Day one...stingers, flappers and a cockadoodle doo.

Hi Everybody,

Mahalo for your comments, we like to hear from you too!

Weather: High 81 today, sunny and breezy; occasional rainbow.
Surf: Big. probably 15 Ft. breaking on the reef outside our place.

Well, we made it. It was a long day yesterday, but we finally arrived at our beach house at about 2am Denver time and didn't have much in the way of an eventful trip which is a good thing. The only thing that the airlines lost was Jilli's booster chair, and we are living without it for the time being. I was thankful that the luggage fit into our Crysler Minivan, which is new and nice enough, but certainly not good for my beach dude image, which I have so carefully cultivated over these last 20 years. LOL.

Our house is very cozy and comfortable here on the beach. It is about what I imagined. We actually have an extra bedroom because the girls are all sleeping in the same room on a twin and a double. It is amazing how after living in our house in Highlands Ranch with all the "square footage" that you can be comfortable in something about 1/3 the size, and even have an extra bedroom.

After hitting the sack, I, your resident light sleeper was so pleased to find that very nearby our friends are raising cock-fighting roosters. While cock-fighting may be considered inhumane by some, what I find inhumane is that the ridiculous creatures start talking to each other via very loud cock-a-doodle-doos at about 4am. I was so flabbergasted by it that I had to laugh, but it was one of those "not really funnly" types of laughs. Fortunately for them, the all the girls slept right through it. I was thinking that maybe Michael Vick would like to re-locate to the N. shore of Hawaii when he gets out of the clink, because apparently these cock-fighting rings up here seem to operate with relative impunity, from what I hear. Either I will have to get over it and begin to sleep better, I will have to lock all the windows and suffer the stuffy hot room, or I will have to buy a high-powered pellet gun and do a stealth mission rooster hunt. Channelling Bill Murry's character in Caddy Shack now..."Oh Mr Rooster, Its just your friend of the harmless mongoose...,etc."

Now, the stingers are as follows...I found a gigantic centipede on the lawn this am and took a photo of it next to my flipflop. I will post it tomorrow once we get our batteries for the camera replaced. Fortunately no one got stung by it. The other stingers are the dadblasted mosquitoes, which ate both of my ankles raw tonight sitting outside for dinner.

The flappers are two things...the turtles, which live right outside our backyard in the ocean (the girls probably saw about 6 or 7 of them this am) and the Monarch butterflies which are coming out this time of year here. There are many caterpillars on the crownflower plant in the back yard and some of the are cocooning and many are flying around. Pictures to follow.

Other random notes from the day...We had lunch at my favorite place to eat a burger on the planet...Kua Aina burger in Haleiwa. It's not quite as cool as it used to be in it's old location with the grill out back, but its still a good burger. We then drove around getting some supplies...and um... just FYI, Hawaii residents love Costco. I think they were all there today. Either that or MLK day is aka Costco day on Oahu. We went for a swim in the ocean, the girls dug a hole in the sand, I met the neighbors who were fishing for O'io (bonefish) which are apparently in season, (though they were baitfishing and I wonder if they eat them here)...

The girls crashed about 20 minutes ago and it's only 7:40 here. Of course it's 10:40 there and I don't think I've ever seen Shelby so tired. Hopefully I can get some comments from them tomorrow.

As they say here in the islands, Pau (done) for now. Laters.