Lot's to catch up on...

Ok guys and gals,

I've been back for almost a week and have not posted a thing, not that I've not been busy with both good and bad...more on that later.

I thought I'd catch you up on our annual "get away from the kids, work, and miserable Ohio weather" vacation trip.  This will be short on words and heavier on pics...

One of my favorite vacation activities is to cook, as I enjoy the artistic diversity of creating something that tastes as good as it looks.  Unlike the Fire Department, where my creativity is stifled by a bunch of whiny cheap bastards who don't like anything that is not made of beef or potatoes, now I'm cooking for myself and can make what ever I want (nothing personal guys, you know I love ya).  I took the opportunity to make some grub that makes me happy.

So for Mike and I, I whipped up some huevos rancheros with a little fresh avacado and cilantro. The girls got bananna and macadamia nut pancakes with a side of bacon.  A good way to start the day :)

Some very cool flowers...there's a neat paint scheme in these for the right customer, could it be you?

I'm a sucker for lighthouses, but more specifically, the Fresnel lenses that magnify the beam of light.  The engineering and craftsmanship that goes into the multiple layers of glass astounds me.  This one used a Clamshell lense, not what I hoped for, but beautiful just the same.

We could not resist hiking to the top of this 800' waterfall in Waimea Canyon...

and dangling my feet over the edge for an unparalleled view.  Only thing better would be climbing it if it was frozen...yeah baby!  One of the drawbacks to Nahbs being in the winter, no more time to ice climb :(

Polihale Beach is at the end of an old sugar cane road that is full of potholes, ruts, and craters that would swallow most 4wd trucks.  Fortunately, we had the next best thing...a 4 cylinder compact rental car ;)

Polihale marks the West end of the Napali Coast, a gorgeous coastline only accessible by boat, an epic swim, or a centuries old hiking trail that covers a third of it's length.  Here Christi and I are taking in the view by boat, the lazyman's option.  I would love to come back in the summer time and sea kayak the coastline, camping and hiking along the way.  Maybe someday?

Just like the winds that sweep the trees, it too blew us back home.  Once back, I had some hard news to learn.  Those of you who have been following the blog for a while know that I've had a storied medical past...well, it's coming back to bite me again.  Long story short, I spent two days with the Cardiologist getting some tests done and it looks like I'll be going under the knife Thursday morning for some minor heart surgery.  With that scheduled, I wasted half a day feeling sorry for myself, a whole day on email and voicemail, took a day to watch Emmy's volleyball team take 1st in their Silver flight at the Brunswick tourney, then got to work on shop orders.

I put the final coat of primer on Steve's sponsored race frame...color will begin in the morning.  Gonna do a candy red/orange/yellow brushed fire theme, should be snazzy.

I've got a bunch of bars to knock out, so I put my head down and got to work.  A long day later, most of the steelies are done.  Ti bars will get going tomorrow.  Wednesday will be a long push to get Cary's Groovy Series race drawing frame fabbed up before I'm down physically for a tiny bit.

More tomorrow night,

rody