KC's Shave Ice Reward

I promised KC that if she was a "good girl" during the long flight from Illinois to Hawaii, I'd give her a shave ice (translation: ice cone) treat. They had a stop-over in LA and she said, "I looked for you when we got off the plane, but you weren't there. I looked everywhere and you weren't anywhere."


Well, she earned her treat so we took her to Waikele Outlet Mall. Close by is Sportmart and Old Navy. Between them is our favorite shave ice stand, Mountain Magic. We let KC have her very own shave ice cone for the first time.

I liked how Tiffany had KC go over to the proprieter after she was done to say, "Thank you."


As we were leaving, we called out, "We'll be back."

Rally to Restore Sanity

Honolulu was the last city to Rally to Restore Sanity yesterday. The rally was held at the State Capitol. Art had to meet his classmates in Ala Moana for a luncheon so my brother, Dennis took me to the rally and kept me company until Art could come and pick me up to go home.


As we walked to the Capitol I wondered what kind of turn out there would be since I hadn't heard a whole lot of publicity about it. I didn't see much of a crowd walking toward it and we were only about 15 minutes early.


Dennis wanted me to see the renovation work that was being done on the Capitol.


I liked the dramatic look of seeing the sky in the center of the roof.


We passed the Iolani Palace to get to the Ewa (west of the capitol) side lawn. East, west, north, south directions are never given in Hawaii. It's always mauka (mountain), makai (ocean), or the direction of a town which is what Ewa is.


The Capitol really is a beautiful building. It's supposed to look like a volcano at the center with palm trees, and the ocean around it.


Dennis taught me to do a panoramic a while ago. I was afraid to try it on my own with Photoshop. He took a series of photos of the Capitol and told me to go home and photomerge it as homework. Well... it's not perfect. But it's a start. (Please click on the panoramic for full effect.)


OK... Dennis stopped by this afternoon and fine tuned it a bit. And do you think I remembered what he taught me?

The 11:00 AM start time came and went. Organizers arrived shortly and set up a tarp and the sign. That was hopeful.

More people showed up. Dennis and I had a prime spot under a shade tree (thank goodness!) and set up our goza (straw beach mat) and had our Panda Express lunch.

More people gradually arrived. The organizers said we they were starting on Hawaiian time... about a half hour late.

Now it was getting quite interesting. Was that lady supposed to be a pregnant hula dancer with a plant growing out of her head?

I was going to take a photo of this couple, but decided to take a photo of the news people taking a photo of them instead.

The signs were a lot of fun.

I thought we weren't supposed to bring signs, but they were all respectful and added to the festivity.

These guys were having a great time.

And then the show started. There were comedians, politicians and musicians.

The crowd grew.

Christina Gomez sang a song about birds while the DJ held the mic for her.

And then... too soon, Art came to pick me up to go home. Dennis went to do some work at the office. As I was leaving I could see more people had shown up and the rally was in full swing.

Our next stop was Leeward College to drop off our laptop at the E-waste site.

We topped it off with a trip to Waikele Mall where Art went to get some energy gels for his marathon training. They were all out at Sports Authority, but we consoled ourselves by sharing a large shave ice. I still think the little Mountain Magic stand has the best shave ice on the island.

It was such a super, sunny, satisfying, SANE Saturday!