A-Z 2013 the letter H

No matter what "H"word I came up with nothing seemed to measure up to my favorite vacation spots. It also happens to be where my brother and his family lives.

Hawaii, my "H" word.

Since my "B" word was beach I'll try to give you a glimpse the flavor of the island with a touch of beach.

Since my words can't do justice to the beauty of this place; this post will mainly be pictures.

No matter where you are, even the car the views are always spectacular.

My sister-in -laws friend invited us over for a cocktail party. This lovely outside bar was in her yard beside the pool. That's my son inside playing beer-tender..

Such beautiful flowers always blooming everywhere all over the island.

Beautiful isn't it?

These lovely ladies serenaded us for a time before my nephews wedding. 

How'd you like to be swimming and have this big guy come up next to you?

Not every beach is sand there are plenty of beaches (this one being on the north shore) that are very rocky. I can't swear but I think this is Sharks Cove....been a while.

Plate lunch or dinner anyone? This type of food is a cultural food staple on the island of Oahu.This is just one of many varieties; Kalua pork,  poi, macaroni salad, lomi lomi salmon, and a roll. Who wants to cook, just have the food driven up to your house... My beautiful niece is beside the truck..

Sorry I couldn't resist one pretty neat beach picture. I took this on Waimea Bay. I don't know who these ladies are but I like the way they're keeping their balance!

Have you ever been to Hawaii?

If not did you have a favorite picture?

Don't miss my next blog post. 
Follow me on Google friend connect or 

if you'd like you can subscribe and receive

my posts by email.

Both are located on the left sidebar.   

And don't forget to visit my friends 
who are participating in the A-Z Blogging Challenge

A-Z 2013 the letter "B"

It was pretty much a no brain-er  for me when it came to choosing my "B" word. Those of you who know
me or regularly read this blog know...

I love the beach; so naturally beach is my "B" word.

I thought right off the bat in this blogging challenge I'd mix it up a bit by adding photographs in my posts if appropriate. I have personally visited all of these beaches and taken all of these photographs.

Lets visit some of my favorite beaches together shall we?

This first beach is a lovely beach in St Maarten. 

Hawaii

And what would beach pictures be without at least one beach story?

Halieiwa, Hawaii

Back in the late 1970's my brother lived in a house right beside this very beach in Haleiwa, Hawaii. When I arrived on the island the first thing I did was put on my suit and jump in the water right in this very spot. I dove into the beautiful clear water  being careful of the large rocks that dot the bottom of the oceans floor in this area. 

When I came up for air I remember being surprised at the power of the waves and how quickly the next wave approached. Then all of the sudden with the next wave came a surprise I would never forget. A school of slim green fish about six inches long jumped out of the wave and literally slapped against my body one after the other. I stood there waist deep in a hail of live fish and I was one horrified teenager!

Shocked by the fish pelting I ran from the water like gangbusters. My brother was in stitches as he watched this all play out from the safety of the shoreline.  Thirty plus years later he still gets a kick out of my reaction which was and I quote....

"I'm never swimming in here again there are fish in there!"

O.K don't laugh to hard I was a teenager remember!

Waimea Bay, Hawaii

Barbados has great beaches and even better rum, if you like that kind of thing!

Long Beach NY, recently hit very badly by the hurricane. 

This picture is pre Sandy

Sandbridge, Virginia Beach

So tell me folks what's your favorite place?

Don't miss my next blog post. 
Follow me on Google friend connect or 

if you’d like you can subscribe and receive my posts by e-mail.

Both are located on the left side-bar.   

And don't forget to visit my friends 
who are participating in the A-Z Blogging Challenge

family,food, cake and a hike

After DC the family got together at my house for some food and relaxation.We did do a lot of walking after all. I have to say mother nature really cooperated and the weather was wonderful so we gathered outside.

My daughter, her husband and their kids Adam, Emmanuel and Xavier drove down to visit with my brother Paul and his daughter Amanda who were visiting from Hawaii. I'm afraid we didn't get pictures of everyone but here goes...

Here's Heather, my daughter and her Uncle Paul hanging out saying their hello's.

And here's Mom, my son Matthew and my son in law Bo enjoying the beautiful day and an adult beverage before we ate.

My husband isn't much for cooking in the house, however he is great at the grill! And of course that's Heather again, even as a child she was a ham bone!

My grandson Emmanuel's birthday was last week so we had to have a cake right? What kind of grandparents would we be! With his parents looking on he's blowing out his candles and making his wish.

Then they all took a hike back onto our property which is about 26 or so acres, this is what they saw.The next three pictures were taken by my nine year old grandson Xavier. I think he's got a bit of talent don't you?

This is our pond, a timber company just cleared about one square mile of timber on the other side of it for a family who inherited the land. It looks terrible and leaves much of my area looking more like a prairie.

This is our old three level tobacco barn. It hasn't been used in many many years as you can see by it's condition. The tobacco would be hung on poles up on top across beams and then a fire would be built on the ground and the tobacco is smoked before going to market.

These are a several trees that are sure to become fire wood for our wood stove at some point. They are most certainly storm damage from our last hurricane. 

And now a few pictures that my niece Amanda took when she was out and about on the hike.

This is a deer track that they found out in the woods, we have a family of deer who come up to the house regularly and eat the apples and pears off the trees.

Our apples are just about done as you can see, this one is pretty rotten on the vine, and the leaves are almost all on the ground now.

And that was our family day, with food, cake and a hike. My brother and his daughter left to go back to Hawaii early this morning. We are SO happy that they could come and so sad to see them go. Maybe next time we can all get together; all of us.

my trip to D.C with the family

Our trip to DC was great, the drive is just under three hours so it really is a good trip to do for us. Just close enough but not to much of a hassle if you time the traffic right to get there without thinking your driving in a parking lot.

Me, my husband, our son and my mom borrowed our daughter's mini van and with Bill at the wheel we  headed up for a few days to meet my brother and niece and do some sight seeing. 

Matthew works five days on and five days off at his job, he's having a little snooze after working some very long 12 hour tours.

My mother is reading a text message! I believe it was my brother calling me old but saying it was my niece writing the texts. You know why? He's older of course!

I know I should have did my roots but instead of making excused of why I'm so grey; I'll tell you the back story of why my brother Paul and my Goddaughter Amanda who live in Hawaii were going to DC. Actually they started their trip in New York visiting with my brother Gerard and my sister in law Denise and kiddies, Syd, Gerard and Alex. Then they popped on an Amtrak to DC for the second half of their trip for a little sight seeing before heading to Virginia for a visit with Mom and us.

We arrived at the hotel within twenty minutes of them and went directly to the nearest Irish Pub, sorry no pictures of that my camera batteries were dead that minute and my replacements were around the corner in the hotel. God bless my brother who spotted the Pub on his two block walk from Union Station to the Washington Court Hotel where we stayed.

Yeh!  My niece Amanda  had this picture of the Pub door on her camera! I'm so happy to be able to add this to my post.

The hotel was very nice by the way, clean and reasonably priced. Our only problem was and how can I put this delicately, the walls were "thin" either that or the ladies in the next room lets just call them Mona were very uninhibited, morning, noon and night; bless their hearts!

So then to get off to sight seeing, Mom begged off since being pushed around DC in a wheel chair was just not her cup of tea we headed off in the direction of the Smithsonian's with our hearts set on the American History one. This is us in front of it, actually this picture shows the building across the street.

In the Presidents section of the museum they had these cool street signs the glowed against the dark back round when I took this picture I thought this might be a nice desk top background if you were a president freak or a road sign enthusiast.

Then we were off and walking after they kicked us out of the museum at 5:30. And the next day there was more walking and some driving in the van.... this is what we saw.

This is the Achieves, the building is so huge, much like everything in DC that from the sidewalk this was all that would fit in the picture frame of my digital camera, there are tons of stairs and a whole lot more building missing from the picture, the building is incredible.

Paul and Matthew dwarfed by the rotunda of the Capital Building...looks so huge doesn't it?

Here's Matthew and Amanda, I see the family resemblance don't you?

Me and my brother Paul hanging near the Washington Monument;  I didn't notice any cracks or tilting.

We wanted to get some pictures of the Washington Monument, just in case. With all the news of cracks and repairs...well you never know!

My brother was very impressed with the grass in DC, he dubbed it the "big grass". I guess living on a small island such as Oahu, most everything looks big here. My husband mows tons of grass weekly...not so impressed *giggle*

I grabbed this picture from one block over and you can just see parts of the White House peeking up threw the trees. 

My brother Paul and Amanda on the grass  with the Washington Monument in the background.

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial you can see the reflecting pool is getting a make over. It struck me how large it really is when the huge machines that were excavating it appeared to look more like Tonka toys from above!

And good ole President Lincoln, looking so majestic overseeing all that construction and all the throngs of tourists, he really is a beautiful monument.

And don't think Mom sat in the hotel the whole time, we did get her out and about...

Even at 83 a woman's gotta eat so we put Mom on the Metro, see Matthew was her driver and we all went down to Chinatown for dinner. We had a great meal there. Actually it should be mentioned DC is a very handicapped friendly city the corners have ramps and the metro stations have elevators so we didn't have to much of a problem navigating her around other than we were unfamiliar with the location of the elevators.

So anyway Mom's meal was spectacular, she ordered steamed oysters in black bean sauce WOW was it a sight! And this time I did have my camera.

There was a lot more to see but alas not enough time, back to the house for us there was a large TV and a baseball world series game that needed to be seen. The next day my daughter and family are coming so there's another post needing to be written. There's food, birthday cake, and a hike on my property and some awesome photography by my grandson Xavier that needs to be shared.

Until then.....

Company & a road trip.

I got a call yesterday from my brother Paul, for those of you who don't know-he's my older brother who lives in Hawaii. Not a bad place to live believe me! He and his wife Lisa live there with their three grown children Christopher who is newly married to Nan (we went to their wedding last summer) our Goddaughter Amanda and our other niece Alyssa who is the youngest of the three. All the of them happily living such busy lives that when Paul decided to take some time off this fall to come and visit, the only one in the whole family that could squeak away for a quick vacay was Amanda.

It's good we're seeing them so soon, it's only been a bit more than a year since we were all together. I would rather have them all visit, but at this point I take anyone who can come and in the mean time maybe plans will change and some of the others will come.

The preliminary plan is this; they are going to fly into JFK and spend some time with my little brother Gerard and Denise and their kids, Sydney, Alexandra and my Godson Gerard. After spending time hanging out with the NY branch of our family and quote "eating some clams", then it's off to Washington DC by Amtrak. We're gonna drive up (me, Mom, Bill and our son Matthew should be on his days off ) and spend a day or two seeing the sights since my niece wants to and that's good enough for us!

I'm hoping Gerard, Denise and kids will decide to either drive or jump a train and join us..*hint hint!

Paul and Amanda want to go to the Smithsonian, I wonder if they realize it's about 10+ city blocks long in total and it would probably take a year to actually see it all; anyway it will be fun regardless.

Then back to my house - mom's next door so my brother can spend some time with us and Mom, she's getting up there in age and that's a priority for him.  So what's in Virginia besides us? There's open spaces, clean air, the changing of the leaves, crisp apples on my trees and there's always the pork!