Hawaii

Well, we are back from Hawaii and getting back to reality. It is hard when you have been in paradise. See the slide show or link to the web album. The weather was in the 80's during the day and in the 70's at night. We traveled to Hawaii with Hunter's parents and had a wonderful time. Our activities included relaxing at the pool, watching whales from the beach or our balcony, going to a luau, riding a bike down a volcano, and taking the treacherous road to Hana to see some of the most amazing views of your life.
Anyway, it was fantastic. I have a real love for plants (Dad I think I get that from you being a biology major, or maybe mom, it is from you letting me hang out with you in the garden and see how to harvest the seeds from the plants at the end of the summer). So you will see a lot of pictures of some of the beautiful Hawiaian flowers...I didn't get them all since I didn't want to take up all of the camera memory on flowers. Two flowers I want to point out are the Hybiscus which is the state flower of Hawaii (it is the yellow flower) and there is a tree tulip flower that only blooms once a year and we were fourtunate to see it while we were there. It is the red bunch of flowers that look like tulips.
There is a picture of Hunter and I at an ocean side restaurant, Mala. It serves the best cheese burger on the planet. (Hunter and my opinion) It is a Kobe Beef burger with applewood bacon, bluecheese/chedder cheese (your choice), carmelized onions, lettuce, and tomato on a toasted bun. It is really amazing.
The other pictures show our bike ride and there are a few video clips of the ocean. You can really tell from the earlier clips how much calmer the sea was before the tropical storm came through. It caused us to have to cancel our scuba trip which was disapointing, but we would rather be safe. The rain came through for maybe a 2 hour storm, but the winds stayed around for awhile. We saw two surfers, who were surfing with parasails. I thought they were out of their minds, but they looked like they were getting a pretty good ride.
Sadly, none of the pictures of the whales turned out. It was fun to see them so if you want to experience it yourself, you will just have to plan a trip out there. :)
Lahaina is a little town about 5-10 minutes from where our timeshare is. It has the largest collection of art gallaries in Hawaii in a town. You can walk up and down the street and though it is covered with touristy trinket stores, it has these wonderful gallaries of art. One that I went into had Picaso and Andy Warhol originals. I also discovered two artists that I love. Kerry Hallam and Luidmila Kondakova. Hallam has a sort of art style that reminds me of a mix of Cezanne and VanGogh. Kondakova has this amazing detail and use of luminous colors. It looks as though there is a light in the painting. In fact, when the lights are on in the room a picture has the look of a daytime scene and when the lights are dimmed the painting takes on the look of an evening scene. It was really amazing to see. Anyway, back to the whales, the art studio employee told me that the best time to see the whales is really in the month of February. This is because in January the whales are having their babies, but by February, they are teaching the baby whales how to breach. So you see the whales breaching in unison. Mom and baby. Pretty neat. After the babies are old enough, the whales migrate back up to Alaska.

So, while we were in Lahaina, Hunter and I decided to go to a great sports bar called Moose McGillycuddy's. There we met a couple that was on their Honeymoon and they invited us to party with them. We had a lot in common since we both had labs that we were homesick to see.
As dog lovers we had a lot of stories to exchange.

Sorry for the long post. It was a great trip, and we had a wonderful time spending it with Betty and Hume. We were so lucky to be there as a family and share a very memorable vacation.
Enjoy the pictures.
Love,
Sara and Hunter.