The Big Island

Elmer and I visited the Big Island of Hawaii to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. We both absolutely love Hawaii and were looking forward to a relaxing vacation. The last time we were in Hawaii (Lanai and Maui) was for our honeymoon!

One of our first stops (besides Costco!) was for shave ice. This little kiosk was so good that we came here three times over the week that we were on vacation.


Place of Refuge


South Point, the southernmost point of the United States. It was super windy!


Sea turtle at Punalu'u black sand beach


Kilauea Caldera at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park


Thurston lava tube


Devastation Trail, where a lava flow came through and destroyed all the vegetation.


This land is just a bit younger than we are!


Sea arch





Interesting lava formation


Glowing magma inside the caldera.


Rainbow Falls




Akaka Falls



Waipio Valley Lookout



Elmer was able to play a round of golf at Hapuna


The view from our "partial ocean view" room at Hapuna


The color of the ocean was beautiful. The pictures can't do it justice.


We were able to see many whales breaching off the coast from the beach and from our room balcony. This photo isn't great, but you can kind of make out the whale!


We are wearing heavy duty parkas, but we're still in Hawaii! We went on an excursion with Mauna Kea Summit Adventures. The stargazing was absolutely amazing. We've never seen so many stars in the sky before! We were even able to see the Milky Way belt.


At the summit for sunset. You can see some of the high-powered telescopes in the background. It was freezing. I got a little bit of altitude sickness, but recovered within minutes. Elmer didn't do too well, but he felt much better when we descended back down a bit for the stargazing.


We tried to take a picture of the night sky. Not a great photo, but you can see Orion's belt and Mars (the red dot), I think.


Sunset from our room

NYC2009

I guess I'm not so good at updating my blog, as I am really behind on this post. Brian, Iris, and I went to New York City 5/24-5/29 for a mini vacation. (Elmer couldn't go because of work.) Since I've been to NY before, I decided to turn this visit into a sort-of food tour. Here are some highlights:

After a sleepless red-eye flight on Virgin America, we arrived at the Grand Hyatt just before 7 a.m. and headed over to Ess-a-Bagel for, of course, bagels with cream cheese and lox.


After the Natural History Museum (too large to fully explore), we stopped for some photos in Central Park.


Dinner at S'mac. Mmmm mac and cheese!


Statue of Liberty


Being silly inside Lady Liberty's pedestal


Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and stood in line for about 1.5 hours for a taste of Grimaldi's pizza. Was it worth the wait?


Afterwards, we had ice cream from The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory


Pommes Frites!!! Not such a good picture because we devoured it before stopping to take a picture. The parmesan peppercorn dip (white) was awesome!!! The red one was curry ketchup and the yellow was dijon mayo, I think.


It was windy and cold atop the Empire State Building.


My favorite shot from the NY Botanical Gardens


Lunch at Serendipity 3. Iris's dish of chicken livers was awesome! We finished that off with frozen hot chocolate.




It was drizzling by the time we got to Times Square


A nice shot Brian took of our hotel, with Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building


The Met


A view from the other side of Rockefeller Center


Washington Square


We made the trek over to the original Nathan's Famous at Coney Island. It was definitely worth it. Iris and I each had 2 hot dogs. I think Brian ate 4, or was it 5?


We made numerous cupcake stops, including Crumbs, Magnolia's Bakery, and Buttercup Bake Shop, but these mini cupcakes from Baked by Melissa were the best.


Dinner at Max's. This is my Gnocci.


Iris and Brian each had Max's specialty, lasagna


Iris and I love raw oysters, so we tried some at the Oyster Bar Reataurant


And, finally, what's New York without New York cheescake?