Chicago hasn't completely frozen over....yet!

Brrrrrrr it's COLD outside!!! And I heard it's pretty much below average temps all over the country. Gonna be even colder this weekend too! I'm going shopping, getting all my food for this weekend tomorrow night, and I'm staying in. I see no reason to go outside in 5 degree temps, except to start the car to keep the engine and gas tank from freezing. If it's going to be that cold where you are, make sure the gas tank in your car is nice and full before Saturday.

Now that I've done my public service announcement...lol. I went to the dentist tonight for my 6 month cleaning. I was ALMOST out of there when he says, "Sit back down, I want to look at something." Damn if he didn't find a small cavity! Now I get to go back in a couple weeks (on Valentine's Day) to get it filled. Good thing I never have plans for V-day, lol.

For those of you that read Kerry's blog, you know we've started sending music back and forth in email. Seems every time we try to do it over MSN, it acts up and won't transfer the files. And there seem to be so few times we're both on together and HAVE the time to transfer music. So, we're reduced to email. That's the only way we'll get caught up right now. Tonight, I will be sending her....the Kellie Pickler cd. I've only heard one song off it so far, Red High Heels. It's played all the time by the online country stations I listen to during the day at work. It's not bad.

Not much happening at work. It FINALLY slowed down for me and I'm working on getting caught up on the filing that has been accumulating for a year. Yes, I said a YEAR! Not hard, just never had time to do it, and now I do, lol. I'm thinking things will stay slow like this for me for a while. We're losing the business from one of our bigger customers in a month or so. Their slowdown in business and then the ending of that contract will keep me slow, and allow me to continue spending about half my day, on average, filing. Boring, but it's something to do.

Going to go start sending these song to Kerry so she has them in the morning when she wakes up, get something to eat, and plant myself in front of the tv at 7pm CST for Bones, then Idol.

MORE? YOU WANT MORE?? Ok, you asked for it...

This is my sister's mother-in-law, Katherine. She was in Hawaii with her son back in October. Can you believe this beautiful lady is 100 years old??? And what about that sunset!! I didn't see anything like this when I was there, it was too overcast. *pouts*

You can see part of the pool in this picture. This is the patio we sat on every morning and every evening. We ate breakfast lunch and dinner out here (when we weren't eating out.) The darker wicker chairs and table are no longer there. Instead the chaise lounger that's currently behind the pole is there with another matching one, plus a table. There's also a huge hammock just off to the left, omg so comfortable. The pool is cool because as you're in it you look out to the ocean, and the outside edge allows water to run over into an overflow area, so it looks like a waterfall from the street.

This is looking towards the front door of the house. The floor is slate, and it runs all throughout the whole house, even into the master bedroom, bathroom and outdoor shower. Yes, that's right, I said OUTDOOR shower! The bed with the white coverlet on it is one of the spare bedrooms; the other is on the left, by where the wooden steps are. Both bedrooms are up on wood floors, whereas the master bedroom has the slate floor.

Here's the kitchen, with a stainless steel refrigerator. The microwave oven is below the counter on the island. So roomy and spacious. From what I'm told, one of the ladies that owns the house loves to cook, so of course this kitchen is a dream for her, lol

Those are all the pictures of the house that my sister sent to me. I'm hoping I can get more in a couple months when she goes back. I know she has more than this on the computer there, lol.

Next I'll try to find pictures of all the colorful birds I saw there!

You wanted pictures? Ok, here's a start on some pictures.

This is the Fair Wind II, the pontoon boat we were on for the snorkel cruise.

This is the crater at Mt. Kilauea, you can see the active steam coming up from the crater, indicating the heat only 1-3 miles below the surface.

Here's the lava tube we walked through. It is about 500 years old, and the only way to get to it is to walk down the steps and incline to the bottom of a rainforest.

This is my Aunt Val, standing next to a sign warning visitors not to feed the Nene, the Hawaiian goose. Interestingly enough, during my whole week there, I didn't see one single goose.

My sister Sue and myself at the crater of Kilauea, with the steam vents behind us.

CHICAGO BEARS WIN THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP !!!!

The Chicago Bears beat New Orleans 39-14 at snowy Soldier Field, earning the right to play the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI Feb 4, 2007 in Miami, Florida!

Chicago Bears Fight Song!

Bear down, Chicago Bears,
Make every play clear the way to victory.
Bear down, Chicago Bears,
Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation,
With your T-formation.
Bear down, Chicago Bears,
And let them know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois,
Chicago Bears, bear down.

Yesterday was rainy and dreary. We made the best of it though. We went to the crater of Kilauea (kill-a-way-a) and saw steam vents of sulphuric gas all around the rim and basin of the crater. We walked through a Lava Tube, in the middle of a rain forest. A Lava Tube is a cave created by lava that you can walk through. The one we walked through, ran through was more like it, was about 500 years old. It was pouring rain while we were at the lava tube, we had no umbrellas and no rain gear. We looked like drowned rats when we we came out, lmao.

There was no active lava flows where we were at, that was all down by the ocean. We didn't have enough time to go see that, as it's best viewed at night. We were a good two hours from my sister's house, and wanted to get home around supper time. I did take some interesting pictures of the steam vents and of us (my sister, aunt and me) at the steam vents.

Driving to the volcano, we took the southern road around the bottom of the island, past lush greenery. Coming back home, we took the northern route, a few more miles, but less traffic, so also about two hours. We had the ocean on our right, and we'd pass over what they call gulches, but they were HUGE gulches, to the left were these awesome waterfalls. I wish we'd had a place to stop so I could take pictures. Words alone cannot express the beauty I saw. There were also massive grasslands with pasture after pasture of cows. I'm told there's a huge ranch on that part of the island that raises all the beef. It felt almost like home seeing all the green grass and cows, lmao.

The last part of the drive was through what feels like the middle of nowhere. Only fields to the left, fields to the right, no other cars on the road, no lights. There are no houses anywhere. The remoteness of it was eery, almost. But still such an interesting part of the island itself.

Today has been cool and rainy, so we're going to go and try to do a little shopping indoors out of the rain. I think we had enough of the rain yesterday. Aloha!

Yesterday afternoon we went snorkeling down at the beach. There's a little inlet where the water is calmer, it's not very deep, and there are lots of fish to see. They were EVERYWHERE, and SO beautiful. All different colors, yellow, and blue, and green, spotted, striped. At one point there were so many of them, I was afraid to put my feet down to get my bearings. They wouldn't let me touch them, but they would still come very close, sometimes brushing my leg, or staring at me with their mouth half open. Almost like they wanted to take a bite out of me. LMAO! Don't worry, they don't bite, I won't come home with some fish disease.

There was also one lone sea turtle in some very shallow water that some people were standing around watching. I walked over to look at it, but didn't want to disturb it too much, so I walked back over to where the water was a little deeper so I could look at the fish. The water wasn't as warm as I thought it would be, less than 80F, but once I was in it, I adjusted to it and it didn't feel cold. We were there for maybe 45 minutes, although I probably could have stayed for several hours.

There's also a chicken that wanders around by my sister's house. This morning between 7 and 7:30, it decided it wanted to try to be a rooster. It was a strange sort of incomplete crowing noise. This went on for about 15 minutes, then it went away. Then my sister's husband was up and outside, so I decided to get up also. My aunt is arriving today about 12:30pm, it will be nice to see her and share this wonderful experience with her.

Aloha!

Here I am in lush, beautiful Hawaii, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, looking out over the pacific ocean! OMG, it is GORGEOUS here! My sister's house has an outdoor shower, with a wall around it (of course) so no one can see you. I want one at home now, lmao. I'm waiting for my sister to come home from playing golf at the club. I think this afternoon we're going to go snorkeling! We had a little bit of rain last evening at the restaurant. I arrived at about 4:30pm Hawaii time; overall, about 10-1/2 hours travel time from when I left Chicago. Even napping on the plane, I was tired and HUNGRY when I arrived in Kona. All we got to eat on the plane was "food for purchase." WELL, I'm not gonna pay for my food on the airplane, so I brought a PB sandwich with me. I should have brought two, lmao.

When we stopped in Maui, I disembarked, bought a shotglass, then got back on with everyone else. It was nice to get up and stretch my legs a bit. Then the last part of the trip, to Kona, was about 30 minutes. Flying over the islands, looking down on the lush greenery, was breathtaking. After a few hours of nothing but water, it was very nice to see land again, lmao.

I'll be sure to take lots of pictures, to bore you all to death with, lmao. I'm going to go back outside on the patio, read the paper, enjoy the sunshine, and look out at the ocean! Aloha!