Kung Hee Fat Choy!

January 23, 2012 marked the start of Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dragon.

I love this local stamp company, Sister Stamps. Designed by sisters, they make adorable themed stamps with these Asian kids. Each of the stamps have names and a little story about how they got their names which makes the stamps a little more special it seems.

One of the recent releases was a Chinese New Year themed release. I had never really seen Chinese New Year stamps and while I am trying to hold myself back on the crafting stuff, I couldn't resist these. I bought the Lion Dancers and made some cute cards using Copics (amazing blending markers) and some cute Sizzix embossing folders.

Originally I was going to make these for my staff, but the amount it took to just one made me realize 1) it would take me FOREVER to make 45+ and 2) All the efforts it took to make one meant that they were extra special. Who else to make extra special cards for than my own family? I made four cards and rushed to get them out to my family in time for the New Year:

I made this card for my parents and it's my favorite because I love the play of the two embossed patterns and the colors just pop for me:

Lava Quest 2011

For New Year's Eve we both decided not to go anywhere because we don't really want to drive 2.5 hours to Kona side and frankly Hilo doesn't look like it'll ever have a happening scene and even if it did it would almost definitely rain.

Instead we decided to go for our first hike in the Volcanoes National Park. In the first week of December or so there opened up a new surface and coastal entry point lava flow that was within the park. According to the National Park Service they were letting you have access...IF you were willing to complete the "challenging and extreme 9.7 mile round trip hike. Estimated time to complete is 5.5 hours." The picture on the website was promising:

THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN DECEMBER 15th

We decided to start the hike around 1 or 2pm and return after dark. I was totally nervous since if you know me, I don't exercise or do the slightest thing to stay healthy or in shape. We got to the park and drove down to the end of the Chain of Craters road. There was a final sign warning us if we were "Ready or Not."

We declared ourselves ready and "Lava Quest 2011" began!

Our trail started at the end of the "scenic hike" which was about a mile and a half one way all along the closed roadway (easy cruising). Once we hit the end of the scenic hike we still had yet another quarter mile through lava to reach the end of the viewing trail. The viewing trail was very clearly marked with little reflectors on the lava. One of the understatements of the "viewing trail hike" was this sign:

At the end of the little reflectored trail there was a workhorse and this sign:

Although the sign says "End of Trail" it was the start of our real hike (you can see the last reflectors on the far left hand side of the picture). The rest of the way would be marked by beacons. After a half of mile of hiking we reached our first beacon:

From then it was a long 2 hours of slogging through the lava field. There was a final sign warning us after beacon 2:

We saw these neat tortoise-shell like rocks in one particular part of the field we walked through:

We took a short detour to the ocean side to take a peek at the newest land in Hawaii:

Chris scouted for the next beacon (not really, he was posing in a "Discoverer" pose, but I couldn't get the whole coast in the shot):

But mostly we walked and walked and walked. Finally we reached beacon 5!

But now what? Where was the lava? What about smoke and steam? Where did we go? The group ahead and behind us all clustered around this little beacon a little confused. But it seemed like the only thing to do was keep walking. Finally after more walking I saw...another beacon. So we headed towards beacon 6...despite the trail being noted as having 5 beacons.

Along the way we saw this really neat metallic effect on the rocks:

It was interesting because much of the lava field was pretty brittle and it was bizarre to have rock crack under you when you stepped on it or to see it crack when you put down your walking pole. One of the neatest conversations Chris and I had while hiking was wondering if at any point we were stepping on land that no one else had ever stepped on before. It was an interesting thought.

At beacon 6 we saw a ranger and wandered over just in time to hear him tell another couple that the lava had deflated up at Pu'u O'o in the last few days and there really wasn't anything to see right now.

We could hike a few miles further and see some hot rocks and maybe some glowing, but there wasn't any surface or ocean entry flowing red lava. We might be able to see some glowing at the top when the sun set. A little disappointed to have hiked all this way only to find out there was no lava, Chris and I talked it over. We decided that with the sunset about an hour away Chris and I turned back.

The walk back wasn't as bad since I knew I could make it. At one point when the sun was starting to set Chris spotted the sun setting between two lava rocks and took some pictures. The result was a really neat picture where the sun looks like a star! (I mean it is a star, but the picture made it look really cool):

OOOH SUN STAR

With about a mile and half to go, the sun did set and we were left to hike with our headlamps. Hiking at night through a lava field - kind of hard! After what seemed like forever we hit the reflectored trail again. There we began to meet a steady stream of folks hoping for some lava. Many of them we pretty shocked when we told them to view it up close was about a 2.5 hour hike and that a ranger told us there wasn't much to see. We also saw two Japanese tourists hiking in the dark (not so notable, we all were hiking in the dark) only, THEY HAD NO FLASHLIGHTS. So stupid. The ranger at the Visitor's Center had told us about how just this past week a lady broke her wrist returning from the hike at night and had to spend the night out on the lava field before they could evacuate her.

At this point we had been hiking for about 4 hours straight - I couldn't wait for the "scenic trail" - nice, flat, paved road. Needless to say I was tired and a little sore. I didn't realize that the worst part of the whole hike was to come...walking back to the car. While it was a relief to be back on paved ground, after all that walking it seemed like torture as we had to walk another half a mile to where Chris had parked...literally the furthest car away from the trail.

But we survived and although Lava Quest 2011 was a fail, it was a fun way to spend New Year's Eve. We stopped by Foodland on the way home and picked up some mochi ice cream (Bubbies!) and sparkling grape juice. [A funny side story...I went home and googled why Japanese eat mochi for New Years and stumbled upon this funny article: http://www.chow.com/food-news/54224/new-years-japanese-style/ The article concludes with "Happy New Year! Don't Die!" because apparently lots of Japanese are hospitalized when they nearly choke on the mochi]

Once home it was nothing but the most glorious hot shower and then watching Dick Clark's Rockin' NYE (which was a bizarre experience because they kept saying it was live and it clearly couldn't be). Chris fell asleep but I was wide awake to great 2012!

Here's to hoping 2012 is a great year. Perhaps Lava Quest 2012 will be more successful!

When Grocery Shopping Becomes Hazardous

I don't know how I missed this display when shopping at the nearby grocery store (Foodland), but on New Year's Eve I finally took notice:

FIREWORKS FOR SALE

Is it just me or is it weird that they sell fireworks in the grocery store? Must be Big Island style...

Thankfully they are concerned about safety as you'll note the "No Smoking" sign on the bottom left hand side of the display. This is especially notable when Hawaii has a Smoke Free law that bans smoking within 20 feet of doorways...in other words, you're not even supposed to be smoking within 20 ft of the doorway much less in the grocery store next to a fireworks display. But just in case you are smoking in the grocery store...make sure it isn't by the fireworks :)

Maui Wowee!

I love Maui and I would have totally moved there instead of the Big Island. (Chris actually likes it there too and we've talked about getting married there). Maui to me is quintessential Hawaii. Chris and I have been debating if we wanted to go to Maui or Kauai for vacation. I thought we had settled on Kauai since I've never been. Go! airlines was having a Facebook contest of the 12 Days of Flights where they'd post a question about their routes and the first person to answer correctly would win a round trip ticket to that given location.

Just a few days ago I had JUST missed out on a free flight from Honolulu to Kauai (There are no direct flights out of Hilo through Go! except to Honolulu). There was a picture of a local building and I had guessed the correct town/island, but not the actual building. By the time I had the building name there was ONE lady who had beat me out!

Well I was determined so even though I had to go to work to put together my office (they painted over break and took everything out of my room), I took my laptop and when the contest time came close I took a break from unpacking the boxes, headed out to the parking lot and got ready. Since you can't access Facebook from the wireless connection, I used my cell phone wireless tether and hooked up my laptop. I signed into to Facebook and within minutes the question was posted. I was already ready with the Go! website open on another page and I answered as quickly as a could after double checking my answer. First, Go! "liked" my post which I though boded well and then this was the post that came next on their page within minutes:

They asked for my email and then they said they'd be sending me the travel voucher in the next few days :) They didn't mind switching the flight so that it was Kona to Kahului so that I'd be doing a roundtrip back to my island. Looks like I'm going to Maui after all! Go Go!

A Hawaiian Christmas

This Christmas was the first Christmas away from family. At first I moped and felt bad for myself, but then someone at work told me you have to really make an effort to make it Christmas. So, with less than a week until Christmas I kicked it into high gear.

One of the benefits of waiting so long was that everything went on sale! I snagged an artificial tree for 50% off at Target and the twinkling lights were 30% off. It was so funny, there were two boxes of this 7ft Norfolk pine left and three of us staring at the two boxes. So I let my East coast nature take over and I just reached over and grabbed a boxes, leaving my much politer Hawaiian shoppers to duke it out over the last box (I later saw one of the ladies wistfully looking at my cart in another section of the store...).

I came home and put together a tree. First of all - this is my first artificial tree and I didn't realize that in order to get it all full you had to fluff each branch. So when I pulled it out of the box and it was looking all spare, my initial reaction was..."This doesn't look ANYTHING like the picture!" After a lot of fluffing, my canvas was ready:

THIS IS ACTUALLY ONLY HALF FLUFFED :) CAN YOU SEE THE HALFWAY MARK???

Next, the decor...once I realized that this was my chance to make the Christmas tree like I've always wanted, I got pretty excited to take on the project. Growing up in my family we had a tradition of getting ornaments that marked the year and then we'd put our names and the year on them. So the Wong Christmas tree has always been a hodgepodge of Disney ornaments, Hawaii ornaments, etc (which makes unpacking the ornaments really fun because it brings back all the memories).

But for my own first tree I wanted it to be PRETTY :) I went to the local craft store and got two themes - traditional dark red/green items and an untraditional pink/silver motif. I was totally surprised when Chris voted for the pink.

HERE'S THE TREE!

Of course I didn't just do a tree, but I did make an effort to decorate the living room. One of the hard things about being in Hawaii is that I am not about to go and spend a ridiculous amount of money on ornaments and decor items that will not be used again if we move (which is hopefully soon). So the challenge was to keep it cheap and keep it disposable.

I have to do a close up of the chains, but I made the chains out of this really pretty Sizzix die and then also made coordinating paper lanterns with a Quickutz die. The lantern die was not something I'd normally use, but when it went on sale for 50% I used it as an arts & crafts project with my kids...it turned out so well that I ended up making some for the house! I also decided I wanted to do a haku lei...not that I've ever made one before. A haku lei is a braided/plaited lei...all the really gorgeous flower lei that is traditionally seen on women's heads are haku lei.

LIVING ROOM DECOR

Of course since the artificial tree doesn't smell anything like a real tree I got some candles that smell like Christmas trees. Don't tell the landlord though...we technically aren't supposed to burn candles.

HAKU LEI #1 & MY CHRISTMAS TREE SCENTED CANDLE

Another benefit to staying in Hawaii for the holiday was that I wrapped all the packages in coordinating black and white wrapping paper. Most of the packages contained wrapped presents inside, so really we had to unwrap things twice...but it ended up being kind of nice because otherwise the gift wrapping would have been over way to quickly with just the two of us.

THE TREE AND MY COLOR THEMED PRESENTS

DID YOU NOTICE THE "K" & "C" ORNAMENTS?

The K & C ornaments are really the only ornaments on the tree :) Although technically there is one small glass, hand painted turtle ornament too. So when all is said and done, including the Christmas tree I actually stayed under my budget ($200) for my first Hawaiian Christmas!

Since it was just the two of us and I had stayed up late cleaning the living room, Chris and I didn't end up opening our presents until the afternoon.

SANTA BROUGHT CHRIS A STOCKING...

One of the funnier moments in opening our Christmas gift was opening the box from my family:

We didn't REALLY get a box of blood, but it was pretty funny to open up my wrapped package and find it.

Later in the day I Skyped with my family back in Massachusetts. My brother set up a really cute "family picture" of the Wong family for Christmas:

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE WONGS!

I also procrastinated mightily on a Christmas card. Chris and I didn't go anywhere exciting this year, so for our Christmas pictures we kept it local and just walked out into the backyard. I'm wearing my second haku lei made with poinsettias.

HAWAIIAN PARADISE PARK IN KEAAU, HAWAII

MELE KALIKIMAKA AND HAU'OLI MAKAHIKI HOU!

Slug Killer

Yesterday I was baking and I saw a medium sized slug/snail crawling up my kitchen window screen. The slugs/snails out here get to be pretty darn big out here. In the morning there are silvery trails all over the place - even up our glass doors!

Being that I was baking I figured that I'd use some of the salt and toss it at the slug. Well at first it didn't do anything, but the second pinch of salt definitely make that thing start motoring (for a snail). Since I didn't want silvery trails up my window I kept throwing salt at it. The salt didn't seem to be doing anything, but then all the sudden the snail started doing this insane death writing and promptly...MELTED IN HALF. The first half glopped off my kitchen window screen followed by it's lower half. EW.

You might be wondering why you are reading a blog entry on killing slugs...but really, if you've read my blogs at all then you realize the there isn't much to do out here. Slug killing is pretty exciting stuff for Big Island :)

Insulted by an Incompetent Idiot

Today I met a teacher for the first time (To keep the identity relatively anonymous I will be vague, but you GOTTA ask me who this person was). Of course he/she started signing to me right away and I had to explain that I don't know sign.

He/She immediately starts spouting off about making people wear earplugs so they can "gain empathy" for people who are deaf/hard of hearing. For some reason it immediately struck me as off. He/She promptly pops in some ear plugs and started talking (a lot). An interesting sidebar though: ear plugs apparently mimic a 30 decibel loss. After about 1 minute of talking with these ear plugs in, he/she says: "Ugh! Not being able to hear is annoying. I'm going to take these out now." I just stared at them. I made some comment to the effect of "Gee, I wish I could do that."

He/She then proceeds to talk to me like I have no idea what it's like to be hearing impaired. INCLUDING, "modeling" how when teachers wander around or turn their backs, students cannot understand them. Of course as this person is "modeling" this - I cannot understand them for the next 10 seconds of our conversation. They do this not once, but twice in our conversation. If you know better - why would you do this to a person who IS hard of hearing???

Finally I get so annoyed with them that I manage to slip in that not only do I have my master's in special education, but that I went to Dartmouth. He/She may be used to talking to incompetent people - but I am not one of them. They ask me if I've taught and I say I had. He/She asks me where and I said "On Oahu." He/She asks me "Where?" again and I say "Ewa Beach." She then proceeds to say, "No...WHERE?" - with that overly loud and over-exaggerated articulation that makes me feel stupid. All I can think is - he/she must make the kids they work with feel like complete crap.

But that's not even the worse part of the conversation. THEN, at the mention of me saying that I worked in special education, we start talking about politically correct language when talking about people with disabilities. This person describes how back in the day there were three kinds of mentally retarded: the educatable, trainable and "hopeless." I'm already offended and this just takes it to another level.

But it gets better... This person then decides to start describe each of the types and when they get to "hopeless" they literally stands there and starts drooling and blowing bubbles for a horrifying 5 seconds. As I stare in shock, manage to utter "That's horrible" (which this person interprets as the categories of MR rather than their own behavior), they literally slurp up their spit back in their mouth, wipe off their chin while laughing and saying, "Not so politically correct!" all cheerful...and clearly not recognizing that I am stunned-horrified-disgusted.

Needless to say, when I talk about how miserable I am on the Big Island - this is not as uncommon an encounter as you might hope. Hours later, I am STILL angry about this conversation.