I have a nice surprise whenever I use my cell phone. When we were in hawaii for xmas I snapped a picture of nicole at the beach in her sparkly bikini that I love. I’ve set it as my background of my cellphone so everytime I go to make a call I get a sexy picture of nicole. Since I don’t use my cellphone that often i forget it’s there and it makes me smile every time I open it. It’s especially fun now that we’re back in hawaii since it’s freezing and there is snow outside.
Archive for January, 2009
Cellphone Pic
January 27th, 2009Inauguration
January 21st, 2009Like most of the country I watched the presidential inauguration yesterday. It was exciting to watch the person I voted for being sworn into office instead of the other guy. I was a little bummed because I was watching it by myself instead of with a group. Originally I had thought about trying to go down for the inauguration but Nicole wasn’t interested and so I ended up just working the day from home to avoid the traffic.
The crowd at the inauguration was amazing. I give a lot of respect to those people who were there considering most of them had gotten up at some ungodly hour in order to be on the mall in time. I thought the speech Obama gave was pretty good but not great. He has a hard job ahead of him and we’ll see if he can get them done before the American public turns on him and bites him.
The only part of the inauguration that I thought was in poor taste was that when Bush came out you could hear people booing in the background. I thought that was really disrespectful. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t agree with most of his policies and decisions but he still was/is our president and that alone deserves some respect.
Hawaii Pictures
January 10th, 2009Pictures from our hawaii trip have been uploaded to my picasa web albums.
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/CookieBaking
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/HawaiiTrip08
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/BeachTime
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/Christmas2008
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/HomeRepair
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/KauaiTrip
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/CamaraFamilyParty
http://picasaweb.google.com/camara/RoundUpAt81
Kauai – Poipu Beach, Mah Jong & Hamura’s
January 5th, 2009The day after Christmas we left early in the morning to spend a few days on Kauai with Ross’ family there. Unfortunately, they had been having lots of rain and it continued to rain while we where there. It wasn’t nearly as fun with all the rain – but we still enjoyed the time with the family. As always there was lots of good food — and it seems like all we did was eat.
Even though it was raining in Kalaheo, Ross and I escaped to Poipu beach for a few hours Friday afternoon. It was certainly a ‘tourist’ beach – but his Uncle thought it was the best bet for finding some sun. The beach was busy and full of people. The shoreline was kind of rocky, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the water. Ross noticed ( I wasn’t so observant at first) that there was a section of beach roped off. We went to check it out and found that a Hawaiian Monk Seal (endangered species, and state marine mammal) had beached himself and was sunning on the beach. Having just read an article about the Monk Seals, I was excited to see one up close.
Hawaiian Monk Seal
Nicole in front of the seal
Saturday it continued to rain, rain, rain. Ross’ family was playing a chinese card game, Mah Jong. They taught me how to play, and we played for most of the afternoon. It’s a game like rummy where you try and make runs or matches with your “cards” (really tiles). I had a hard time with some of the chinese characters for the numbers – but once Phyllis made a cheat sheet for me, I did okay. I still don’t get the complicated scoring system, but I can learn that on some other trip. While I thought the game was fun, I thought it was way too long…it took us four hours to play.
Nicole learning to play Mah jong
Saturday night Ross’ family had a dinner to go to, so we went into Lihue to Hanamura’s for saimin. The place was BUSY since it was the weekend, and was cold and rainy. It was a small local owned saimin shop and very yummy. It must have made some guidebooks since lots of tourists managed the find the place. Ross, Scott and I all ordered the “special” saimin which included two wontons, meat, fish cake and a hard boiled egg.
Hamura’ Saimen
Ross and Nicole at Hamura’s
Cattle ranching on Kauai
January 5th, 2009Most of our stay in Kauai was rainy…which was quite a bummer. However, on Sunday it stopped raining long enough for us to go with Ross’ family to some land they lease which they call “81″. (I’m pretty sure it’s called 81 because its 81 acres). Some of Ross’ family on Kauai are cattle ranchers on the side….and 81 is where they keep some of their cattle.
The land is quite beautiful…nice, green and lush. However, because of all the rain it was also MUDDY! Ross’ cousins had asked many friends to come help out for the day. They were moving cattle from one pasture to another, getting cattle ready to be shipped out, and separating the young from their mothers and doing other un-fun things like branding and castrating the younger ones.
Traditionally most of the cattle herding had been on horseback, however it recent years they’ve been using more 4-wheelers (as they’re easier to manuever). Ross’ cousin Kimo put me on one of his horses, Blossom, so that I could go along as they went around the pasture and herded the cattle. Ross isn’t a big fan of horses, so he stuck to a 4-wheeler. We were supposed to be helping herd the cattle — but I really didn’t have any clue what I was doing — so I just kind of followed behind people. I did much better on the horse than last time in Kauai — at least this time I could get the horse to go. (The last time I got a horse so mellow I couldn’t get it to go). Ross’ cousins keep on giving me pointers on how to ride the horse….and by the end I was doing okay. Although, I still didn’t like going downhill or very fast.
It took all morning to do everything they needed with the cattle. Once the cattle were ready to go into the trailers, they had a hard time with the trucks pulling the trailers because there was so much mud. It was kid of funny to watch the trucks play ’slip and slide’. After that we had lunch down there with all kinds of leftovers from all the meals we had the past few days.
It was a great way to spend the day on Kauai. However,I can say that Ross and I would never make it as cattle rachers. It was fun to watch his family and their friends work though.
Gathering for the round up
Nicole on the 4 wheeler
Me on ‘Blosom’ where i spent several hours.
Uncle Mac getting the brands ready.
Some of the cousins getting a calf into position
Branding
See all the mud…
Ross got all wet on the way home…
