Oh what fun!

The best part of Christmas this year was I got to go home and see my family!  I couldn't believe how much I missed my brothers.  Also, I can't get over how much they have grown up.  I know I sound like a proud mamma when I say this, but I seriously remember when they were tiny!  It was so much fun to hang around with my teenage little bros during the break.  We had a great time watching movies, eating junk food, playing cards, driving around Cedar, and pretty much wasting time together.

This is Calvin.  He's 14.  Are you enjoying his super sweet hair-do, because I totally am!  Does it remind you of anything?  Here's a clue:

Hahahaha.  By the by, I chose this picture because I think he looks particularly floofy, and also kinda ugly.  Anyway, we were teasing poor Calvin about his "Edward hair," even though I actually liked Calvin's sense of style.  He's a pretty awesome little dude!

The Brown side of our family traditionally has a bingo night and white elephant gift exchange every Christmas.  Most of the fun for us happens beforehand since we've historically been rather creative with our white elephants.  Besides, what with most of the cousins being a bit too young to really understand most of the humor, we usually just laugh at the weird crap we manage to dump on our poor aunt Teri!  (It really freaks her out to get stuck with random crap.)  I don't honestly remember what most of the stuff was, but this one was a winner!  Please note the super creepy, moderately stained, hot pink princess chair right behind Mitchell.  That thing was disgusting.

I guess this is the most hard-core apron out there.  Actually, it was some kind of fluid-protection suit.  However, we couldn't get over the back-side of this beauty -

- Mostly because it didn't have one!!  Yeah, that does you a lot of good.  Hopefully you don't sit on anything while you're "fluid protecting" yourself.  Also, my brother's a total creeper and he has a gas mask and an old man mask on.  I guess he puts that mask in his car, and will randomly slap it on to scare his fellow motorists...  Call me crazy, but I totally get it!

Also, it wouldn't be a Christmas blog without me posting a picture that gets someone into trouble.  Namely the dog who sheds like mad, and isn't allowed inside because of that nasty habit of hers.  She is a snuggly little buddy, though!
While we're on the subject of dogs, this is Blake's roommate's dog Wrigley.

He's a boxer puppy, and I couldn't get over how cute he was!  Blake couldn't get over how stupid he looked in this sweater (that was a gift from the roommate's girlfriend).  I have to say that I'm on a dog kick because I really, really want to buy one.

And those are all the pictures I took!  Christmas Eve my brothers were still out shopping for each other, then we enjoyed our usual CE fondu.  I drew my brother Mitchell for the secret santa gift exchange, so he received a beautiful ukulele.  After that we had fun attempting to mimic Tiny Tim on our ukes.



Yeah... that dude is a freak.  The brothers like this song because it's on Sponge Bob.  Go figure.

No Pilgrams, just Natives

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful for me since I just hung around Maui.  Besides, since there's very little change in season around here, I found myself oddly confused.  I didn't have fall weather, or school midterms to help mark the time of year, so Thanksgiving didn't exactly register with me this year.  I actually had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, so I didn't even really participate in the whole Black Friday nonsense.  The good news was that with all the shopping going down, no one seemed to want to come to the dentist!  Plus, as an added bonus, it turned out to be the week of two Fridays!  Who doesn't love that.

I did get invited to spend Thanksgiving with some Hawaiian friends from work.  They were very kind to open their home to me, and share all of their delicious food!  Seriously, Hawaiians know how to put on a good meal.  However, it wasn't exactly the traditional Thanksgiving feast since it included things like this:

This shrimp was kinda creeping me out, especially since it had some extraordinarily long antennae.  My boss showed up, and he absolutely loves these shrimp.  He was teasing me by telling me than when he was eating them the antennae were tickling the roof of his mouth.  Gross!!

Like I said, not many people decided to show up to the dentist.  However, one of my patients brought us this delicious chocolate cake!  Yeah, and I wonder why I've gained weight since moving here...

I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't have the traditional leftovers, so I took on a little cooking project of my own that weekend.

That's right, I learned how to bake a turkey!  Granted this turkey was the size of a smallish chicken, but I struggled to eat that much food.  So now I can say that I've baked a turkey, and it was actually quite delicious.  I also whipped up my favorite sweet potato casserole, and mashed potatoes.  It was all very traditional and "Mainland-ish" of me!  The best part was I had leftovers to eat for lunch for the next week.

Seriously, more Big Island?

Oh hey, I have some more pictures from the Big Island!  The really sad part about living in Hawaii is that it no longer feels like being on vacation in Maui.  Therefore, the Big Island was totally a va-ca for me!  Honestly I don't remember what I put in the last post, so I'm just going to throw a smattering of stuff here!

Kahili and I in a lava tube.  And yes, I'm wearing a Batman shirt.  I'm awesome.

Sunday we hung around with my friend Kahili, and her cousin.  He's a local of the Big Island, so they kinda played tour guide for us.  Monday Sheila and I were on our own, so we took advantage of all the rando touristy things I could dig up using my trusty guide book!  Basically this meant we hit up the Big Island Candies shop, and found several sweet waterfalls on our way back around the island.

I was trying really hard to find a large fallen leaf so I could take a "bannana leaf clothes" picture, but I could only find ones that were attached to living things.

 We "hiked" to this waterfall, meaning we walked down a state maintained path to see the beautiful Akaka waterfall.  We went to some other falls, but this was the most exciting one.

Sheila and I looking rather washed out due to my experimentation with my camera settings.

Akaka Falls.

Our final tourist destination was that of the Waipio Valley overlook.

This is Waipio valley.

This particular destination was a bit out of the way.  It required driving through some tiny little towns, and some less than ideal roads.  Also, the story behind this valley is a bit spooky.

 Apparently this place was once pretty important to the ancient Hawaiians.  It's an incredibly isolated little valley surrounded by steep cliffs on both sides, and a black sand beach.  It can only be accessed by four-wheel drive (or hiking).  Thousands of people once lived there cultivating the land until the great tsunami of 1946 washed away nearly everything.  The idea of being trapped in this little valley with a tsunami headed for you is just a little bit creepy to me...  Anyway, after that it went wild until a bunch of hippies trickled in during the 60s and 70s.  No water, no power, feuding neighbors, and a relatively hands-off police involvement.  Yep, it's an exciting place!

 The lookout above the valley was littered with signs warning away inexperienced drivers.  You're not even allowed to drive down without 4-wheel drive due to the steep grade.  I was actually in possession of a vehicle with 4-wheel drive, but I was too chicken to make the drive.  (Seriously, I was scared!)  So instead we just stood at the top and looked into the valley.  Much safer!

On the drive back from the valley to the main highway, Sheila and I finally decided it was time for lunch, so we stopped off for some local yumminess, and some malasadas.


I've become fond of the Revealed series of books, which apparently the locals dislike because a lot of the things they "reveal" are actually private property, or they are areas that tourists don't exactly treat with respect.

Anyway, after Waipio and lunch we realized we had a bit of time to spare, so we thought we'd go on a little adventure recommended by my Big Island Revealed book.  This took us very off the beaten path in search of caves.  Maybe not exactly the best idea I've ever had...  Regardless, after wandering around and driving past twice, we discovered the entrance to this little beauty literally right next to the road.  Looks small, right?

Think again!  The cave entrance was merely the opening into an entire series of lava tubes stretching for who knows how far under the mountain!  The only light we had thought to bring was the puny light on my iPhone, and Sheila didn't have any light source.  She was reluctant to follow me very far into the tubes without her own light, and I couldn't really blame her since it was literally pitch black in there.  I adventured back into the tube a ways, but honestly I started to freak myself out being in the pitch black alone.  I kept having this recurring thought of someone lurking in the dark waiting to steal my car keys and leave us stranded.  There was a lot of garbage left in the caves, which actually made me fearful that a hobo might be calling this creepy little cave his home.  This was actually one of the coolest places we visited, and I was totally kicking myself for not bringing a flashlight!

Anyway, we packed it up pretty quick and made our way back to Kona to return our sweet little truck, and make it to our flight.  The Big Island was gorgeous, and I'm really happy that I took the opportunity to visit!!