So now we’re in Kona and it’s almost the last day of the year.

Very peaceful (and somewhat surreal considering that Joan was the primary gift purchaser) Christmas. Big, gigantic, insanely wonderful chunks of prime rib for dinner courtesy of Vinny (Libby’s husband) and two of his professional chef buddies.

David, who got here on the 20th was only able to stay until the 26th so Andrew and I had an exciting morning shipping him to the airport with prophylactic stops at Lion Coffee and the only decent bagel bakery we have yet managed to find in Honolulu. The bagel place was considerably amusing since it was in a little industrial park on Sand Island Access Road (one of the major industrial areas outside of Honolulu), it was right next door to a strip joint, and (and) this wonderful bakery of a traditional Jewish bread was run by a little Korean couple.

We went back to Joan and Tony’s after leaving David at the airport. Since Joan is still feeling under the weather we turned around the bed in Tony’s computer room so Meg and Rad could stay there, ate dinner, and then went right back out again to the airport to pick up Meg and Rad.

We actually forgot to mention about Caitlin and the ala-alas. Caitlin, Andrew, David, and I were sitting in the living room yakking along about something when Caitlin started talking about having a bag of ala-alas. Now there is considerable debate about what she actually meant; whether she was trying to come up with the Hawaiian pidgin for money (dallahs, or kala), or whether she was trying to indicate that she had no money which would be something along the lines of “Got money?” “Nah, alahs!”.

What she was actually saying was that she had a bag full of testicles. 😯

Needless to say, neither David, Andrew, nor I have managed to let Caitlin live this down. Caitlin, who is 11, may never, EVER, live this one down.

Anyway, Andrew and I were at the Honolulu airport picking up Meg and Rad. Got home, sitting in the living room talking and all of a sudden Lucy (the younger niece) came walking in with two signs one marked “MOMMY” and the other marked “AUNTIE MEG” and handed them to the appropriate people. Meg and Libby do look a good deal alike, but Lucy was either truly confused about how to tell them apart or she was playing a huge joke on all of us. Regardless of the underlying reason it was dang funny (I’ll see if Andrew will post the photos). Meg’s side of the story involves she and Libby walking from the main house into the attached apartment (where Libby and her family live) to greet the family and see the new construction. Meg came up on Lucy from behind, gave her a hug and a kiss and said “Hi Lucy!” Lucy’s jaw dropped, her eyes bugged out, and she said: “How am I going to tell you apart?!” I guess she figured out a way.

We took our traditional trip out to the North Shore of Oahu on the 27th. Andrew and I always drive out to the North Shore because it’s a gorgeous drive and you can stop in Haleiwa and get a burger at Kua’aina which has the best burgers on the island. But since the nieces couldn’t stand to be separated from Uncle Mushroom and Auntie Meg, and since Rad wanted to go since Meg was going and Libby wanted to go with Meg, and since if Libby and the girls were going to go Vinny wanted to go too……. Suffice it to say that we took two cars. Which was convenient actually. It was going to be quite a squish to have seven of us in Joan’s mini-van and since Vinny was coming along we got a chance to stop at the house where he has been working doing remodeling and restoration for the last 4 years or so.

It is a flat out stunning gorgeous house. Belongs to someone who has money falling out their asshole. Roofed in cobalt blue tile, polished wood everything, sweeping view out the back. Absolutely stunning. Vinny has been doing jobs for these people for about 4 years. He finishes one job and then they decide that they absolutely must have…..a gas fireplace in the master bathroom, an enormous flat panel plasma TV in its own little enclosure hidden behind a retractable painting by a local artist. Like I said, money falling out their asshole.

We celebrated Meg’s 50th birthday on the 28th. Joan and Libby had outdone themselves in garage sale-ing gifts for Meg. We lost count while we were wrapping them, but there darn close to 50 of them. Granted, not all of them were, um, thoroughly appreciated, nor will they be, um, cherished forever. They were fun to wrap, and we had a lot of fun watching Meg unwrapping them. Another obnoxiously protein oriented feast that evening. Meg had put in a special request for crab and steak. Vinny and his chef connections were able to score a huge box of King crab and although I don’t eat crab, it was a stunning bean feed. You absolutely never go hungry staying with the Lenzers.

Once again, no super exotic gorgeous tropical vacation news to report. The weather has been in the mid 70’s to early 80’s and humid. It’s been raining, there’s been a lot of wind and we still go out to the beach. Water is still warm enough to walk barefoot through the surf, not exactly warm enough for me to want to swim and not bright enough to go snorkeling. Also far too choppy to go snorkeling. We’ve had a lot of fun watching the lunatics going kite surfing and Meg and I spent some of our walk yesterday staring in horror at the nutjobs who were out on sea kayaks. Nausea central.

And now we’re on the Big Island at Sara and Danny’s waiting the New Year. It’s still raining like crazy, but up here on top of the mountain it’s actually somewhat cool. Go down off the mountain, like we did when we went for fireworks this afternoon, and the temperature increases by 20-25 degrees. Kona was stinkin’ hot and wringing humid this afternoon. Rumor hath it (actually the weather report hath it) that we may get a clear patch for New Year’s Day. Which would be nice since Sara, Danny, and Rad are planning on parking in front of the TV watching football (the U.H. football team is playing in the Sugar Bowl), while Andrew, Meg, and I are planning on snorkeling.

Tomorrow night there’s fireworks, split pea soup, a bingo party, and the fireworks. I’m up to quilt block number 23 and I’m going to cast on number 24 when I’m done here. We’re having a lovely vacation thanks.