USA

Lots of small, everyday things to catch you up on, along with Halloween last night! Let's start there.... Halloween in Hawaii was different! No one had those head-to-toe fur costumes on... too hot! It wasn't exactly HOT, but it was certainly warm. And our community had them trick or treating from 5-8pm, and of course we got started pretty much right at 5, so it was bright and sunny out.

Both kids picked their own costumes, of course, tho N did need some steering away from being a Power Ranger AGAIN. If he had seriously resisted being something else we would have let him be a Ranger again, but ya know! He's been a ninja or ranger for years!

So this is.... an evil jester? Joker? Something like that! For being store-bought, the quality is really good. The fabric is thick (i.e. you can't see thru it OR rip it easily) and it has some attention to detail on it!

E is, fittingly enough, half angel, half devil. Say no more, right? hehehehehe Juuuuust kidding.

She specifically wanted a Halloween picture that looked Hawaiian, and she LOVES palm trees! So we just used the one in our front yard.

These two boys are our neighbors. The little one is a football player and is 3 years old, and the bigger one is N's best friend here, and he's 6 and a dirt bike rider.

These two kids live 2 houses to the left and play with N just about every day.
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We have always had a gas powered pocketbike that has never worked. LOL! We had it shipped here with the thought that we'll finally change that... but in the mean time, N got himself a new toy. 3 of his 4 pals have one, so now he does too. It's a little electric pocket bike w/ Honda stickers so he looks cool like his parents. =o)

E likes riding it too! hehehe

That little thing has a weight limit of 175 pounds! It's VERY quiet, which scares me.... and it's pretty slow, which for now, is a good thing. Whenever they ride it, I stand at the end of the driveway, in case any cars come into our cul-de-sac area.
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I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but N's really taken a liking to cooking! Ever since we moved here and I haven't worked, I've made huge leaps in my kitchen domination techniques, and am actually producing Emeril and Rachael Ray meals every night (thanks to The Food Network, the DVR and The Food Network's AWESOME website).

N now owns 2 of his own cookbooks thru which he meal shops for 1 meal per week. He does all mixing, scooping, measureing and dumping into bowls and pans. When I'm cooking at the stove, he sets the table and puts things back into the fridge for me.

So now when he sees recipes, they really catch his eye.... like on cereal boxes at Walmart with Daddy. He saw a box of Cocoa Krispies with a recipe on the side, and they came home with all the ingredients to make Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats! LOL!!

So N got to do everything this time, even stir the stuff on the stove.

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Last but not least, N also REALLY likes to highlight his hair red. And make it spikey. And I mean REALLY.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. We've hit upon the best way to enjoy the island. =o)

[Side note: Our household goods finally arrived a week ago Wednesday, so we FINALLY have all of our stuff... including the BIKES!]

Today was the first day C and I had to go on a long, leisurely and unhurried ride. We left home, heading north to Haleiwa. We stopped at the boat launch there for the first modeling session (My bike is the yellow/black one, and C's is all black):

Next stop was near Sunset Beach. There looked to be some sort of surfing competition going on because there were a lot of people walking that way, a big event-type tent on the beach... but there weren't any waves! And I didn't see any television cameras or anything... so we went just past that and ended up here:

The last couple of stops, I don't know exactly where we were. We were on the Windward side of the island, looking out at the Kahana Bay area.

Oh, well the gratuitous coconuts shot was coming.... you had to know that. You just didn't know when..........

It was a great ride! We went about 100 miles (I think the odometer said 97). Saw a lot of great local places that I'd like to return to in the future! I really wanted to find The Hukilau Cafe (the restaurant from the movie "50 First Dates" with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore), but I didn't see it. I saw the Hukilau Surf Shop and the Hukilau Beach... but not the Cafe.

Lots of beach/coast line riding, some mountain and tunnel riding, and then we ended up on the Hawaii Interstate to buzz home.

C and I are going to see our first movie since arriving here, too. We're going to see "Saw 2"! Can't wait. =o)

Well we've been hearing surf reports on the radio, and they all are giving the high surf advisories! Since we only live a few minutes from the North Shore, we drove over to see what the fuss was!

We know that the BIG waves are in December, but if they're talking about high surf... there must be something good!

This sign is now stuck out in the sand as you walk onto the beach:

hehe I know I looked like a total tourist taking this picture, but that's ok. All in the name of photojournalism and this travel diary.

The Pipeline still has the seriously steep beach!!

Between the really soft, squishy sand and the steep incline, my legs got tired walking around!

I'm a sucker for crashing wave and gorgeous, turquoise water pictures...

I don't know any of those surfers, but had fun taking pictures of them.

Thought I'd show you what the sand is like here! I can't really describe how different it feels to walk on and lay on than the sand in South Carolina, but this is so much cooler! The sand is really just beaten down little rocks! They don't stick to you as badly as in SC... it brushes off really easily.

And when you leave the Bonzai Pipeline set of beaches.... you see THIS guy!

So the waves weren't absolutely huge yet, but they were bigger than we'd seen before... plus a trip to the ocean is never wasted, right?
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I haven't been doing a good job of showing you all the rainbows, either. This one is from yesterday, as I was coming home from a lunch get-together with 16 other military wives here on the island... (more on that in a second).

This rainbow was so WIDE... and it came down directly on top of the guard shack of our housing entrance! LOL

I am a member of a message board online for Hawaii military wives, and they have one "official" get-together every month, and yesterday was October's. We met up at Chili's restaurant, and there were 16 or 17 of us. It was fun meeting them... a bunch of ladies whom I've only chatted with on a message forum.

We also bought living room furniture yesterday... a sofa and loveseat. I didn't get any tables yet because I wanted to see what would look best and what we had room for in this little living room. Pictures will follow once I get an area rug purchased, delivered and put down.

OMG!! The dog is snoring! Never heard him do that before. LOL!!!!!!

Today we were tourists again! It was such a nice, sunny day... perfect for going thru the world's largest field maze at Dole! At least Guiness World Book of Records said it was, in 2001. The gift shop at this place was amazing!! It was like a Cracker Barrel restaurant shop, only ALL relating to pineapples! Loads of t-shirts, postcards, quilts, food stuffs, playing cards, posters, back scratchers and massagers, etc!

Here's a map of the place... the red square is the shop/restaurant. And the field maze off to the right. It's made of 8 foot hedges, except for the middle sections are made from lower bushes, and they're in the shape of a pineapple.

There are 6 hidden stations that you have to find... you can try and race thru the maze and beat the record time, or you can be leisurely and do it at your own pace. Which is what we did... I was busy taking pictures of everything! So we took 31 minutes to do it.

I took 48 pictures at Dole, and am posting 14 of them up here. The rest will get uploaded to my Yahoo Photo Album. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bikergirl_brazen/my_photos

MACKIE: I told Elizabeth that you wanted more pictures of her, so she let me take as many as I wanted today! Just for you.

Here we are at the beginning of the maze.

After the maze, we went on to the gardens. The first things you see are little pineapple plots... they have MANY different varieties of pineapples growing here! One of my favorites were cool red ones like this:

This next one's especially for Grandma Sylvia! On this sign post are lots of locations, but Beijing is at the top! Only 5,062 miles to Beijing! And 8 miles to the North Shore. hehe

Two pineapple heads!

After all the things we did around the Plantation, we went back inside and got PINEAPPLE ice cream! N got his in a waffle cone, and E & C got theirs in bowls with fresh pineapple topping!

And for the final picture today... this is the view from the lanai (porch) where we sat and ate our ice cream. Sooooooooooo relaxing sitting in the cool breeze!!

That title sounds way more exotic than it really is. "Poi" is the Hawaiian word for "mixed". So he's a mutt. A Border Collie mix... tho they didn't know what the mix is. We found him at the Hawaiian Humane Society last week... so Monday will be a week that he's been with us.

The Humane Society named him Kane, so we went along with that. They guesstimated that he's around 6 months old. He's a nice, gentle, quiet little guy with tons of energy. He loves to play! Our neighbor is a 7 month old Rottweiler, and the two get along really well, thankfully. We take them for walks to a big empty field and turn them loose.