Hawaii Trip 2014 Week 1

We were fortunate enough to get to go to Hawaii for our vacation this year.  We had gone once before in 2009 for my 30th birthday.  This year Chad turns 40 so we figured what better way to celebrate his milestone birthday than in Hawaii!  Thankfully we stayed with my Mom and step-father Mike so we had free room and board and most of our meals were at home too - that helped make the trip MUCH more affordable.  When we came to Hawaii the first time we did a few days in Oahu and then kind of did a tour of the whole Big Island - we drove all the way around the island.  This time we did more farm tours since that's something we've become very interested in.  It was really interesting to see all the different farms that we did and what was so cool was how ALL of them were working toward being self-sufficient and sustainable.  All of them had solar power and really tried to use the Island's resources instead of having things shipped in.  We also did lots of water sports - stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, and my favorite - snorkeling.  We had a really great trip and Chad had a great 40th birthday.  On his actual birthday we got to tour the Kona Brewing Company and had dinner at Outback Steakhouse in Kona.  He also got to pick out an ukulele from Hawaii as part of his birthday gift from me.  Here are just a sampling of the pictures we took on this trip - we took over 600 pictures total!  The only thing I didn't realize until we got home and I loaded the pictures on the computer was that I somehow turned on the date stamp on the pictures and didn't realize it.  So ALL the pictures have a date stamp on them - I really wish I hadn't done that, but oh well.  The pictures are still awesome and we had a great time!

These pictures are from our first 2 days in Hawaii - we had a longer layover in Honolulu so we were able to check out the garden in the airport there.  And our first full day we just slept in and relaxed to get over our jet lag.




Once we'd adjusted to the time difference, we started doing more activities. We went stand up paddle boarding and then did a 5 mile hike to the Kilauea Iki crater. It was a pretty strenuous hike, but it was really cool and we had some amazing views. Here are the pictures of our first few days of activities.



One of the unique things about Hawaii is how many wild chickens there are everywhere! My Mom and Mike feed some of the wild chickens around their house and get eggs from them almost daily. They have about 15-20 wild chickens that live around their house. Our first farm tour was to the Hilo Coffee Mill. Unfortunately it rained that day, but we still did the tour with umbrellas. I was really impressed with how self-sufficient and sustainable the farm was. And they had the BEST vanilla milkshake I've ever had!



Towards the end of our first week in Hawaii we drove over to the Kona side of the island. Last time we drove around the island, but now they have the Saddle Road open which goes across the island and cuts the driving time down significantly. The ride on Saddle road was very unique and the elevation went up to 6000 feet. We got some really great pictures and even saw a bunch of wild goats and turkeys!



We were in Kona on Chad's birthday and it worked out that we did a tour of the Kona Brewing Company that day and snorkeling in the afternoon. I was really impressed with the Kona Brewing Co. - they give the used grain from brewing to local farmers, then buy meat from those farmers to serve in their restaurant. We ate lunch at the restaurant and it was really good. On the way home from Kona we toured the Hawaiian Vanilla Company. I didn't know until recently that vanilla is in the orchid family and must be hand pollinated, so it's a VERY time consuming crop and that's why good quality vanilla is so expensive. The tour was very informative and we got to sample lots of vanilla treats too. Here are the pictures wrapping up our first week in Hawaii.

Hawaii Trip Week 2

In our second week in Hawaii we did more water sports, toured more farms and basically just enjoyed relaxing and exploring the Big Island.  Here are pictures from our second week:


In these pictures we're doing more water sports. At the snorkeling spot we even saw an eel! Snorkeling was my favorite activity to do in Hawaii by far.



Visiting Hilo's break wall we finally got to see some sea turtles. I wish we could have seen them when we were snorkeling, but we didn't this time. Here are pictures from the break wall in Hilo.



These pictures are from my Mom's friend Wendy's house. Wendy lives with her sister and brother-in-law and her brother-in-law Jeffrey has created an amazing backyard garden. They could seriously charge admission! Jeffrey gave us the best white pineapple to eat too - they are only available in Hawaii in July so that was really cool. Here are pictures from their amazing backyard garden.



One of our last farm tours was to the Hamakua Mushroom farm. It was a really unique farm in that it was all indoors. They use a Japanese technique for growing their mushrooms in jars inside with special light and humidity controlled rooms. Here are our pictures from the Hamakua Mushroom farm tour.



After the mushroom farm tour we were very near Laupahoehoe Point, which is one of our favorite spots. It's the site of a 1946 tsunami that destroyed a school. It's got a sad history, but the spot is just beautiful and the water is unbelievable - the pictures so not even begin to do it justice. Here are our pictures from Laupahoehoe Point.



Our last couple of days we visited two of the libraries where my Mom has worked and also our last farm visit was Paradise Bee Ranch that's actually located in my Mom's neighborhood. We really, really enjoyed our visit and got to see lots of awesome things. Here are our last few pictures from our Hawaii vacation.

Bats!

We had noticed bat poop on the ground underneath one of the vents on the end of our house - it wasn't every day, but every few days for a few weeks.  Before we went on vacation for 2 weeks I wanted to make sure there weren't bats inside our house!  Chad went up in the attic and saw that there were bats, but NOT inside thankfully.  They were roosting on the screen behind the wooden slats of the vent at the end of our house.  If you looked hard you could see them at certain times of the day from outside.  I got this one decent picture - you still have to look hard to see them!  I've always liked bats even though I know most people are scared of them or think they're gross.  From the Humane Society website I learned that bats raise their young between May and August and that's often when people realize they are roosting on or in their house.  I also learned that a single bat can eat 1,000 mosquito sized insects in ONE hour!  That's reason enough to tolerate a little poop on the ground sometimes!  Here's the one decent picture of our bat friends:

July Birthday Dinner

Since my brother Fielding and Chad's birthdays are both in July we usually get together to celebrate their birthdays.  The last 2 years we've grilled out at our house instead of going out to eat.  This year we would be in Hawaii on Chad's birthday, so we made sure to have the July Birthday dinner before our vacation.  Fielding and his girlfriend Alicia came over and we grilled pork chops and lamb chops with veggies from our garden.  I also made homemade oatmeal pies.  Here are a few pictures from the July birthday dinner:

Enjoying the oatmeal pies.

Alicia, Fielding, Jessica, and Chad

The July birthday boys!

Fielding and Jessica.

Pickles!

We have had such a huge crop of cucumbers from our garden that we needed to make pickles to preserve them.  We made refrigerator pickles last summer before we took our canning class, but this summer we were able to can our pickles.  It was a good thing too because we ended up with 12 pint jars of pickles!  We have so many more cucumbers coming in that we'll probably be able to do a few more batches before the summer is over.  It is definitely work to process everything and go through all the steps of canning, but there is such a feeling of accomplishment and pride to know that you grew these cucumbers and now you're making your own pickles and canning them!  I hope to give some of these pickles as gifts this Christmas and it's so nice to give gifts that you've created/grown/etc. yourself.

Getting ready to start processing the cucumbers.

Our 12 pints of pickles!

Katie's Baptism

My friend Amanda and I have worked together at two different libraries and it's been great to see her daughter Katie growing up.  Recently Katie accepted Christ as her Savior and wanted to be baptized.  Amanda told me that when she asked Katie who she would like to invite to her baptism service she asked her parents to invite me and Chad.  That meant so much to us that she specifically wanted to invite us!  Katie is such a sweet little girl and has wonderful parents who are great examples to her.  Here are a few pictures from her baptism service:

Katie was so small it was hard to see her from the church!

I borrowed this one her Mom took from behind the scenes.

4th of July

The 4th of July has become one of my favorite holidays.  The Harrisburg 4th of July activities have really grown over the past 10 years and for at least the past 8 years we've been going to the parade with our friends Becca & Jason and Kelly & Paul - and now their children as well.  This year Jason is working for the Harrisburg fire department and got to park one of the fire trucks near us and had a 50 foot American flag hanging from the ladder!  So, it wasn't hard to find us at the parade this year!  Here are some pictures from the parade:



Another 4th of July tradition for the past few years has been a birthday party for our friends Becca & Jason's kids Braden and Katie. Braden's birthday is in July and Katie's is in June, so they do a combination birthday party for both of them on the 4th of July. Even though we're probably the only people at the party who don't have kids we love hanging out with everyone and enjoying both the kids birthday and the 4th of July. This year I forgot to bring the kids gifts to the party (they don't usually open them at the party, but I still felt bad forgetting.) so we brought their gifts over the next day and got to see them open them and play with them for awhile. Here are some pictures from their birthday party:


Last year we were able to watch the Harrisburg fireworks from Becca and Jason's house, but this year they changed where the fireworks were shot off so we couldn't watch from their house. Chad and I decided to walk down to the Harrisburg park to watch the fireworks. The festivities have grown so much that it's pretty overwhelming with the huge numbers of people at the park for the activities and fireworks. One the one hand I'm glad that the Harrisburg 4th of July celebration has grown, but on the other hand I kind of miss when it was smaller and less crowded. Here are a few pictures of the Harrisburg park festivities:

More Garden Pictures

Our garden is doing really well this year!  I really think having a few trees removed and working on the soil over the past year has made a HUGE difference.  We are getting TONS of veggies from the garden!  Here are some pictures of the garden in late June:

Another Product of the Industrial Food System

I saw this on my way in to work recently.  If you look closely that huge tanker truck says "Chicken Blood" on it.  Just another by-product of our wonderful industrial food system!  The irony is that this truck is probably heading to the Tyson plant in Monroe and when I saw this I was reading The Meat Racket by Christopher Leonard which is about the industrial meat industry, specifically Tyson Foods because they created the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) system that all industrialized meats use.  I went to junior high and high school in Monroe and we knew tons of people who were industrial chicken farmers for Tyson.  You constantly saw the trucks full of live chickens on their way to the Tyson plant in Monroe where they would be processed.  At the time I felt sorry for the chickens, but didn't really connect that to the chicken I ate.  Now, seeing this tanker truck full of (or soon to be full of) chicken blood my first thought is "Thank God for small-scale local farmers who give other options than this."  I am SO thankful every week when we go to the farmer's market and talk to the farmers we buy from.  We tell them about our garden and ask questions about their farms and they KNOW us.  We KNOW them - we've visited some of them and know there are no tanker trucks full of blood because they do things on a smaller, sustainable scale.  It's nice to know that as Joel Salatin advises you CAN "opt out" of the industrial food system and support your "local, lunatic farmers" - especially when you see this driving down 485 one day.

2014 Garden

We definitely learned a lot from our garden last year - the first in our new house.  But, there is ALWAYS something to learn when it comes to gardening!  This year Chad built a cold frame for us to start our seeds and I don't know why, but none of the seeds came up - not even one!  We re-planted directly in the garden and everything came up.  But, something was eating our okra seedlings as soon as they came out of the ground.  We couldn't figure out what it was.  Finally we caught the okra culprit - slugs!  By then only a few plants had survived and we were out of seeds.  I'm hoping that the few okra plants that made it will be successful since that's my favorite vegetable we grow.  So, far the other plants are looking great and we even have lettuce for the first time!  Here are some pictures of the beginnings of our 2014 garden:

Mother's Day and Father's Day 2014

My parents were both 21 when I was born - my Dad turned 21 only 3 days before I was born.  It really didn't hit me how young they were until I was that age and married myself, but without kids.  I had a great childhood and appreciate everything they've done for me.  This year for Mother's Day and Father's Day I posted some old pictures on Facebook that I thought I would post here too.

This picture is 4 generations of women on my Mom's side.  My grandmother Rosa Lee, my Mom Susan holding me at a few months old, and my great-grandmother Mittie.  These 3 women have been hugely influential in my life.  My great-grandmother set up an education trust fund that paid for my undergraduate and graduate degrees 100% - that is such an incredible blessing to not have any student loan debt at all.  My grandmother spent tons of time with me and my brother as kids driving us all around Wilmington when we would visit and doing whatever we wanted to do.  She is now 88 and still going strong!  Of course my Mom has been a huge influence and she and my Dad sacrificed financially for her to stay home with me and my brother.  We may not have had a ton of money, but my Mom was great at getting really thoughtful gifts that we loved and always doing special treats and things for us when we were growing up.  I'm very thankful to have had all these women in my life!

For Father's Day I posted these two pictures of me and my Dad.  The top one is at his college graduation from Appalachian in August 1981 - I was almost 2 years old.  The bottom one is us at my college graduation from UNCC in December 2002.  My Dad always stressed the importance of an education - it's something that can NEVER be taken away from you.  His mother worked outside the home when he was growing up and that was very rare for that time.  He and his sister were the first ones in their family to go to college and he definitely expected the same from me.  Even though my Mom stayed home with me and my brother, my Dad wanted to make sure I had options.  He saw the value in both a working mother and a stay-at-home mother.  I minored in Women's Studies in college and I definitely appreciate that my Dad wanted his daughter to have options and an education.  I know he is so proud that I not only graduated from college, but also have a master's degree.  I am so thankful for my Dad and all he's taught me!

May 2014 Adventures

We had a busy month in May.  We went on the Know Your Farms Tour and visited 3 farms, Cackleberry, Big Oak, and T&D.  We also hosted our niece Karissa's 13th birthday party at our house.  Here are some pictures from May:


The Know Your Farms tour is really fantastic. We went for the first time last year and I didn't realize until this year that it actually happens twice a year - in the spring and in the fall. The Cackleberry farm was kind of a let-down, but we REALLY enjoyed visiting Big Oak and T&D. T&D was one of the first farms we bought our meat from when we started getting all our meat from the farmer's market. We had also visited them on our own a few years ago, but it was really nice to get the whole tour. This tour is a great way to get to know where your food comes from and find some great local farmers to support. Here are the pictures from the May 2014 Know Your Farms tour:



This year both of our nieces want to have "bonfire" birthday parties at our house. Since we don't have kids and we have a great outdoor space we were happy to host. We did the party a few weeks after our niece's actual birthday and they had a really great time. It was a little stressful, but overall it went much better than I anticipated. The kids were great and really enjoyed the party, even though they weren't as interested in the actual bonfire part. I'm glad that we could host Kariss'a party and we're looking forward to hosting Kathryn's later this year. Here are some pictures from Karissa's party:

14th Wedding Anniversary

Chad & I celebrated 14 years of marriage this year!  I swear it goes by so fast - I can hardly believe we've already been married for 14 years.  We didn't do anything super exciting for our anniversary since we're going to Hawaii this summer.  We went out to eat at Outback, which is wear we ate after our wedding, and Chad got me some beautiful roses.

The beautiful roses Chad got me.

On our wedding day at the Latimer House in Wilmington.

Wedding pictures at Wrightsville Beach.

April Coupon Savings!

In April I got everything pictured above at Harris Teeter for $32.50 and SAVED $40.00 with coupons and sales!

Spring Cat Pictures

Here are some pictures of the cats this spring.  I love these cats so much and they are so sweet and really enjoy spending time together.  Although Roxy does like to get into trouble - you'll see in the pictures what she got into recently!  Here are some pictures of Sandy & Roxy from this spring:

Spring 2014

We had a pretty cold winter this year, so it was nice to finally see Spring coming!  Here are some pictures around our house this Spring:




We also did some projects around the house this spring. We had a few trees taken down to get more sunlight in the garden. While I kind of hate to take trees down, we have a LOT of trees and need more light for the garden. Chad also built a few new things for our garden too. Here are the pictures of our spring projects:

Switchfoot Concert at Amos' Southend

We got to see Switchfoot in concert at Amos' Southend in March.  I've been a Switchfoot fan for awhile and thought they would put on a pretty good show.  Plus, Amos' is such a great venue and the tickets were only $20 each.  They rocked out and at one point the lead singer went into the audience and actually climbed up to the balcony level - I really wish I had gotten a picture of him climbing up!  It was a great show and we really enjoyed it.  Here are a few pictures from the concert:

Spring is Coming!

We've had some pretty crazy weather so far in 2014 - snow more than once, really cold weather, LOTS of rain and we've finally started getting a few really nice spring-like days.  One of the signs that you know spring is coming is when the daffodils start coming up.  Even though it's still been pretty cold when you see the daffodils you know it's not too much longer before better weather!

Weekend in Wilmington 2/28 - 3/2

While my Mom was in NC helping take care of my Grandmother we were able to go for two weekends to visit them in Wilmington.  The last weekend I didn't take as many pictures, but here are two from our trip:

Playing Spite & Malice

Sweet Pea stays close to my Grandmother.  I know she missed her when my Grandmother was in the hospital and rehab center.

Sandy

I think this is my new favorite picture of Sandy.  Chad took it recently and it just really captures Sandy's personality.  She LOVES to sleep in our bed and almost always takes the warm spot on my side when I get up.  She also likes "helping" me change the sheets and tries to stay on the bed the whole time I take the sheets off and put new ones on.

This is not the best quality picture, but Chad took this one of me and Sandy snuggling one morning.  She doesn't sleep with me like this all the time, but I love it when she does!

This one is of Sandy looking out onto the deck.  She loves to soak up sunshine any time she can!