When I Get to Heaven

There are lots of things I want to do when I get to heaven, here's one of the stupid ones. I want to drive cars off cliffs. I have always wanted to do that. Often times, I come down steep Wikolia Street and wish I could just floor it and see how far I can launch my Jeep when I get to the road's end. In heaven, I imagine we'll get to do stuff like that.


This cliff by Beach 69 would be a great place to try it:

Here's what it would look like, just before the Jeep's wheels leave the ground. Sail away, baby!

I'm a Sponger

Every surfer I know has been jonesing for waves. Pine no more, winter water has finally arrived. I just didn't feel like surfing today so I grabbed my boogie board and headed north. It was big and nasty at Kua Bay. It sure looked fun, but I didn't feel like dying today so I moved on. There were some beautiful waves breaking off the southern point of Beach 69 in Puako, but they were too big for me as well. So I decided to fight the crowds at Hapuna, I don't think I've been there for a year or more. And I had a blast! I forgot how fun boogie boarding is...make fun of me all you want, I enjoy it more than surfing. I can't even tell you how many times I got barrelled (OK, so I went over the falls a few times, too, but even that was fun) I rode waves until I was so exhausted I could barely walk back to the car.


Body boarding Hapuna Beach- my waterproof houseing didin't hold the water out for long in today's conditions. It started leaking after two sets of waves.


Kua Bay was gnarly. It looked fun but I was just too chicken:

Showing off the loot

Everything you see here: a homemade skirt, a water purifier (now I can hike Waimanu Valley) venison, elk and buffalo meat, a 1-gig USB flash disk, trekking poles, a Buck knife, three movies (Blues Brothers 2000, Napoleon Dynamite, Endless Summer 2) a Chris Tomlin CD, a John Deere tin, and an original water color painting by Jerri. Oh yeah, I forgot the color books and crayon set Lydia and Camille sent.

Silliest Gift

Cousin Jeanne gets the award for sending the silliest gift. It's a palm tree with Christmas lights that dances and sings Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. I thought about taking it to work tomorrow but it's pretty loud, so it may not be appreciated there.

Stylin'

My Five Star advertising team cruised to the West Hawaii Today Christmas party at the Hapuna Prince Hotel in style. I admit I wasn't that excited about the limo ride until we climbed in and started pouring the drinks, we had a blast! I did have to learn a little limousine etiquette, however. I showed up with a cooler with growler of Lavaman Red Ale and a stack of plastic cups while everyone else sipped champagne from long-stem crystal glasses.

The room the party was held in looked familiar, it was at the old Splash! At Hapuna nightclub, one of the lamest nightspots I have ever been to. But there was nothing lame about our Christmas party, good food, good dancing music (Lava 808) good company!

Here's Ron and Jennifer (it was a masquerade theme) Mahalo to whoever took the picture:

Backyard Driver

They're building a house right next door to ours which is a major bummer because we're going to loose a lot of our view. And the noise and dust is obnoxious. But there is a positive side to all of this. The guy doing the excavating leveled out our backyard so we no longer have a rocky canyon behind our house. Now we have plenty of room for fruit trees!

I figured once the house is built next door I'll never be able to drive to the backyard, so I took that opportunity today. It's pretty steep and loose. It took me four tries to get up the hill in 4 low. If I have the urge to try again, I'll see if I have better luck in 4 high. Maybe I can get a better running start up the hill that way.

Fun-filled Weekend

The Holualoa lights festival is a Christmas tradition I look forward to every year. I love the small town charm and old Hawaii feel. My favorite group this year was the ukulele band singing Christmas songs in Hawaiian on the lanai of the old Holualoa post office, which is practically small enough to fit in my bedroom. We continued the festivities at Baron's with pizza and beer. Sorry I forgot the camera.

Saturday was kayaking with my new friends Chris and Laurie. We set out on the beach at Kiholo Bay and paddled north where we did some snorkeling and Chris tried to catch an octopus. The wind picked up and it was REALLY blowing. Paddling against the wind would have been entirely out of the question, and we couldn't turn right or left, either. It would have been a scary situation except the wind was blowing in the exact direction we needed to go. So we braved the swells and whitecaps as we coasted all the way back to the beach without hardly even paddling.

Here's a photo I took after the wind died down:

Hawaiian Santa

You know the song...Hawaiian Santa is a sight to see, when he comes surfing into Waikiki, he waves aloha bringing Christmas cheer, Mele Kalikimaka and Happy New Year...

The Christmas decorations are up. The tree, the Christmas village, the exterior illumination as my dad likes to call it, the ten-foot star on the roof, and Surfin' Santa hangs ten once again on his plywood wave beside the driveway. I love this time of year!

Christmas movie recommendations:
Deck the Halls is not the greatest, but it is entertaining. It's definitely worth a laugh, and I hate to admit it but Danny Devito outdid Christmas Vacation's Clark Griswold with the Christmas lights.

The Nativity Story: Awesome! I loved it. It's a realistic look at an amazing story that is, in my opinion, often misrepresented. Nativity scenes are just a little too cute. This movie reminds us that the most influential King of all time, the Son of God Himself really did enter this world in the most humble of ways: as helpless baby in a stinky barn. Mary's own life was in danger when people assumed she had been promiscuous. The couple faced an exhausting 100-mile journey to Bethlehem, then later had to flee to a foreign country while King Herod went on a rampage, killing every baby in the area. It's refreshing to take an accurate look at what that first Christmas was really like. Well done!