Holly’s Blog

As if you haven’t seen enough photos of us… I just had to share a few more.  Enjoy!!!!

On a quick trip to Washington (too quick for my mainland-sick soul!)… we visited family and my dear childhood friend Jennifer and her family.  Then back in Hawaii we hosted visitors and had fun whether packing boxes or sightseeing around the island.

In February and March, some of my family visited from Ohio.  Ginger and Tyler came for two weeks and overlapped one week with my parents who stayed for two weeks also.  We did the sights, beach, pool, Dole Plantation, playland at the mall, and just playing in our yard.  The weather was perfect and everyone had a great time… not wanting the visits to end.  I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

With all Daniel’s family in town for Christmas… in Hawaii, the land of sun and sand…  we had to have a beach day!  After loading up the tent, chairs, towels and sand toys, we headed north to Waimea Bay.  It was pretty big surf that day, so no one went swimming.  But that didn’t stop everyone from enjoying the sand, sun and gorgeous blue water.

Then on the way back we stopped at the famous North Shore Shrimp Shacks… so yummy.  The best shrimp I’ve ever had.  Delicious.  We all dug in and got messy… did I mention how yummy it was?!?

So many fun times had with family in town!  Here’s a collection of miscellaneous photos from those adventures.  (Shave Ice may look like a snow cone… but it’s soooo much better.  Come visit us and give it a try for yourself!)

So, I had no idea that so many movies had been filmed just up the road from our house here in Hawaii.  Kualoa Ranch is an amazing location with steep mountains and valleys that sweep into the ocean.  But they are not just a filming location.  They are a working ranch with cattle and horses.  And they provide cultural education as well as land preservation to a huge track of beautiful Hawaii for all to enjoy.

http://www.kualoa.com/

When Jonathan and Jessica (Daniel’s brother and sister in law) were in town for Christmas, we took a tour of the movie sites.  And much to their enjoyment, LOST sites.  They are big fans of that show and loved seeing where much of it has been filmed.  We learned that 60% of the show has been filmed on ranch property!  Wow… makes me want to watch it just to see the locations!

A funny story we heard on the tour… the footprints for Godzilla were originally 8 feet deep.  And after filming was over, the ranch hands had to drive out and check the footprints every morning to see if any cows had fallen in.  As this became a reoccurring problem, the decided to fill them in as you seem them now… to save the cows much harm!

To see all the shows and movies filmed there:

http://www.kualoa.com/moviesites.htm

Jonathan and Jessica arrived a week earlier than the other brothers.  Daniel was still working, so the rest of us took advantage of the nice December weather.  We took walks on the beach and had picnics along the way.  December can be a rainy month in Hawaii, especially on the windward (east) side of Oahu.  But we were blessed with dry skies the entire time everyone was in town.

We shook up Annika’s world recently by taking her to see Sesame Street… live!  She looked as though she might actually cry as she saw Grover, Cookie Monster and Elmo come out from behind the curtain.  But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Background:  Sesame Street has a program called “Sesame Street Experience for Military Families”.  They partnered with the USO to bring a wonderful show to military bases around the nation.  It is a free event to brighten up the kids days, and offer encouragement as they face the deployment of their parents.  When the tour drew to a close at the end of 2009, they had visited more than 40 bases around the country.

Here’s a few links about the program:

http://www.uso.org/page.aspx?action=preview&id=490&version=3

http://www.military.com/entertainment/offbeat/sesame-street-on-uso-tour

http://www.health.mil/Press/Release.aspx?ID=255

They came to Hawaii in early December, and Daniel’s parents were in town to join us for the excitement.  Annika into a huge grin just seeing the life size poster of the Sesame Street characters outside the door.  Then upon entering she was giving a spinning, light-up Elmo toy.  More grins.  Then the music started and they showed a short USO video.  At this point, it seemed she knew something was coming, but not sure what.  Then she saw them… really, I’m not kidding when I say she almost cried.  She couldn’t get any words out.  Just a lot of pointing and “oh…oh…oh”.  I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

I must say it was an amazing program.  All the kids loved it.  And though Annika might not have comprehended the whole message (singing about missing mommy and daddy when they are away), she loved the show.  And the older kids did get it… and I could tell it meant a lot to them.  Great, great program!

Hawaii is known for surfing, and known for big wave surfing.  You’ve all heard of the Banzai Pipeline & the North Shore?   What about “The Eddie”?  That surf contest only takes place when the biggest of the big hit the north shore.  And on December 8th, we got to witness that surf contest and those famous BIG WAVES… and they are really BIG!

Eddie Aikau was a surfing legend here in Hawaii during the 60′s and 70′s… I won’t try to tell his whole story but check here if you are interested in more:

http://live.quiksilver.com/2009/eddie/history.php?btn_history=_over

This is only the 10th time the contest has actually gone off in the past 25 years.  The rules state that it can only run on a day that the wave faces consistently reach 40 feet.  Yes, 40 feet!  Wow!  They only invite the best of the best big wave surfers to compete, called the biggest big wave competition in the world.  Twenty eight competed this year.  From the above listed Quicksilver Eddie website, “The past 48 hours of massive surf is the largest sustained episode to hit the Hawaiian Islands in 40 years.”  They said there were 50 foot waves that day!  Another WOW!

John and Sharon, Daniel’s parents, Annika and I walked to the bus stop that morning to ride up there.  We decided not to try and drive.  And that proved to be a smart decision when the bus driver came to a stand still traffic line and said, “Anyone going to see the waves might as well get out and walk from here.  Because you’ll get there quicker then if you wait on the bus.”  We complied and got off to walk.  It was a solid stream of people walking up and back along the street… ok, actually it’s the highway.  As we got closer, more and more people pressed in.  Finally we made it to Waimea Bay Beach, and it was packed.  They say more than 50,000 people packed the area to watch.  We found a clear spot and spread out our towel… and watched some waves and surfing.  Or at least tried.

You’ll see from my photos that we were far away.  (The ‘close up’ ones are zoomed in from my zoom in.)  The waves break was quite a ways out, and we only got to see the top half of the waves, because the bottom half was hidden by the wave in front of it!    We heard that the ‘white surf’ of the waves was over 20 feet in places.  At the end of the day, Daniel and I joked that I may have seen the waves with my own two eyes.  But he really ‘saw’ the competition, streaming video online… full with big zoom cameras and high booms to get the full waves in the picture.

After sitting for a bit… and getting baked by the sun, we decided to head for some shade to have our picnic lunch.  We walked back south of Waimea Bay, and settled just on the other side of the point that forms the south side of the bay.  We might have been just out of sight to view the surfers… but the big waves didn’t stop. It was a long day and long bus ride, but completely worth it.  I saw 40+ foot waves and lived to tell about it!

p.s.  To see some photos of the big waves, where they look really big… check it out here:

http://live.quiksilver.com/2009/eddie/photos.php?btn_photos=_over

Our visit in Belgium is going well.  Over the weekend, we mostly relaxed, which was perfect for Annika to work out our jet lag.  And Annika has gotten a mild fever, so she’s having an extra rough time adjusting… the slow pace was good.  The girls, Emilie and Tori, loved getting to know Annika and Annika loved the attention and entertainment. 

On Friday before dinner Emilie took Annika and I (and dog Molly) on a walk around the neighborhood. It was good to get out after being on a plane all night, and to see a bit of the area. The town they live in is very small, surrounded by farms…  but not too far from the base – SHAPE – headquarters of NATO.  Friday night is “Pizza night” in the Zukowski house, and I thoroughly enjoyed taking part.  Annika slept well the first night here, only waking up once about 11pm, after which I was able to rock her back to sleep without too much problem. 

On Saturday, we had very yummy baguette and brie sandwiches for lunch… with this Belgium sauce on it – kind of like an apple butter, but made with 6-8 different fruits. It was so amazingly yummy… that I told Ed and Liz that we can have that EVERY day for lunch that I’m here and I’d be happy! You can imagine that – me and my cheese obsession. Oh, and I guess brie is extremely cheap here. Sigh, how wonderful.   We headed out Sat afternoon, to watch Emilie’s horseback riding lesson… but the lesson went on a trail ride… bummer for us. So we left and came back at the end.  Driving around was fun to see the area and countryside. Really SHAPE is in the middle of the country, and not such else is around expect very small towns (that almost run into each other). Really really, neat.  Annika went to bed easily on Sat night, but then woke up about 9pm… I got her up to play a bit in hopes that it would tire her out and she’d go back down easily.  Well, she instead fought me and sleep from about 10:45pm until 1:30am.  Sigh, hard adjustment for a baby’s body.   

Sunday, Annika and I attended church with our hosts… and relaxed the rest of the day.  Annika was still fighting that fever, and so was a bit more fussy than usual.  She only woke up once Sunday night, and I got her back to sleep in about 30 minutes.  Yeah! 

On Monday, Liz, Annika and I headed out to Mons, the nearby ‘big’ town that has a ‘grand platz’. It was perfectly European… with the town hall, flags hanging from it, business & cafes & stores around it.  We headed down one of the streets that cut off of the grand platz to Liz’s favorite coffee/pastry shop. It was delicious… I savored a chocolate croissant and double espresso!  Annika did well playing in the ‘highchair’. After visiting there for a while and finished up our goodies, we headed out to walk around the shops for a bit.  Annika did well in the stroller, and even fell asleep in one store. I thought for sure that she would wake up when we left and started on the cobblestones. She didn’t… just bounced along sound asleep. 

Annika slept all the way though the night on Monday.. yippee!  We might be though the jet lag now.