above the hotel. This site was where the Americans during WWI first detected via RADAR the incoming Japanese during Pearl Harbor. If only people had taken the new technology seriously!.

Sandy hung out at the pool and I went for a walk down the eastern portion of the Turtle Bay. Pretty sights, blue skies and at the point a gun emplacement used during WWII. The bay to the east, Kawela Bay is beautiful, we should go back. Filming was going on for something and they wouldn’t let us back in.

Dinner was at the 21 Degrees North restaurant in the hotel. The meals were quite good and the martini selections (they have 21 different kinds) were awesome. I have some practicing to do.

Monday, July 19: After taking a 10:05 flight to Honolulu, we ended up shopping in the BIG CITY Ala Moana shopping center. Hilo Hatties had some nice silk shirts – they compared them to Tommy Bahamas and I bought 2 of them. On special and local kama’aina (10% off) rates, can’t beat that.

Took the H1, H2 and other freeways and roads to the North Shore Turtle Bay Resort for our mini-mini vacation. It is a little dated, but a very nice hotel. The ocean view rooms are very nice and clean. After a couple of Mai-tais (yummy), we had dinner at the Palm Terrace. It was pork ribs that we shared and they were just ok. It was weird sleeping in a room with air-conditioning running all night.

This hotel is one of the few places that you can see both sunset and sunrise, we’ll see!

Sunday, July 18: A nice slow morning. In the afternoon, we headed to Kona for the monthly Alii Drive craft show. It was OK, smaller than last year.

Dinner was barbeque with grass-fed Waimea beef, New York steaks. Nope … forget the grass-fed, not enough fat and these 2 steaks were terrible and chewy and nervy!

In the evening about 7:50, we got to see the ISS fly overhead for about 3 minutes.

Saturday, July 17: Today we went exploring to the northeast side of the island. We left in the morning and stopped by the Waimea country fair. Beautiful flowers for purchase and we’ll come back next Saturday.

Stopped by the Foodland to get the back-to-school supplies that were requested by Father Bob last week. It is a nice store, much better than the across-the-streer KTA. We can go to church and then hit the grocery store.

Kept heading east on the Mamalahoa Highway (19) to Honoka’a and the Tex Malasada drive-in and restaurant. Deliciously hot Portuguese creme filled doughnuts. Worth the stop.

From there, we headed to the Waipi’o Valley overlook to check it out. It too was breathtaking and the road down is as steep as they say it is. 4×4 necessary on the way down in LOW gear, to keep the brakes from overheating.

Back on Highway 19, we went to millepost 27 (just beyond) and down to Laupahoehoe Point to view the sites. Again, surf that is rough and beautiful to see.

We headed back to Waimea just in time for 5:00 p.m. Mass and then to Solimene’s for dinner. We had a pizza, it was pretty good!

Friday, July 16: Sandy worked for a while, she went to water aerobics and I did my walk. I do want to walk down to the Blue Hawaiian someday.

After lunch, we headed down to A-Beach to relax with our Mai-Tais during happy hour before the pupus at the pool.

Thursday, July 15: Today, I applied to 2 positions available, perhaps, at UH Hilo and at Hawaii Community College, we’ll see. Time consuming … but got it done.

Had a few errands to do down in Kona, hit Costco and Safeway. Stopped by the Harbor House in Honokohau harbor for dinner. My ahi dinner was better than Sandy’s mahi-maihi fish and chips.

Wednesday, July 14: Nice quiet day, lesson #4 with Matt and hitting the ‘woods’. A little more work is required on my stroke to be consistent. Next lesson, in 2 weeks, will be with Matt on the course. I think Sandy and I are just ready to hit the course and see what develops, we’re a little frustrated.

Lunch at Benjy’s, the new Spikes at the Clubhouse. Burger was pretty good.

Research with the brand of clubs we bought unearthed that I have 2 hybrid clubs, the 4 and 5 in lieu of the standard 4 and 5 iron. How you use these is still a mystery to me however.

I updated the Algebra blog to the WordPress 3.0 Twenty-Ten theme, but am using its modified version 2010 Weaver. There are lots of options to play with and for now I am just tweaking.

Dinner was Sandy’s lasagna, excellent with a little Chianti from Italy. The Village Market does have a good selection of wines and other spirits.

Sunset photos at A-Beach after dinner, beautiful!