Falling Crows

Today I witnessed something that felt like it was out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. About noon I was mopping the kitchen floor when I heard a racket outside. I slid open the sliding glass door to hear a racket of crows - about 100 of them up in our trees. I immediately thought that they were having a grand time mating; as the prior Saturday evening, my son-in-law Jeff educated me that the crows were indeed mating in the trees. What a surprise when I began to hear loud thuds, as 4 birds fell to their backs on the ground. At first I thought "What kind of mating is this?" Then a large brown bird flew out of the trees with crows flying after it, trying to attack it. The brown bird was either a hawk or an eagle. I ran to get my camera, set it on video, and of course failed to turn it on.

I was very fortunate to celebrate my 53rd birthday on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. We were blessed with beautiful weather. We enjoyed golfing, walking, riding bikes, snorkeling, reading, relaxing, and eating! I'd heard that there were lots of chickens on the island, but the roosters are quite beautiful. We saw two different types of dolphin, spinner and bottlenose; and mama whales with their baby. Listen to this rooster:

Rooster video

Wish I could capture the lovely scent of this plumeria...

On the interior houses are built on stilts/pilings to protect them from flash floods from the mountains.

Lighthouse

map of the Island

Cute bird couple

Shave Ice - like a snow cone to me, but the real treat was the macadamia ice cream on the bottom and the Azuki beans in the middle.

Pono Kai condo kitchen and Joe, the chef! We bought lots of fish from Costco.

Beautiful Waimea Canyon

Golf at the luxurious PRINCE north shore golf course (Jane, did you notice PRINCE?)

All things come to an end; dinner at the Cafe Portofino, next to the Marriott, prior to our 10:30 pm flight home.

New hair style for me.

I've been inspired to post a 10 on 10; I love seeing everyone else's - you all are so creative and getting more creative each month - with themes and everything (Mario & Ely's Clean & Dirty) Very cool. Here's a day in my life, 4/10/08:

Bob, our 17 year old cat. Jenny brought him home as a "free" kitty during a Tahuya Days 4th of July event.

Louie, our 5 year old, gift to Joe for Father's Day. He goes to work with us and most everywhere we go.

Joe & Chris hard at work.Shannon on lunch break; started working with us on 4/7.

SHOP DOGS
Chris' dog Bugsy, Billy's dog Rocco, and Louie (missing) get daily noon walks.I'm hard at work; notice the Pen-Ent company shirt!

This is sad. Our best friends are moving to Kuwait in June. We went to their pre weekend Garage Sale.

Our french friends, Christine & Pascal, with their dog Charly in their garage.

Christine & Pascal's 16 year old Sultanna. They got her in Kuwait.

Our friend Jean Claude, owner of La Belle Pastry on Main Street in Bellevue, dropped by the garage sale with lots of pastries and bread. I was lucky to snap a photo of these Napoleons before they were devoured.

Hope you enjoyed my day!

Acupuncture

I was involved in an auto accident on November 16, 2007. A lady ran a red light and hit my car on my left rear which caused my car to spin 180 degrees. Actually the benefits have been multiple trips to a massage therapist/acupuncturist and chiropractor in Bellevue. The visits are now weekly and give me excuses to visit Bellevue Square and Whole Foods. I had Nora, my acupuncurist, take these photos. (She's never had this request before). Lower back views; mushroom type caps are placed on the needles and lit on fire causing them to glow red and penetrate into your body. Other times she hooks the needles up to electric current. Fascinating!

See the needle in my hand?

And the back of my head?

Just wanted to share some photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was a wonderful Christmas spent with family and dear lifelong friends. Christmas Eve was at our house; we had a meat fondue this year, which was fun and involved everyone cooking their own meat. Sorry that Chris burnt his lip. Christmas Day was special at Mike & Elena's - Lindsey and Christian were there and it was a White Christmas at their house - Christian's first snow. The day passed by too fast as we all left early because we were afraid of the driving conditions.

We met Jeff & Jenny to see their new home in Ballard. It has character. (I promised I'd let Jenny post inside photos first) They are in a really nice neighborhood with lots of nice quaint shops and restaurants. They treated us to Volterra's. We had a special treat of having their nephew Simon with us. I had wild boar, Joe had venison osso bucco, Jenny had a stuffed rabbit's leg, and Jeff had some kind of meat pasta dish.

Isn't Simon adorable at 1 1/2 years?

Simon getting ready to take a bite of the stuffed rabbit...

Joe and Simon

Rebekah & Simon's 1 1/2 month old baby brother, Levi

My niece Lindsey is visiting family in Washington for 3 weeks from Hawaii. Her husband, Brian, is currently in Kuwait, on his way to Iraq for more than 1 year. They have a son Christian, and are expecting Kingston Allen in early April. Here are some photos from the shower held by her mom on Sunday, 12/16/07:

Fun, Food, Gifts, Games, Friends & Family

This has been a crazy day for me. I woke up planning on cleaning house, etc. and ended up creating a funny card on jibjab.com after reading an article about it in this morning's paper. Then I went to the store and bought ingredients to make Santa hors d'hoeuvres and Reindeer cookies. Now I'm trying to figure out how to make a link to the crazy jibjab animated card for you all to see. http://www.jibjab.com/sendables/view/3MEY0s6P9TMhCqVXptfwWkoe Let's see if this works. Here are pictures of things Joe and I have created lately. You can see, we're a wee

bit nuts!