Poipu with Stacey

On Monday August 22, Stacey and I went down south to Poipu for the day before heading back up to the east side for a luau in the evening. Here are some pics from our day in Poipu (luau pics to come later.)

Spouting Horn, a geyser:

The shore to the right of Spouting Horn:

A performer who set up shop near the geyser:

The shopping tent where Stacey bought most of her souvenirs -- see her browsing in the bottom right-hand corner?:

We killed some time picking up miniscule pieces of sea glass at Glass Beach (strange... my Safari spellcheck doesn't recognize the word "miniscule"):

Then we killed some more time at the Kauai Coffee Plantation. I'd never been there before. Outside there was a tree (Stacey, was it called a monogram tree?) with names carved into the leaves, inside there was a gift shop, tiny museum, and an outdoor deck where you could sample dozens of flavors of coffee:

On the way back to Wailua from Poipu, we stopped at the end of the tree tunnel and took pictures. It's one of my favorite easily-accessed scenery spots on the island -- such a beautiful road to drive. Check out all the tropical trees and plants.

And then we went to the Smith Family Luau... stay tuned for pics and a recap. 

Mind: blown.

I learned something today.  You know that tennis-like British sport played with racquets and a birdie? It's called Badminton. NOT Badmitton. My entire life I've been saying it wrong and spelling it wrong (in my head, that is -- I think this is the first time I've written it.) I'm flabbergasted as to how I could have gone 24 years without being corrected. Another noteworthy fact: the birdies are called "shuttlecocks." Tee-hee.  

Today I also...

...discovered that I greatly enjoy saltine crackers.
...went impromptu grocery shopping with Olivia.
...began re-reading the Harry Potter series because I finally received a used copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that I bought on Amazon for $4.00 (including shipping.) I'm doing this to celebrate the launch of the Pottermore website... is anyone as intrigued by it as I am?

...went for an evening swim on my own and floated on my back in the tiny swell -- is there anything more relaxing?

...worked.
...went to the Hanalei barbecue.
...watched some old episodes of Boy Meets World. Such a great show.
...started to make a list of books I've read. Why? Dunno.

Pictures Galore

And now for a recap of the third full day of Stacey's visit -- Sunday Aug 21. We went on a hiking photo tour with the company Kauai Photo Tours and took loooooots of pictures. Before we set out for the day I bought a polarizer for my camera to give my pictures more color and definition, and I'm SO glad I did. 

First on our stop was Ho'opi'i Falls. Here's the river that feeds the falls:

The waterfall:

Our guide, Levi, having some fun:

The trail leading back to where we parked:

Next we went to Anahola beach park:

Stacey:

Me and Stacey:

Stacey and Scott:

Me, Stacey, and Charmaine:

And my favorite picture from the whole day:

We then stopped at Moloa'a:

And then at Larson's. In the foreground of the second photo is mold-covered lava rock:

On the way to Secrets, we stopped at a fruit stand where we got fresh coconut, starfruit, and liliko'i. Levi showed off his skills with a knife:

We then went to Secrets Beach. Here is a flower from a liliko'i plant along the trail down to the beach:

And a graffiti mural also on the trail:

Secrets:

We stopped at Foodland to grab lunch, then headed to tourist Lumahai to eat. I neglected to take pictures there because I was so consumed with my food and because, let's face it, I live here and can take pictures whenever I want. We were in a rush to get back, but we did take the time for a quick cliff jump and refreshing, leisurely swim back to shore.

On the way back to Kapa'a (where the tour had launched), we took a detour onto a dirt inland road that led to a beautiful overlook of the back of Anahola valley and Sleeping Giant. The picture doesn't do it justice.

After the tour, we ate dinner with our group at Hukilau Lanai, and then Stacey and I went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which was better than I thought it was going to be! And that was Sunday.

A dose of Truth

In regards to the tension between Christian ministry and the pursuit of wealth/status (the American Dream), Ryan Voight recently said during a sermon, "You shouldn't set out to do good and expect to end up doing well."

I have some things to think about.

Stacey!

Two weeks ago my cousin and life-long friend Stacey came to visit me in Kauai! She was only here for 5 days, but we packed in a lot of sightseeing. Our original plan was to skydive and get tattoos... but a week before her visit, she and her husband found out that they're expecting! (Which is way more exciting than skydiving.) So we stayed away from freefalls and ink needles. Here's a rundown of our first three days:


Thursday August 18: 

I picked Stacey up from the airport in the evening, and we got dinner in Kapa'a at Olympic Café. We came home and both went to sleep around 8:30. She had been up since the wee hours of the morning (EST), and I was just tired for no good reason. Around 1:00 am I was wide awake with that sticky throat feeling and went to the kitchen to get a drink, and on my way back to my bedroom I stopped in my office to grab some papers I needed in the morning. But... cane spider. Right in the middle of the floor. So I shut my office door and shoved a towel under it to trap the spider in there overnight so my boss could kill it in the morning. I also put a towel under my bedroom door for added protection. Oddly, I fell right asleep after that.

Friday August 19: 

No sign of the spider; it escaped my office overnight. I worked until 11, then Stacey and I went snorkeling at Tunnels Beach on the north shore. It rained a tiny bit once we got there so we stood under the bathrooms and chatted with a local who let us touch the suckers of his freshly-speared and still-living octopus. We snorkeled for about an hour, and even though it was somewhat cloudy we saw oodles of colorful fish and reef and rocks and cliffs. No honu (sea turtles), but still breathtaking!

We ate lunch at a food stand that sold cold, juicy fresh fruit, walked through a dry cave across the road, and stopped in Hanalei to window shop. We c ame home and showered, I worked for an hour while Stacey napped, and then we went back to Hanalei for a beach barbecue. (My church has a weekly outreach beach ministry there on Friday nights. Swimming, food, bonfire, fun.) Stacey got to meet a few of my friends, which was nice.

And that was Friday. By the end of the day, Stacey’s back was fried. Luckily, that was her only malady during the trip -- no jet-lag, morning sickness, nothing. She's a trooper. 

Here's a picture Stacey took at Tunnels:

Saturday August 20th: 

Saturday was a busy day. I worked until 11 again, then we stopped at a couple dinky farmers markets and didn't really find much (apple bananas and starfruit were our breakfast.) We headed down to the south shore for the day and stopped in historic Hanapepe for lunch at a grungy diner, which we HOPED would be one of those rare hole-in-the-wall restaurants that looks disgusting but produces heavenly food.  Fail. The food was pretty gross. So we stopped at gas station for a candy fix and headed west to Waimea Canyon, where we had a tourist take our picture:

After the canyon, we drove up north to the pier in Hanalei to watch the sunset, then we grabbed some dinner at foodland, came home, and crashed. I had my iPhone with me and just managed to catch a few pictures of the sunset before it began to pour. I love the boats in the second one. The last picture is a gorgeous shot that Stacey took of the pier after the rain.

Writing is like, so totally zen.

I've decided to start blogging daily. Not every day will bring mammoth amounts of words or depth -- some days I may only post a picture -- but I've come to realize that much, much too much of my life is slipping through my fingers because of my mental carelessness. In failing to record my life, I'm essentially discarding parts of it. And it's not only the forgetting of events that I'm concerned about, but the forgetting of thoughts and growth and feelings.

For some reason, when I'm not writing (be it any sort of writing: journaling, blogging, fiction, poetry, etc) my life makes no sense to me. Everything gets all jumbled and disorganized, and I have trouble pinpointing what I'm learning, who I've become, or what is Truth. My mind gets lethargic when I don't write. My vocabulary dwindles. I get twitchy.

Blogging is a discipline that keeps me writing, and that is my main motivation for doing it. That's right, "to keep everyone informed of my life" is no longer the motivation or the purpose statement of this blog. In fact, I don't really like to keep people informed. My life is my own. I very often feel invaded when I blog and would sometimes rather pretend that nobody anywhere reads what I write.

Other times I feel disgruntled when no one comments and I sulk because I don't have many followers.

Ah, self-contradiction.

So yes, I'm going to blog daily, even if it's just a sentence or two. I may switch platforms from Blogger to Wordpress at some point in the future, but I'll let you all know of the change in url address if that happens. Soon (tomorrow?) I'll share some pictures and stories from my cousin Stacey's visit last week.

For today, here are a couple of pictures from the Kauai County Fair this weekend. I intended to take lots of pictures, but I left my Nikon in the car since it was raining when we got there. I did snap a couple pics with my iPhone in the agriculture tent of the Bonsai trees and orchids (...and a baby on a swing.)

I've put "grow a Bonsai tree" on my bucket list. It may seem like a strange or mundane goal, but there is something mystical and hypnotic about them. This picture is of a Bonsai tree wrapped around some sort of stone that looks like black lava rock. The photo hardly does the display justice (couldn't get a good angle; some green-thumb old ladies were obstructing my view by ooo-ing and ahhh-ing over it), but it looked like a landscape from Middle Earth or some fantasy tale. I see all sorts of owls and squirrels and hobbits and woodland creatures scampering through the crevices of rock and tree. I would love to have something like this in my living room someday. Something about it is so zen.

I like zen lately. I need zen lately.
Perhaps I'll purchase a zen garden...

Back on the horse...

At the request of family and friends at home, I’m welcoming myself back to the world of blogging. So to begin, a very brief and cursory recap of the last few months:

I lived it up Kauai and did lots of awesome things with lots of awesome people and made new friends and worked lots of hours and modeled for a photoshoot and started a band and got a staph infection and got hired as an intern content writer for a tourism website… and then came home to Ohio for two weeks and just returned to Kauai a couple days ago.

Here’s a visual (all iPhone) retelling of my time at home in Ohio:

Snapped this picture of the backyard as soon as I got home (July 4^th… after having a flight cancelled, staying in a sketchy hotel for a night, and hitchhiking to the airport the next morning) just because I miss the trees. We had a July 4^th party with relatives and a few family friends that evening, and I was so excited to see everyone even though I was so exhausted.

Went to Cedar Point with my brother, Brandi, Michael, and Kyle. It was the first time I’d been there in several years, so I got to experience the new rides (Maverick and WindSeeker) and my favorite old rides (Millennium Force and Magnum.) Amazing story of the day: Michael’s uncased iPhone flew out of his pocket on the Magnum, and when he reclaimed it a few hours later it was unscratched. That thing’s a brute. Also, Kyle educated us on the new phenomenon of “planking.” Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds and looks like... here's a picture of Kyle planking on the carnival game post right before I hit him with the mallot. :)

Went to the midnight premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2!!!!! Definitely a highlight of my trip home. Our group consisted of Bellatrix Lestrange (me), Luna Lovegood (Brandi), Professor Trelawney (Di), Sirius Black (Arch), Nymphadora Lupin née Tonks (Bailey), and Remus Lupin (Ethan). We also had two well-dressed Englishmen (Marc and Kyle) and two lame-os who didn’t dress up at all (Andy and Michael.)  

Got a small tattoo. (Can now cross that off my bucket list.) That will be a separate post in itself as I’ll want to explain the tattoo’s significance, but here are pictures of me and Brandi during the inking process. Brandi got “Perplexed but not in despair” (2 Corinthians reference) written down her side, and note that the look on her face is not a smile, but a grimace. The third picture is a plaque on the wall… if you can’t read the beginning, the word being defined is “die.” Heh.

Went to church, my dad’s class on “Erasing Hell” (a book by Francis Chan written in response to Rob Bell’s recent controversial release “Love Wins”), and the dedication service for our new church building. In honor of my return home, Chris Schenk made me a cake in the shape of a spider, which I shared with Dad’s class and my old band:

Went to Gervasi Vineyard with my parents and brother… it felt like a getaway vacation. We ate at the outdoor patio restaurant, where instead of a waiting room (because they don’t take reservations and the wait time can be over 2 hours) they open up the grounds and gardens for guests to wander about. There were people scattered all over the lawn beside the lake—some had brought picnic blankets and card tables, etc. There were three cornhole boards set up (Marc and I beat the parents) and two bocce ball courts (the parents beat Marc and I.) Picture of the lake:

And notably, though I don’t have any pictures to show for it, I also went to Bowling Green to visit my roomies Heidi and Julie, which is always a good time. Neither do I have pictures for the Girls' Day with mom (she treated me to a massage while she got a pedicure, then we went shopping), the multiple party nights at Kyle's, or the afternoons spent at my grandparents' swimming pool... but all were bliss.