Loco Moco Bro!

We are back from the Big Island, but still on island time. This means mornings are haggard, but I get a second wind about 11p.m. that lasts until 3a.m. This would be amazing if I didn't have children to attempt to get on a regular schedule!

I have so much to get caught up with, but before I do, I just want to let my fellow 21 Challenge people know how much of an honor it was to take this journey with them. I will be checking your blogs and commenting as much as I can. My 21 days finished up in Hawaii and I can tell you it was no problem meeting my goal with the hiking, swimming, snorkeling and boogie boarding we did. (help to set off any servings of loco moco and shave ice I had)

As proud as I was going into this trip of my small goals over the course of this 21 days, as soon as I was at the gate for my flight to Hawaii, I could tell I was probably one of the 10 largest people on the plane. I was on a full load of Iron Man triatheletes! These people are not only thin and in shape, they are sinewy and lean to the point of appearing almost emaciated. On the roads, they had signs saying "Caution: Ironman atheletes in training" and they were! Everywhere we went, they were biking or running over hot highways cut into lava flows. No shade, no rest stops.

A lot of this trip involved trust. Our children needing to trust that we weren't wasting their time, endangering them or driving around needlessly. We had to explain again and again that this was our first time on the Big Island, so we were experiencing it just as they were. They were frustrated when we took wrong turns down bumpy lava roads (which are merely suggestions of paths rather than roads), skeptical when we coached them through their first attempts at snorkeling and hanging on to their hats as we took them up scary roads with heart-stopping drops (um, Mom was askeered too).

I hope they are able to look back and see that our intent was good and their experiences worth it. I hope the sunset from the summit of Mauna Kea was worth the cold, thin air and truly frightening drive up there. I hope the turtles, eels and colorful fish was worth their first try with a snorkel tube and trying to adjust their breathing to relax and not fear the depths of the water. I want them to realize that Volcano National Park is truly unlike anything they will ever see close to home and to appreciate the fierceness of nature. I'd like them to look back with fondness at picking avocados over a waterfall after a grueling hike down a questionable path in the rainforest. I'm proud that 2 out of 3 tried Loco Moco, a local concoction that is killer on the arteries, but I feel a visit to any area isn't complete unless you eat as the locals do. And I'm fairly sure that just a day or two into their return home that they are already romanticizing their time in Hawaii from what I hear them tell their friends.

This is hard to believe from a group of kids whose overwhelming request in Hawaii was to go back to the condo. Have they even mentioned the condo to their friends? Nooooooo.

Blogger is taking forever to load photos today, so they'll be coming soon!

The next morning after I returned home, a bunch of fellow scrapbook artistes and I got together for a scrapbook yard sale. I think we were our own best customers, but we had a great time! Never have enough time to visit amongst each other. These are some of the most amazing women I know; heartfelt and hilarious. Finally I was able to meet Kim of Too Much Stuff! We had traded comments back and forth on our blogs for quite some time as well as emailing. I'm delighted to find that she is as witty, genuine and fun in real time as she is with her written word, even more so!