Miley Movies

Here's a movie from last Monday morning. She's working real hard to keep her head up.
(The hat proves that it does get chilly here. Although, we've only had her in pants a few times.)

Here our morning with Dr. Seuss. (The movie was taken in August). I am so happy Miley's grandmas were both elementary school teachers. They bought her a lot of books and encouraged us to start reading. She loves it! Thank you for the books!

Lava Adventure

Quill and I woke up at 4:00 this morning and headed out to Kalapana to view the lava. We hiked over the rough, uneven terrain to view the beauty of Pele's work. This wasn't easy for us, Quill with a broken ankle, and me with an injured foot. But we made it out to the ocean entry, enjoyed a wonderful show of splasing waves, billowing clouds, and the occasional splatter of molten hot magma.

We were amazed by a magical sunrise and then enjoyed the stroll back to the car. Authome!!

Much love to Timber for staying home with Miley.

Quill's Visit

My sis Quill has been here for a couple of weeks. She fell in love with her new niece (of course), and we all got to have a wonderful time. We squeezed in as many authome adventures as we could.

Frequenting beaches was my favorite part. Quill and I would head into Hilo to do errands and make sure each day we went to a beach. One of us would swim/snorkel/surf while the other would hang with Miley. Teamwork!
We wanted to do a bit more walking/hiking, however, each of us had a bum ankle. Our feet did allow us to do yoga. We did quite a few classes upstairs in the studio. I loved sharing my passion with my big sis.
Quill loves to cook, and got to enjoy doing so with all of the island fresh produce. Timber and I love to eat, so this was a perfect match. We really like Quill's guacamole, and were impressed that she helped prep the pork (from the pig Timber caught) even though she is vegan. HA.
Miley liked to dance for her aunty Quill. She enjoyed being pushed in the stroller by Quill. I'm pretty sure Miley likes this "aunty" goodness she has going on. She can't wait to meet Nana and Cedar too.
So, I'm not excited at all about taking Quill over to Kona and sending her back to the mainland. She was such a wonderful help and an all around blessing.

I love ya sis!

Thank you for a wonderful visit!

Pump it UP

There are many joys to owning your own home. It is NOT, however, a joy to fix your 30 year old plumbing. This is our rusty old pump that gave out leaving us high and dry until we learned/prayed/fidgeted/cursed a new one into its place. We were four days without water (thank you Mike and Sara for letting us use your place), three trips to three different hardware stores (up yours HMP we can do it ourselves), and with the advice of many friends and acquaintances.

To put the new pump in, we had to piece together a PVC pipe puzzle. Ya see, the new pump has inlet and outlet spouts at different places than the old pump. The connections are also different sizes. So the 11:00pm plumbing fiasco was interesting.

Thanks to Quill, Timber and I, the new pump is in and working great. We do have one leak, we just need a large plumbing wrench to tighten a pipe. We are quite proud of ourselves. Victory for the homeowners.
Old Pump

See all the Rust!

New pump and plumbing.

What's for dinner?

Here's the rascal that ate all of our pineapples. (The empty pineapple patch is to his right). Timber borrowed snares and a cross bow... hope piggy tastes good.

Piggy seems to have an affinity for Quill. She managed to get close enough to take this photo. Later, while strolling on our driveway, she encountered it again. It huffed and snorted at her before they both ran off.

Update: Timber did catch the pig in a snare. She was about 150lbs and tasted great!

Fun at Unky's

Dave and Bahama (from this point forth Davama) threw a great family BBQ on Sunday. Not only were there wonderful people enjoying the Davama Farm, but there was onolicious food, slip-n-slide, badminton, and tractors to play on.

Thanks Davama for hosting yet another authsome shin-dig.

Saturday Stroll

We went for a hike August 2nd. It was overcast and rainy down here in the Park. So we headed up Saddle Rd. Under "normal" Hawaii weather (is there any normal weather here?) this would mean we were heading into even colder, heavier rain. But this day was pleasant at 4,000ft. We drove just 14 miles out of town and then hiked along a hunter's road toward the Waianaku River.

Our good friend, doctor John Price, joined us and provided wonderful information about the local flora and fauna. Although I can't remember but a fraction of the beautiful green native plants he pointed out, I sure enjoyed his knowledge. We did get to see many Clermontia montis-loa plants.

One of which was flowering. He collected a specimen for a project he is working on in which he's comparing the flower shape to the extinct bird bill shapes to determine which bird pollinated this plant. I think he was simply enjoying hugging a tree.

Oh and for my birding aunts, we heard an Oma'o. It's a native Hawaiian bird that is now only found on the Big Island. Come for a visit; we'll rock your life list and make your friends jealous.

Miley was a trooper. She enjoyed riding on mommy's and daddy's warm tummy. What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

These are the photos we took with our new camera. Thank you so much to my family for giving it to us. I love it! You can look forward to many more beautiful photos.

Here is the USDA classification of our Clermontia montis-loa.
Kingdom Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass Asteridae
Order Campanulales
Family Campanulaceae – Bellflower family
Genus Clermontia Gaudich. – clermontia
Species Clermontia montis-loa Rock – Mauna Loa clermontia