Aloha one and all! I'm back at last and ready to get y'all updated. First I want to let you know that I've added 2 new albums of photos which will almost get you caught up with our building progress. Just use the address on the sidebar here to get you to my Picasa page; the newest albums are called 'Building the Studio-3' and 'Pahoa Christmas Parade'.
The holidays seem like a long time ago already, and it doesn't even feel like how we think of wintertime at all. So now that I'm feeling well again (after a horrendous cold that lasted over a week) I'm just charging right ahead with Spring! Planting seeds, transplanting, weeding and watering when it goes too long between rains ~ not often, but it happens occasionally even on this wet side of the island. There are baby squashes setting on the vines. The chayote has climbed w-a-y up the ohia in the frontyard but has yet to set any fruit. The second crop of green beans is coming up nicely. Everything's growing so well and the flowers are blooming like mad now that the days are getting a little longer again. We had rain for 5 weeks straight, every day and night. Didn't like that so much, but since then it's been lovely, really a nice mix of weather: some rain, some downpours, some sunshine, some clouds, rainbows.... yeah, like that :-) So if that's our wintertime weather here, we can certainly handle it.
The studio-ohana is coming along nicely. Bob Dakujaku is a great guy who did the plumbing and wiring for us. He's been so nice and great fun to talk story with. The plumbing inspector was all smiles when he came out, even gave us a bagful of rambutan, a spiky red fruit - delicious! Now we're waiting on the electric inspector to get here, do his thing, and give us a pass so we can proceed with putting up sheetrock. Mike's still keeping busy with all the fiddly bits that need doing. He created some great skylights in the livingroom, so we don't have a dark cave in here anymore! Yay!! Right now, he's working on finishing off the doorway between the existing house and the studio, and the new doorway into the Lagoon Room. Oh, he just walked in to inform me that he got the sliding glass door installed just now! Yes, he keeps busy :-)
The Shanghai Circus came to Hilo and we were excited to be able to see them in real life! With balancing acts, Chinese acrobatics, jugglers, contortionists, kung fu demonstrations, wire acts, and so much more... they were totally fantastic! I highly recommend them if they ever come your way! Then yesterday, we all spent the day in Hilo again, ordering kitchen cabinets, comparing flooring options and countertops, choosing fertilizer for the fruit trees and palms, discovering a cute little lunch place (Millie's), getting our library cards, and finally, picking up groceries on the way home. What a long day. I sure slept well last night!
