Raking' It In

Now that most of the leaves are off the trees (sniffle, sniffle), it's time to rake them all into neat little piles, gather them all up and haul them over the bank where they can decompose...and this is only half of it from our one large beautiful Maple. Well worth all the shade it gives us in the summer heat!

Thank you, Brittany for doing this big job!

More Autumn Leaves

The first half of our day here was in a blanket of thick, gray fog. It was gloomy. It was depressing. I couldn't take any more. I climbed under the covers and took an afternoon nap. But, when I woke up, to my delight the sun was shining and everything outside seemed to say, "It's OK! Look, how beautiful!" Even with the long shadows of the late afternoon slowly taking over, it was beautiful.



The ground is covered in a blanket of color after the hard rains and wind that we had yesterday. The leaves are sprinkled with the glistening,unevaporated drops of last night's rain. How can I NOT find myself walking around exploring the possibility of new autumn pictures? Ahhh, I'm starting to feel better already. God is good!

October Birthdays

We have three birthdays that we have celebrated this month. Octobers are always busy around here. And since Lamar and I were in Hawaii for part of that time, this last week has been full of celebrations!

Our granddaughter, Rile' turned four on October 1st! How can that be?!


Lamar turned 53 on Maui on October 6th! How can that be?!


Brittany turned 19 today! How can that be?!

Autumn Color At The Friesens

I love Fall!...I just don't like what comes next. So, I'll just focus on the beauty I see right now. :-)








When I was exploring the fall colors in our secret garden, look what I discovered! Yikes...guess Lamar will be taking care of this pretty quick!

The Road to Hana/Our Last Day in Maui

Wow...did our time fly here! Sad to say that this was our last full day on the Hawaiian Islands. But, boy did we have a lot to celebrate! Not only was today Lamar's 53rd birthday, but the main purpose of our trip here was to celebrate our 30 years of marriage. Yay!

Today, we drove north to take the famous "Road to Hana". This is the VERY windy and narrow road and the ONLY road that takes you down the East Coast of Maui. It is very picturesque. The road itself reminds us a lot of the old Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway. But, you would have to throw in 617 turns and 56 one-lane (and I mean, ONE lane) bridges. The road goes high and the road goes low. It takes you past waterfall after watefall, bamboo forests and coastline that is abolutely gorgeous. We left later than we should have, so we couldn't stop at all the places we would have liked to. It just gives us more reasons to come back and explore the island somemore!
It's been a full day. We're packing, getting ready for tomorrow's flights, so I will just post a very few pictures of The Road to Hana. Then, when we get back home and settled in, I'll post some more! Aloha!

Molokini Island and Turtle Town

This morning, we boarded the "Pride of Maui" for a 5-hour Snorkel Cruise complete with breakfast and lunch. I have never snorkeled before in my life. Not even in a pool. I've used a mask before, but never a "breathing stick". I was a little nervous, especially when they had already started the "beginners class" by the time we got on the top deck. I didn't like that. But, it was time to get in the water and I had a floatie-belt, so I felt safe enough. We used a cheapy underwater camera, so you won't see any pictures of all the pretty fish, since it wasn't digital. What did we ever do before digital?!


But I did take a few pictures here and there. Look at this water! It was perfectly clear. Where we set anchor, we snorkeled in 30 feet of water. Again, perfectly clear. Those are fish in the water in the first picture. It was so beautiful. Just like a National Geographic Documentary! Molokini is a left-over crater of a volcano. There are only three of these particular kind in the whole world and this is the only one you can snorkel at. There are two natural vents from the volcano that keep the water "filtered" and crystal clear all the time. You can see 200 feet away!. It was really amazing and I'm so glad that we had this experience. I would highly recommend it!



It was fun to share this special treat with Lamar and it was fun watching him being a fishy too!





After going to Molokini, we headed for what the locals call "Turtle Town", which basically is where the big old sea turtles hang out off shore. Here, the water wasn't as clear, although you could still see amazingly enough. Seeing all the coral and sea life down under was really cool. Seems that the turtles were hiding under the coral cliffs, although most everybody saw at least one. We did see one. He was really close and gave us quite a show! Did you know that only 1 in 10,000 of these sea turtles make it because of all the prey that eat them when they are itty bitty babies?! But, when they do make it to adulthood, they can live up to 300 years old! To think that we may have seen one that was alive when our nation was born! Wow!



Tuesday is Lamar's 53rd birthday. We hope to go to the east coast of Maui and drive the "Road to Hana". It is a very windy, narrow road with lots of one-lane bridges and lots of cliffs. Just my kind of drive! It's supposed to be gorgeous though and have lots to see along the way. We're looking forward to it. It will be our last full day before hopping on a plane for home. Ahhhh, it's been good.

Maui, Day 9-A Day At The Beach

Our time on the Hawaiian Islands is going by way too fast! Today, we wanted to spend the day playing in the water. Yesterday, we scoped out the beaches in the area and the one we picked to be at today was Wailea Beach, south of Kihei in Wailea. This is the la tee da area of Maui which houses the Grand Wailea, the Four Seasons, the Fairmont, among others. But 100% of the beaches on the Hawaiian Islands are public. No matter who occupies the land in front of it. So, that's good news for us!



I'm pretty chicken when it comes to water sports of any kind. But, our condo has boogie boards and we brought one along for the ride. I got up enough courage to be OK with making a fool of myself trying to ride the baby waves with it. And you know what? I had a blast! There were some good waves too (at least for me!)...This one here...a baby wave. When I was able to catch a few bigger ones, boy, they really can pound you. I've never had so much sand in my swim suit!



I DID NOT want to get out of the water, I was having so much fun. Lamar spent his time snorkeling farther out behind me. We both had a really fun time!


We ended our day with another beautiful sunset. This was taken down the road at Kam III Beach, short for Kamaole III. Not to be confused with Kam I and Kam II. :-)


Tomorrow, we go on a Snorkel Cruise to Molokini Island and Turtle Town. Woohoo!