Sunday – July 5: Tried Church down at Assumption Parish in Puako. Service at 10:00 and only 20 minutes away. Much quicker, but we liked the same priest at Annunciation up in Waimea.

Beautiful homes down in Puako, reminded us of home out in Waimea on Kauai, nice and quiet and on the beach. A very slow town, you really can’t count it as that though.

Went to dinner at the Macaroni Grill down at the Queen’s shops. Same menu, even takeout, but the wine isn’t by the tumbler glass like in California on the honor system. The liquor laws prohibit that in Hawaii, so you order by the separate glass.

Got to see the International Space Station fly by overhead about 8:48 pm, it traveled from WSW to N in about 4 minutes, very cool. You can see it a few more times this week too!

Sagturday – July 4: Time to celebrate the U.S.A.! At the Mauna Lani Beach Resort, at 10:30 a.m., there was a release of sea turtles to the wild. 5 turtles were released, with lots of people checking it out. Very cool ceremony. A newly refurbished canoe was also being christened at the same time. Beautiful events.

We had breakfast first at the outdoor restaurant, very pictureesque and excellent food. Sandy had the poi pancakes which were delicious. The chicken-mango sausage with my eggs was great too. Rosie had a spicy egg omlette with chorizo and avocado, it was good too!

Went back the condo and relaxed, went to the 5:30 p.m. 4th of July celebration with pupus at the pool. Folks are a little older than we are. Left at 6:30 for the fireworks show down at the King’s/Queen’s Village. Some people said the fireworks were at the beach by the Hilton or by the Marriott. We asked people with all kinds of differering answers. By sheer luck, we parked behind the Queen’s Aloha Market and were lined up perfectly for the extravaganza, it was right in front of us. We thought it was at 8:30 p.m., but like mountain time, it went off at 8:50 and lasted for about 12 minutes. Nice show!

Friday – July 3: Cleaned the windows on the lanai and the sliders in the morning. Cleaned the entrance tiles as well, but it really made no difference.

Big RUBBER DUCK RACE tomorrow in the King’s Market Place to benefit a local charity. Lots of prizes, down to 51 deep! We bought a “quack-pack” of 3 ducks and a free T-shirt. We have the winning entry (update – no we didn’t)!

Lunch at the Fish and Chips place … nice outside eating at the pavilion overlooking the lake, but the food was fair.

Rosie has an interview at 2:00 at the Sunglass Hut in the Kings Village. We’ll see …

Followup – Rosie passed interview #2, now she goes for training an then …

BBQ for dinner, chicken and steak kabobs from the Queens Aloha Market Store! BBQ on the left is much hotter than the one on the right …

Thursday – July 2: Went into Kona to do some errands at the Home Depot. Dropped Sandy and Rosie off at the movie theatre to see “The Proposal”. The theater is called the Hollywood – Makalapua Stadium Cinemas and it is located at 74-5469 Kamakaeha in Kailua-Kona. It is a shopping center with 3 stores, Super K-Mart, the theater and the local Macy’s!

Went to Stealth Audio (next to the Killer Taco place) and while I waited, they installed 2 brand new 6.5″ front door speakers in the Green Flash. The old ones were blown out. These, actually, don’t sound any better, but at least we get some volume out of them!

After the movie theater, we picked up Sandy’s office chair at the local Office Max. The air conditioner fan in the Subaru is making a very weird noise!

On our way home, we stopped by the “Kona Cold Lobster” place located at 73-4460 Queen Kaahumanu Highway in Kona. They are by the airport, just drive down the solar energy demonstration road (you can’t miss it, 808 329-4332) to the end, right before the gate. It is a lobster farm and ships to all the restaurants on the island. He has quite a setup. We picked up, for 80 dollars, 15 lobster tails (split) for dinner, it is called a “flat”, like the strawberries. The hours are Monday -Friday, 6:00 am – 2:00 pm and Saturday, 6:00 am – 12:00 pm. CASH ONLY! The owner packed the flat for travel with gel pacs in a box. The tails are split in 1/2 so that we can BBQ at our leisure. We had 6 lobster tail halves for surf and turf dinner today, Cook them on the BBQ for 1-2 minutes on each side, starting with the meat side down, then flip to cook on the shell, basting with butter. They are done when the meat turns white from opaque. Don’t cook them too long or they get rubbery.

I have to get one of these gas BBQs, it is the only way to go! We figured it out to about 5.10/lobster tail. Rosie said these were “the bomb”

Wednesday – July 1: Rosie took the car in the afternoon to pick up Elyssa. We hung out at home. I updated her Macbook to 10.5.7 and all other updates. That took a while.

Sandy cleaned the floor in the afternoon, lots of work.

Tuesday – June 30. Lazy morning with Sandy trying to figure out how to conference call on Skype, RATS. A few tense moments, but we got her all straightened out. Puttered around the condo and FINALLY, went to the POOL in the afternoon. Maybe, we are starting to relax?

Nice taco salad dinner, refreshing. Started experimenting on the perfect Mai-Tai. Orange-passion fruit nectar and pineapple juice with light and dark rum. Yum!

Monday – June 29. We went down to Kona to get the Subaru checked out. We had an 8:30 appointment at the dealer to give the “Green Flash” a once over. Spent the day after dropping the car off down in Kona at the Home Depot, Costco, Walmart (picking us as well the AIG insurance card) and looking for an office table for Sandy’s office in the bedroom. We had lunch at Panda Express next to the new Target. Finally returned at 4:00 to pick up the Subaru and then returned the rental Ford Explorer to the airport.

We found a table that will work, we will re-measure at home to make sure!

Drove back up to Waikoloa and had dinner at the Waikaloa Marriott “Call” restaurant. They had Monday 50% off entrees specials. They have specials every day, must be the slow economy.