Clare's First Communion

We had a lovely family gathering for Clare's First Communion last weekend. Rosie and Leah came from Santa Barbara, Toby's parents from Pensacola, his cousins Josh and Jessica from North Carolina, and Sarah's friend Denise (Clare's godmother) from LA.  The crowd flowed back and forth between Sarah's house and our house and it was fun visiting with everyone. I wish I had taken a few more pictures, but these give an idea.

Clare looked beautiful and happy on her special day

Afterward we all gathered at our house for dinner and more visiting.

Leah with her signature finger point

A little girl cousin time

and of course a little hot tubbing

It is never possible to get everyone looking and smiling at the same time!

Big Island 2019

Calvin recently took a bike tour around the Big Island of Hawaii and I joined him for a week of relaxation afterward. This was not our first trip to Hawaii, so we weren't quite as anxious to see everything, but we had a few good side trips retracing Calvin's bike tour. We rented an older condo in Kona with a spectacular view of the balcony.

One might be content to spend a week just enjoying the view

But we managed to travel a little beyond the balcony.  One day we went north to visit Pu'ukohola Heieau which was the last large temple built by Kamehameha when he consolidated his kingship of all the islands.

Cannons were placed on the lower rock embankment around 1790, which marked the advancement from the stone age to the modern world for the Hawaiian culture.
We stopped at Spencer Beach, which is a perfectly lovely beach

but Calvin had camped there on his bike tour and discovered an even lovelier beach down the Ala Kahaki Trail.

Mau'umae Beach

Another day we went south and rented kayaks to paddle to the Captain Cook monument.  I forgot the underwater camera, so no sea pictures, but the water was so clear we could see the fish from the kayak.

After kayaking we toured the "Place of Refuge" where early Hawaiians who had broken the law could be forgiven if they could just get there before they were caught.

 And we made a side trip to visit the "Painted Church."

One day Calvin rode his bike north and I drove to explore some petroglyphs the same direction. The trail to the petroglyphs was through a spiky treed forest

and the up a dry path

 to a smooth lava flow that was just covered with stick figure petroglyphs.  The was a little variety, but most just looked like this.

After we got back together we circled inland to see a little of the famous green hills that you expect to find in Hawaii.

Another trip was to visit the volcano.  We stopped at the southern most bakery in the United States for lunch.

The recent eruptions have changed the crater, but it was hard to get a good photo of the crater because it is so big.

 So we took pictures of ourselves instead

We spent several delightful evenings enjoying dinner at local restaurants on the beach.

And we had one delightful lunch in the middle of a rainstorm.

There is a reason Hawaii is so green

Big Island of Hawaii 1986

We recently spent some time on the "big island" and it reminded me a little bit of the first time we visited in 1986.  Our kids were just 1, 3, 5 and 7 and we had not flown a lot as a family.  I am still eternally grateful to the man sitting in the row behind us who played "Go Fish" with Butch for almost the entire flight. It was our first trip to Hawaii and I had visions of a lush jungle paradise, so I was a little disappointed when the plane landed in the middle of a barren lava flow. 

Calvin and I were not sure if we would ever travel to Hawaii with the kids again, so we wanted to have the full island experience.  We logged over 1000 miles on the minivan that we rented that trip. As it turned out we made a few more trips to the islands, but this was the only trip to the big island with the whole family.

I've been scouring the old family photos and only came up with a few from that trip.  We seem to have more of Peter, but that might be because some of the other photos have found their way to new homes.  At any rate, here is our family on the big island in 1986.

and one last picture of Peter standing on a lava flow that was born the on the day and year of his birthday.