Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House....

with two cats in the yard....life used to be so hard... lalala.

If somehow you haven't already heard our news, George and I bought a house here in Hawaii! We hope to close and move in by the end of April. Hawaii real estate ain't cheap, so its no mansion, but it has plenty of room for visitors: an extra bedroom, extra bathroom, and a decent-sized loft. In other words, get your butts out here for a visit! We have lots of ideas for improvements and renovations, but since they are only ideas right now, I'll just let the pictures and house-tour video speak for itself. Oh - but we do plan to paint the outside of the house a bright yellow with white trim. The sea-foam green must go. :-) Pics are here, a silly house-tour video that I made is here.

Whale-Watching from Makapu'u Point

Over the weekend, our friend Doris (that I know from my brief time at University of Hawaii) took George, Jason, and I to Makapu'u Point at the Southeast corner of O'ahu. At Makapu'u Point, visitors hike up a short but steep trail from a parking area to a low peak that overlooks the channel between Oahu and Molokai, the next island in the Hawaiian island chain. In addition to the amazing views up both coasts of Oahu and out towards Molokai, Makapu'u Point is an excellent place to watch whales. We managed to see quite a few whales, even though it is very late in the whale-watching season. They were so cool! We saw a few jump completely out of the water and then splash back in. We also saw several good fin slaps, pec slaps, and tandem whale jumps. We were really far away, but the whales are so enormous that you can still see them reasonably well, even from a distance. Apparently, the humpback whales come to Hawaii every winter from Alaska to give birth to a new generation of whales. (Personally, I'd stay all year if I were a whale!) They can be seen in greater numbers in February - as many as 10,000 at a time, but they are still seen around the islands through late March and even early April. As many of the places we've seen in Hawaii, Makapu'u Point was beautiful. The sight and sound of the whales was amazing. On top of all that, the air was clear enough that we could see the island of Molokai from the lookout point. The pictures don't do it justice, but check them out here and you'll get a taste of our day.