What a great garage

Judging by the comments on a previous post, there is more interest in reading about our house projects than I thought. Come to think of it, I do like to hear about other people's projects. And it's good timing to realize that because we're moving past the stage of dealing with deferred maintenance and swinging machetes at out-of-control vegetation and into an era of actual improvements that would be more fun to blog about. (Chris just fixed our last water leak yesterday) On our wish list: a complete kitchen remodel, a master bathroom remodel, tiling our car port, building a BBQ gazebo, and lots of landscape improvements.

First and foremost, of course, was the garage. Before we even moved our stuff inside Chris, my dad, and Christoph fixed a boarded up window, completed the framing, hired Duane to do the drywall, painted, built shelves and workbenches, painted those, wired in new light fixtures, applied epoxy and glitter to the floor, overhauled the garage doors right down to the gears inside the electric garage door openers. (Why buy new when you can fix what you have?) Chris has good reason to be proud of his shop and he's open for business if anyone has a motorcycle or other device in need of repair.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

The View is Tremendous

Chris and I have had a couple of memorable hikes to our "red rock canyon" near Oniuka Center at the 9,000 foot level of Mauna Kea. If John Glenn had been on our hike with us he would have said, "the view is tremendous." Instead I shared the day with my two favorite guys, my dad and my sweetheart. The cool, dry mountain air was perfect for hiking. When we finished we stopped by the Onizuka visitor's center where we were treated to a view of the sun through their super fancy telescope. We could make out a couple of solar flares on the edge of the sun. Awesome!

All eyes on the sky

Kona had its first air show over Memorial Day weekend, and since Kona doesn't really have any events to speak of, this was a big deal. Several military planes were on display as well as some old Army Jeeps, the first airplane flown by Hawaiian Airlines, and more. The show included Melissa and Rex Pemberton, who jumped out of an airplane and "flew around" in bat suits, an F-16 demonstration, a WWII plane that sounded just like the movies and other cool stuff. I am sure the show was small compared to those on the mainland, but there was enough to keep us entertained for most of the day and I have to hand it to the organizer of Hawaii Airshow Invitational for putting so much work into bringing something like this to our area. I hope they do it again.


Chris lays in the back of the KC-136 Stratotanker while he figures out the controls used for refueling planes in mid air.


A B-1 Bomber provides refuge from the hot sun.

One Man's Trash

Chris and I bought a foreclosed house in February and our recreation time has turned into yard work and house repair time. We've accomplished a lot and for the most part we're having fun, but I haven't been blogging because I didn't want to bore everybody with, "we painted the garage, we cleared weeds," etc.

For some reason, I think this story is worth noting. We have cleared huge areas overrun by monstera by yanking it out with the Jeep and slashing it with machetes. This created massive heaps of yard waste, including one pile about 3 feet deep and almost 200 feet long. Then the daily summer rains came and the discarded monstera began to sprout, threatening to take over our yard once again. So Chris had the genius idea to put an ad on Craig's List for free monstera root and we had at least a dozen customers. They filled trucks, trailers, bags, boxes, and one guy even took a whole dump trailer full. They also raided our ginger and plumeria. I had no idea the world is full of friendly people willing to come take our garbage away. It was great!