Garden Projects

Decided it was time to work on a couple of plant stands for the garden. They turned out pretty nice.

 Here is a panoramic of my tiny yard. The zucchini plant is doing great. Having to hand pollinate so I decided to bring in some flower to try to encourage some pollinators to check my garden out.

tired and red faced after a couple hours of garden work

Paul and his shovel :)

Kitties!

They are getting big and the orange one laying down farthest from the camera lets me pet him now. I named him Fatty because he is fat and normally hogs the food bowl.

Some more flowers we picked up ($2.99 for a six pack)

Red flowers and some spinach - don't know the names of the flowers but they were to pretty (and affordable) to pass up.

Food Food FOOOOOOD

Some food we have been making:

Chicken Alfredo - one of the quickest and most go to meals we make

K-Bobs

Sweet and Spicy Chicken (uncooked)

Black and White Beans (Our first attempt at making beans)

Chicken, beans, and white rice - doesn't look pretty but it was pretty tasty!

Spaghetti Carbonara - Paul just, finally, made this for me after years - oh wait - after a decade of telling me about this. It was amazing! Will be making this much more often.

Lamb chops, pasta salad and zucchini parmesan - delicious! 

Four Year Anniversary

Our four year anniversary was earlier this month. Now we normally try to do the traditional gifts (this year was flowers or fruit). Can you really see me buying Paul some flowers or fruit?? Heck no! So we decided just to do a couple of impulse buys and I must say this may be my favorite gift of all time.

Standing Heavy Bag with pink boxing gloves

Now I know what you're thinking (right.... this gift sucks) but really I LOVE it. It's been a great way to blow off steam and it is one heck of a cardio workout. We also got some padded gloves so we can take turns punching at each other. I almost hit Paul in the face on the first day. He just laughed and I was like "OH MY GOD, ARE YOU OKAY??!!". Paul also surprised me with a totally unexpected trip to a botanical garden. I have been wanting to go since we got here and I told him about it a while ago. I was so happy that he was so thoughtful I cried. I'm such a sappy person. We went to Koko Crater Botanical Garden. It was a dry kind of garden with lots of cactus like plants. We did the two mile loop and saw some beautiful plants and bonus it was free. 

It was a bit warm :)

Last, but not least. I cut my hair - feels so nice but I think it is even more curly that it was before (can't tell here because I straightened it).

The weekend

Who doesn't like weekends? I love weekends - plenty of time to spend with my hubby and do lots of fun things. Here's what we did this weekend. We pitched in with a bunch of people from Paul's work and rented a couple of pontoon boats over at the Marine Corp base. We anchored at the "sand bar" (area about a mile from shore but sandy at low tide) and hung out, ate, and paddle boarded. It was a good time - nice and relaxing. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed pontoon boats and I didn't even get sea sick!!

Saw a nice sized honu (hawaiian for turtle). Its hard to see in this picture but he's the dark spot middle left.

It was mostly sunny with the occasional cloud where we were but over the island it was really cloudy and rainy - so beautiful to watch.

Here is Paul talking with one of the ladies he works with and her little daughter.

Great day - only thing I would change would be to remember alway reapply your sunscreen!

So on sunday I got in the cooking mood (anything to avoid watching football...) and decided to try my hand with some new recipes. I attempted and failed to make an edible hummus dip (its like bean dip with chickpeas) 

Paul said it was "nasty". I love hummus but will need to find a better recipe to try from next time. The next thing on the list was to make pita bread - I think we both agreed that this was a success; even though it didn't puff up quite like it was supposed to.

 We made egg salad to go with the pita bread and that turned out amazing. The nice thing about pita is you don't cut all the way through so you don't have to worry about things falling out the back.

 And now on to a garden update:

We planted another tomato plant that was in a pot and added some cucumber (lemon variety) plants on the right side. My beets are starting to get some real leafs finally.

 Zucchini plant is really taking off. Planted some regular cucumbers next to it and three more pepper plants (they're still tiny).

And what is all the green stuff in the yard??? Yes, grass has finally started to grow - well, grass and weeds but we'll worry about the weeds once the whole yard is covered.

Sore Throat

Ugh - my throat has been killing me all day. I must have finally caught a cold (no one in Hawaii should be sick...). So I decided to give a Pinterest idea a try. So first you take a couple of lemons and slice & quarter and remove all seeds. Next place into a small mason jar and cover with honey - island honey is amazing!- and let it sit in the fridge for a while (months). The end result is kinda like lemon marmalade. Just spoon a dollop into a mug and cover with boiling water - supposed to be the best natural sore throat remedy.

What the heck? I can't get the picture to rotate... Well, you get the idea :)

Nu'uanu - Judd Trail

We hiked Nu'uanu - Judd Trail today (5+ miles). It was a good hike - a little harder than the book described but at least it had a lot of switch backs to make the uphill easier.

Trail head with cousin Zack

bamboo grove we passed through 

Paul and I at one of the lookouts 

Paul and some cool trees 

This was kind of neat - just happened to stop to get some water and looked to my right, and there is this little tree that someone had decorated with Christmas ornaments. 

One of my favorite things to look for on hikes: fiddleheads - pretty much just a fern baby 

Me in another bamboo grove 

Paul and Zack at the halfway lookout

view of Honolulu 

Garden Installation

We finally managed to spend some time in the backyard and I wish we had done it sooner! Here are some pictures of the process.

So here it is after we scrubbed the fence down for about two hours (removed dirt, grass, bugs, and dog prints - all courtesy of the previous tenants). Obviously it isn't the biggest yard we have had but it is big enough to BBQ, garden, and relax in moderate privacy.

We decided to go with two raised beds instead of just one long one - here is the left one 

 and here is the right one

Much nicer to look at with the frames all filled up!

 Paul's baby pineapple

Here is the right side - we have two Roma tomatoes, a row a Hawaiian sweet corn growing along fence, and a row of beets growing in front of the tomatoes - both still too small to see

 In the Left bed we have a healthy Hawaiian pepper plant and a not so healthy tabasco pepper plant - going to give him a bit more time to see if it's salvageable - behind them is another row of corn

 and no garden is complete without at least one zucchini plant - personally, zucchini is my favorite

Here are a few close up of the garden - first is mint. This guy is getting huge, good thing it will be staying in a pot.

 basil

 if you look closely you can see one of my baby beets

 and one of the baby corns

Some of the other plants growing include: thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender, and ornamental black pepper.

Paul and I both love to sit out on the lanai (back porch) and watch the plants grow. There are few things that compare with growing and harvesting your own food.