Sagturday – July 4: Time to celebrate the U.S.A.! At the Mauna Lani Beach Resort, at 10:30 a.m., there was a release of sea turtles to the wild. 5 turtles were released, with lots of people checking it out. Very cool ceremony. A newly refurbished canoe was also being christened at the same time. Beautiful events.

We had breakfast first at the outdoor restaurant, very pictureesque and excellent food. Sandy had the poi pancakes which were delicious. The chicken-mango sausage with my eggs was great too. Rosie had a spicy egg omlette with chorizo and avocado, it was good too!

Went back the condo and relaxed, went to the 5:30 p.m. 4th of July celebration with pupus at the pool. Folks are a little older than we are. Left at 6:30 for the fireworks show down at the King’s/Queen’s Village. Some people said the fireworks were at the beach by the Hilton or by the Marriott. We asked people with all kinds of differering answers. By sheer luck, we parked behind the Queen’s Aloha Market and were lined up perfectly for the extravaganza, it was right in front of us. We thought it was at 8:30 p.m., but like mountain time, it went off at 8:50 and lasted for about 12 minutes. Nice show!

Friday – July 3: Cleaned the windows on the lanai and the sliders in the morning. Cleaned the entrance tiles as well, but it really made no difference.

Big RUBBER DUCK RACE tomorrow in the King’s Market Place to benefit a local charity. Lots of prizes, down to 51 deep! We bought a “quack-pack” of 3 ducks and a free T-shirt. We have the winning entry (update – no we didn’t)!

Lunch at the Fish and Chips place … nice outside eating at the pavilion overlooking the lake, but the food was fair.

Rosie has an interview at 2:00 at the Sunglass Hut in the Kings Village. We’ll see …

Followup – Rosie passed interview #2, now she goes for training an then …

BBQ for dinner, chicken and steak kabobs from the Queens Aloha Market Store! BBQ on the left is much hotter than the one on the right …

Thursday – July 2: Went into Kona to do some errands at the Home Depot. Dropped Sandy and Rosie off at the movie theatre to see “The Proposal”. The theater is called the Hollywood – Makalapua Stadium Cinemas and it is located at 74-5469 Kamakaeha in Kailua-Kona. It is a shopping center with 3 stores, Super K-Mart, the theater and the local Macy’s!

Went to Stealth Audio (next to the Killer Taco place) and while I waited, they installed 2 brand new 6.5″ front door speakers in the Green Flash. The old ones were blown out. These, actually, don’t sound any better, but at least we get some volume out of them!

After the movie theater, we picked up Sandy’s office chair at the local Office Max. The air conditioner fan in the Subaru is making a very weird noise!

On our way home, we stopped by the “Kona Cold Lobster” place located at 73-4460 Queen Kaahumanu Highway in Kona. They are by the airport, just drive down the solar energy demonstration road (you can’t miss it, 808 329-4332) to the end, right before the gate. It is a lobster farm and ships to all the restaurants on the island. He has quite a setup. We picked up, for 80 dollars, 15 lobster tails (split) for dinner, it is called a “flat”, like the strawberries. The hours are Monday -Friday, 6:00 am – 2:00 pm and Saturday, 6:00 am – 12:00 pm. CASH ONLY! The owner packed the flat for travel with gel pacs in a box. The tails are split in 1/2 so that we can BBQ at our leisure. We had 6 lobster tail halves for surf and turf dinner today, Cook them on the BBQ for 1-2 minutes on each side, starting with the meat side down, then flip to cook on the shell, basting with butter. They are done when the meat turns white from opaque. Don’t cook them too long or they get rubbery.

I have to get one of these gas BBQs, it is the only way to go! We figured it out to about 5.10/lobster tail. Rosie said these were “the bomb”

Wednesday – July 1: Rosie took the car in the afternoon to pick up Elyssa. We hung out at home. I updated her Macbook to 10.5.7 and all other updates. That took a while.

Sandy cleaned the floor in the afternoon, lots of work.

Tuesday – June 30. Lazy morning with Sandy trying to figure out how to conference call on Skype, RATS. A few tense moments, but we got her all straightened out. Puttered around the condo and FINALLY, went to the POOL in the afternoon. Maybe, we are starting to relax?

Nice taco salad dinner, refreshing. Started experimenting on the perfect Mai-Tai. Orange-passion fruit nectar and pineapple juice with light and dark rum. Yum!

Monday – June 29. We went down to Kona to get the Subaru checked out. We had an 8:30 appointment at the dealer to give the “Green Flash” a once over. Spent the day after dropping the car off down in Kona at the Home Depot, Costco, Walmart (picking us as well the AIG insurance card) and looking for an office table for Sandy’s office in the bedroom. We had lunch at Panda Express next to the new Target. Finally returned at 4:00 to pick up the Subaru and then returned the rental Ford Explorer to the airport.

We found a table that will work, we will re-measure at home to make sure!

Drove back up to Waikoloa and had dinner at the Waikaloa Marriott “Call” restaurant. They had Monday 50% off entrees specials. They have specials every day, must be the slow economy.

Today is day 7, Sunday. So much for writing every day!!

Saturday – day 6, June 27. Nice lazy morning! Then we went exploring down to the King’s and Queen’s shops in the Waikoloa. Rosie had a job interview at the Sunglass Hut in the Queen’s Shops … time will tell.

We went exploring up the coast to find Hapuna Beach. First, we found Pauako Beach and Ascension Church. Mass is at 10:00 on Sunday. We found beautiful beaches at both Pauako and Hapuna. Both are north of the Waikoloa turnoff and you can get from Pauako to Hapuna via the little road that parallels the shoreline. Hapuna is a nice, sandy beach for swimming. It has been written up a lot in various books and such.

We hit the pupus at the Waikoloa Marriott on Saturday, we were going to stay for dinner, but the pupu platter was HUGE! We’ll come back for the ocean salt crusted PRIME RIB!

Sunday – June 28: This morning we went to Assumption Church in Kamuela (Waimea) for 8:00 Mass. It is about 1/2 hour away. Nice and cozy Church and the pastor ministers to Ascension Church in Pauako for the 10:00 a.m. Mass too.

Breakfast at the Paniolo Inn. Seat yourself, good food. Half orders of Eggs Benedict and Huevos Rancheros, recommended for return.

After breakfast, explored the local area and found the Waimea Farmer’s Market, every last Sunday of the month next to the Waimea Golf Course. It is at mile marker 51 on the way to Hio, just keep going on highway 19! A huge bouquet of flowers for only 10.00 dollars. I have never seen WHITE antheriums.

Came home and changed the screen on the screen door, saved us some money on a new one!

Dinner time = BBQ – Ahi (again?) and Tube Steaks!!

Oops, things are slowing down already, this is not a good sign.

Friday – a day to relax! Rosie went to the movies with Elyssa to see the new Transformers 2 movie, while I did the insurance add-on for the Subaru. Hung around and just chilled out.

5:00 happy hour every Friday at the pool and we got to meet some of our neighbors. Nice folks. Everyone brings a pupu to snack on …

Thursday – drove down to Kona for a 10:00 a.m. meeting with the Subaru owner, it became 10:30 and then finally 11:15 by the time we got there. Rosie went with her friend Elyssa to Hapuna beach with their family.

Mr. Makoota had a 1999 Subaru Legacy with 56,000 miles for 5,000 dollars. It is forest green and gently used. He was a very nice and pleasant grandfather who handed us the keys to test drive it. He did not want to go with us – I was so shocked that I gave him the rental car keys to hold while we drove it. Long time ago, when the kids were small, we had a Subaru. It is a little worn outside but very clean inside. No power-anything in the car! Speedometer replaced, so the car reads 2,600 miles – LOW LOW MILES!

We went to the car dealers and visited a few other prospects. Nothing jumped out at us – but we did get lead on the best Mai-Tais on the island. Don’t Mai-Tai Bar in the Royal Kona Resort down on Alii Drive. Sandy and I had lunch and a Mai-Tai and decided to buy the Subaru. We called Mr Makoota, got his full name – Philip S. Makoota and went to the First Hawaiian Bank to draw a cashier’s check for 3,500. He had told us the price dropped from 5k to 4k to 3.5k, he wanted to move it! What a deal!!

Being a small community, we did the DMV thing quickly and now own ANOTHER CAR!

Taco Bell taco kit for dinner, just add ground beef! Yum!!

Did the sunset pictures out on the bench!

Wednesday – day to hang around and fix stuff. We got 2 new shower heads, fixed the light in the closet (we just couldn’t find the switch AFTER I put in a new replacement fixture). Replaced the broken shelf in our bedroom closet as well.

I read through the West Hawaii News and craigslist for a car. This was gnawing in the back of my mind – that we needed to find a vehicle SOON. We picked up the TV from Costco, it fit fine in the Ford Explorer that we rented, we needed to find something to replace it and be practical and economical. A few leads surfaced .. lots of cars with lots of miles, greater that 100k is not uncommon.

Lined up car dealers down in Kona and talked to 2 Subaru owners, one in Hilo (willing to meet 1/2 way on Saddle Road) and one in Kona. We were set for Thursday to check out the one in Kona. I got excited about Honda CR-V’s. There was one at the Chrysler-Jeep dealer, a little expensive but … Our purchase limit was 7,500 dollars.

Wednesday, we had Ahi for dinner at the pool bar-b-que. I overcooked it a little, maybe 4 minutes on each side next time. It was delicious.

Lots of stuff to do today. Ran around down to Kona, looking for a car, new thermostat, new shelving for our bedroom closet, new shower head, new LCD TV, new tools to fix stuff around the condo. I love this Vizio 42″ TV! Looks great for the laptop!!

Cars here have LOTS of mileage, over 100k is NOT uncommon, ouch.

We had breakfast at the Waikoloa Village market, hot food section. For 4 dollars, you got a huge scrambled egg, potatoes (or rice) and your choice of meat. We ordered 2, for the 3 of us, plenty of food.

For lunch, we made a run at Killer Tacos, next to the Hula Lamp place in Kona. Great lunch special for 5 dollars, 2 crispy tacos (choice of meat) and drink!

Pizza for dinner from the Anthony’s Bistro and Bar – fair, not great. (808) 883-9609

ALMOST missed the sunset, got one so-so shot. Yesterday’s leaving the Costco, was truly awesome … but missed the shot traveling back to the condo.

Farecast.com – predicts the best time to buy a ticket

Yapta.com – does the same thing!

Quick and easy hotel reviews – the “Cliff-Notes for hotel reviews”!