4th of July and Happy Anniversary

The Fourth of July is also Anniversary day and we planned lots of homey things around that. 

Our big ambitions included cooking favorites and hanging out.


We made a big breakfast. David made espresso and avocado toast, Kiernan ran an omelette bar and Meg and I were on home fries duty. We even did some veggie sausage links on the side. We drank mango nectar and coconut water while listening to Heart and the Beatles. 

After breakfast we wandered the gardens collecting invasive African snails and (in my case) taking pictures of architectural elements. 







I got to admire their coffee/cocoa/guarapo set ups in the breezeway.




The snails have to go because the big island of Hawaii is the epicenter of a parasitic infection called rat lung or rat lungworm infection. 




Humans are an intermediate host and the larvae will not reproduce in them but the infection can cause anything from stomach upset to death. The worms tend to for brains and spines.  Read all about it here .

After wandering around and doing the Lords work, we got cleaned up and headed down to Hilo for their 4th of July classic car show. 


I got to dress as a watermelon as is my fine summer tradition.

It was a beautiful clear day and we had a great view of Mauna Kea

We visited the statue of King Kamehameha.


There was live music and there were beautiful cars. 








It was hot as blazes and we retreated to an excellent bubble tea place to cool off. 



I got the best jasmine milk tea I’ve ever had. 



Then it was home for more cooking. 

This time I made black beans and rice and Megan made pasta salad and Kiernan made sticky toffee pudding. 

A friend of theirs came over to hang out and be comforted. Her brother just died unexpectedly. It was good to meet her but also to feed her. 

For their anniversary we got them (other than this visit) a card, 2 bidets, and a dinner at Pineapples yesterday.

While the kids and I were cooking David, who can do anything, was installing one of the bidets. Clean butts for all! Happy Anniversary lol.

Our original plan had been to head back to Hilo for fireworks but we got wrapped up in side projects and Kiernan still wasn’t feeling well so we stayed put. 

The dogs are terrified of fireworks so the plan was to close all the doors and windows (unheard of in this place were climate control is the breeze) and turn up the tv really loud and just try to comfort the poor pups. 

     Happily it started raining lightly just after dark and there were very few nearby explosions as a result. 

      I was working on digitizing some old cassettes of the band my family was a part of back in the day. 

      Then we turned in for the night.

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