Cleaning Up for the New Year

I know it's something I grew up with that mom ingrained into my subconscious. We always did our "spring cleaning" before New Years Day. It was the idea that we must go into the New Year with a clean slate. We pay off our bills, get rid of garbage, finish our thank you notes and obligations, clean up holiday decorations (we try), organize whatever needs organizing and clean everything.  

I started in November. (Mainly because Art has needed my computer to work on his African Safari photobook.) 

I first got our New Year Newsletters done and printed. Then I cleaned and organized the drawers in the kitchen. They were a MESS! There are certain members in our family who tends to drop things in drawers helter skelter and it's not me.

I should have taken a BEFORE and AFTER photo but once I got going, I couldn't stop. Please imagine that drawer with the tags and clips just one big junk pile. The other drawers were no better.

I just got this AI generated photo with the help of Ed from Riverbend Journal. OK, maybe it wasn't this bad, but close.

I now often open the drawers just to feel the satisfaction of having order again.

I donated old dishes and kitchen supplies to the temple rummage sale, gave away toys from the toy closet (grandkids are either grown up or in South Asia), and so on and so forth. 

(The Japanese signs are used to remind mom what we are doing if we're out of the house. Her forgetfulness is becoming more acute these days.)

I went through my bookshelves filled with all the books I'd collected and bought from rummage and library sales for my 1st grade classroom. 

I sent several large flat rate boxes of books to our grandsons in South Asia where English books are much needed and saved the rest to give away at our family get-together.

Then I moved to my office.

We keep receiving tons of greeting cards that we don't use from charities for donations we've given. Art even asked some of them to stop but it didn't do any good. 

Art hates to throw away things that MIGHT be used so he started putting them in my drawers. His drawers are too full. So I went through the pile that was stuffed in my drawer and ruthlessly tossed a bunch of them away. I kept the envelopes because .... well... who knows? I might be able to use them. Maybe. And then I told Art he was no longer allowed to put any more cards or anything else in my drawers. 😐

Two of my friends tell me they are also downsizing and organizing their households. In fact, they started a year or two ago. I guess it's partly because of our age. Do we really want to leave all this for our kids to have to deal with? 

When I did some organizing last November/December I put this dress in the donation box. Later, with a change of heart, I searched frantically for it.

I've written about how our son was born in the military hospital elevator in Illinois and how Art had been the one to deliver his son by himself. Well, this is the dress I was wearing at the time.

OK... I'm going to look at the closets now to see what I can take out for donation or trash... carefully.

I think I might be making Art nervous. 😏

When Life Doesn't Give You Lemons, Would an Orchid Do?

I wrote a post in 2015 called Art's Lemon Tree Grove. We had tasted Art's sister's Meyer lemons in California when we visited her in 2013. She and my brother-in-law are avid gardeners. We could not believe how sweet the lemons were. They tasted like sweet lemon juice without any tartness at all.

Well... she sent us a lot of seeds from her tree that Art promptly planted.

We ended up with quite a few lemon seedlings that Art even shared with friends.

Oops!

The ones he kept grew and grew and grew. 

But there were no lemons.

There were just huge, dangerous thorns which I would occasionally cut off.

When we researched how to propagate trees, we learned TOO LATE that you can't get the same sort of fruit from seeds.

You have to GRAFT them from the original tree. 😖

So now we had these trees and they kept growing. I kept telling Art that he needed to get rid of them. 

But now they were like his babies and he just couldn't kill them.

Eventually, the pots started to crack and weeds joined the huge, thorny trees. He even transplanted a couple of the lemon trees into new pots until I finally told him they just had to go.

So last month... finally... after ten years and more persistent nagging discussion, he said goodbye to his overgrown ugly not pretty lemon trees after I cut the tops off. 

Yes, I did warn him that I would before I did it. The pots were so brittle from the Hawaiian sun that much of it just cracked off. There wasn't a lot of dirt left in the pot.

However...

There were these plants (weeds) that had attached itself to the lemon trees' roots.

My brother, Dennis had taken a photo of one of the flowers from the weeds a while ago.

It looked like an orchid, but could they grow in really old yukky dirt?

Dennis said it was a common wild ground orchid and that we should just discard it because you can find them growing wild all over the island.

And did he discard the ground orchid weed? Nope, just transplanted them to this pot.

And do you think he tossed ALL the non-producing rather unsightly lemon trees? Sigh... Nope.

He said he liked the bonsai like roots at the bottom of the lemon tree. And wouldn't you know that even though I'd trimmed off the top branches, there were more shoots coming up at the top and the bottom.

Ah well... I give up.

Traveling Grandsons

My husband, Art and his sister have been fearless travelers since a young age. Their dad actually traveled from the wilds of early Hawaii to Wisconsin's School of Engineering in1929, but wasn't able to graduate because he had to return home to recover when one of his kidneys had to be removed.

When she grew up, Art's sister flew to Muncie, Indiana's Ball State and completed her teaching degree. Art went to Peoria, Illinois' Bradley University and was able to complete his electrical engineering degree. I imagine that really made his dad happy too.

I did not venture to the mainland until I married Art and moved to Illinois in 1974 because he accepted a position there with the U.S.E.P.A. 

And here I thought I was brave to move from our sleepy sugar cane plantation village in Waipahu to the University of Hawaii dormitory on the Manoa campus which is 15 miles away (but took about an hour and a half to get home on the bus).

I should have known from the start of our marriage that my life would now be totally different. Art was in the Air Force for 6 years after graduation so he'd been everywhere and he had places he wanted to see. So we did visit areas around Illinois and on to the west and east coast. 

When our children were born, he wanted to show them different parts of the country so that's what we did. And when they were older, he decided that we should show them other parts of the world. So we did.

Was I nervous? Yup. But I understood it was a good idea to give the kids a world view.

Our son-in-law did propose to Tiffany at the Borghese Gardens in Rome.

Keola joined the Peace Corps where he met his future adventurous wife in Mali, West Africa.

They now live in South Asia and take our grandsons to other countries. Here they are in Malaysia.

They also sent us photos from Singapore.

OK, this photo startled me at first, but I know Keola was a lifeguard and avid surfer. Sarah is a very cautious mother so I know the boys were safe.

Therefore, I guess this travel inclination will probably be passed on to the next generation.

Ummm.... and you know where Art is saying he wants to go next. Sigh...

Skinny, Crazy Newspaper

Art and I like to read the Star Advertiser newspaper every morning with his coffee (black) and my mocha breakfast. I know we can get a digital copy online, but we like to continue getting that hardcopy. 

He's used to immediately read the front page verrrry carefully and then the sports page carefully. 

I read the Local/Daily Break & Business section. No, I didn't pay any attention to the Business stuff. The Local/Daily Break section has (Advice Columnist) Carolyn Hax, JUMBLE, Super Quiz, Crosswords and the comics. 

Eventually, Art felt bad about hogging the Front page section because I'd finished my mocha and did the dishes while he was still reading that front page.

So he made a bit of a sacrifice and started to give me the Front pages first while he read the sports pages. I don't pay all that much attention to the Front page section because I'd already seen most of it online or in the evening TV news reports. I do like the editorial page though.

Anyway, before Art is even close to done with the Sports pages, I hand over the Front pages to him.

I do enjoy the Advice column to see if I agree or not and I do invariably agree with Carolyn Hax. I then move over to the comics and decide which ones to cut out for my 5 and 8 year old grandsons who now live in South Asia. Both can now read and love getting my envelopes full of the selected weekday comics and the multi page Sunday comics section which seems more geared to kids.

Well.... First, the Star Advertiser cut out the Saturday hard copy paper and required you to just read it online. Art's black coffee and my mocha just didn't taste the same without the hard copy morning newspaper.

Meanwhile, the price of the newspaper subscription went up. 

I know newspapers are hurting so we want to support them.

However, this last cost cutting measure is even more irritating. The newspaper is now noticeably thinner and they have COMBINED the Sports page AND the Local&Business! 😖

What?!?! Aggravation! 

Ah well... I guess you just have to adapt.  Art now has control of the Sports AND the Local/Daily Break & Business and I get the Front pages first. 

If they start combining them ALL into one section, it's going to make us wonder if it's worth it. Sigh...

But then there's his black coffee and my mocha to think about.

POSTSCRIPT 1: 

OK, and here's a new one. 

Last week, they delivered the Monday paper on Thursday!

Aggravation!

Yes, they sent the correct Thursday issue an hour later but by then Art was done with his black coffee and I was done with my mocha and we'd (sigh) read the digital copy on our phones anyway. 🙄

POSTSCRIPT 2:

Oh my gosh! You are not going to believe this!

They've changed the format again!

Now the Front Page and Local is together and the Sports and my Daily Break with Carolyn Hax, Jumble, Comics, etc. are together.

OK, I can live with this. What the heck. 

I can scan the Front pages and hand it over to Art quickly. 

Then I can take my time with making those comic selections to mail to my grandsons and do the JUMBLE.

Do you suppose other couples who drink black coffee and mocha complained to the Star Advertiser?  🙄

Holiday Stress

And now it's the Christmas stress. I have several friends and cousins who have told me it's a super stress time. Bah humbug! 😂 They're just kidding. I think.

To be honest, I just got done with one stressful but happy holiday and now it's on to another.  

What I'm grateful for.... WISH LISTS!  I've asked our kids to give us wish lists for our grandkids and now my nieces have kindly agreed to give me wish lists for their kids each year. It makes my life so much EASIER. 

As for my kids and their spouses, we each buy for just one person every year (using their wish lists). It's wonderful! I love it! I start thinking of extravagant things I would like throughout the year that I would not buy for myself so I can present it to my Not So Secret Santa. 

However, I still need to start thinking about baking my fruitcakes for neighbors and other loved ones. It does happen to be one of Art's favorite holiday treats.

Many families have Christmas decorations with lights already hung around their homes. 

Nope, not us. We don't even have our tree up yet. We will. We will. The gifts we already received just don't look the same under the table.

So yes, there's holiday stress, but we'll get into the spirit.

So you can imagine our surprise when we saw this on the road recently. OK... maybe a little extreme but I did burst out laughing.

POSTSCRIPT:

For my Jewish friends in Illinois and Israel, "Happy Hannukah!" 

I wish you peace and hope in the coming days.

Wildfires in Hawaii

The wildfires on August 8th in Lahaina has spurred more fear and worry among many residents in Hawaii. There was a wildfire on the Big Island too which didn't get much news because of the overwhelming horror of the fire on Maui that destroyed the famous town and displaced and killed so many residents.

Now... every time I pass a stretch of brown, dry grass... I worry and wonder. How close is it to our home? How strong is the wind? What would I save first if it came close to our house? How far should you keep vegetation away from the house? 

And then, one morning in November as we were on our way to our tai chi class in Mililani, we saw smoke in the mountains.

That Mililani fire lasted close to two weeks. Friends in Mililani told me that ashes from the fire fell on their lawns. 

There were people in Lahaina who had no time to grab anything before fleeing. Many didn't have their credit cards, extra clothes, medication, financial information... They had nothing.

We have a firesafe. I'm thinking about what needs to be put in it. 

And I'm thinking about all that dried grass a few blocks away.

It's winter in Hawaii now. It's been raining off and on all day and I'm so glad. Then again it means there will be more wild vegetation and in the summer, there will be more dried grass which will become fuel for a fire.

Sigh...

Ah well... I'll just enjoy the rain for now.

A Belated Thanksgiving

My very special nephew is an ER nurse so his busy schedule sometimes prevents us from having our family holiday get-togethers at the usual time. 

This time, instead of having it on November 23rd, we had our time together this past Saturday. 

Therefore, we were able to relax 2 weeks ago. However, this past week was an extremely busy one. I prepared the lup cheong (Chinese sausage) stuffing on Tuesday. It required a LOT of prep work to get all the ingredients chopped and ready to mix with mochi rice. I then froze it.

Wednesday was the day to clean the house, get the buffet tables set up with all the take-home containers for family to take home left overs.

Thursday: We were gone just about all day for lots of tests, mostly for me at the Tripler Hospital.

Friday: Crazy day to prepare stuffing for the turkey, cooking my flan, roasting sweet potatoes, etc. However it was brining the turkey that turned out to be the most arduous of all. We'd bought a 21 pound turkey. No, we didn't need such a big turkey. Sigh... When you add the brine it would make it very heavy. If you put it into our sturdy giant soup pot, it would be very, very heavy. I was envisioning our glass shelf in the refrigerator breaking. 

So we went out and bought a brining bag. That's when I learned with that big brining bag, the whole turkey wouldn't get covered with the solution. We tried propping it up, but it still wasn't great. In the end, we put it in the smaller soup pot and added more water. It sort of worked but was still heavy. 

Saturday: Art prepared his pumpkin pie, while I chopped and diced what mom would need for her signature macaroni salad. She wanted to make it for the family as she'd always done. 

And just around that time we saw something that sent shock waves and fear into our hearts. Termite droppings!!!

And it was all over the floor. Mom often cleans the kitchen floor almost daily, so we just missed this. When I opened the drawers, I saw more termite poop. Arrrghhh!

However, we were plugging along. Turkey was roasting and we waited for mom to wake up so she could start her macaroni salad. That's when we realized that even with the recipe in hand, she couldn't do it. So I needed to do 95% of the preparation while watching mom to make sure she did not forget and continuously add something where it wasn't supposed to go. 

Yes, it was stressful and took twice the time anticipated which made our turkey carving late. It also delayed our making the gravy.

My brother and family arrived while Art was trying to carve what he could of the turkey and then we dashed upstairs to change our clothes and freshen up. We were really tired.

When we came down again, it was joyous to see everybody again.

We took several photos before we got one we liked.

Everybody brought several dishes to share. There was more than enough food and definitely enough for everyone to bring some home for dinner the following night.

And this year, like last year younger people were given the OK to take over duties like the distribution of desserts, helping with left-over packing, cleaning up, etc. 

It was wonderful!

And if that wasn't enough wonderfulness, our neighbor surprised us with her church group to sing Christmas carols and dance the hula for us.

How much more wonderful can a Thanksgiving be?

Buuut... I'm thinking that when it's our turn to make the turkey again, Kentucky Fried chicken would be the way to go.

When I'm 64?

I just got an email from our high school Reunion Committee.

They are organizing a 75th birthday celebration.

At first I was surprised. I'm 74 years young, but 75 suddenly sounded old.

How can this be?

Remember the song written by Paul McCartney of the Beatles? When I'm 64?

When I get older losing my hair

Many years from now

Will you still be sending me a Valentine

Birthday greetings bottle of wine

If I'd been out till quarter to three

Would you lock the door

Will you still need me, will you still feed me

When I'm sixty-four

You'll be older too

And if you say the word

I could stay with you...

I wonder how old Paul McCartney was when he wrote this song. 64 sounds so young now. Why does 75 sound much older than 74? 

And since when did I get considered old? And why is it when we get together with friends, most of our conversation is about our health?

Here in Hawaii, I do love the fact that young counter servers always call us "Auntie" or "Uncle" instead of "Grandma or Grandpa."

I have noticed that in the last several years, my daughter is often worried about us. She speaks to me in a slightly different tone. Almost like talking to a child and she often reminds me that I've already told her something.

It's funny because I catch myself talking to my mom that way. I don't particularly like it so it's a reminder for me to be more understanding of her forgetfulness.

But gosh...when did this happen? Aches and pains are happening more now. And yes, it's true I'm more forgetful. Walking up stairs is more tiring. But old? I prefer saying older.

Sigh.

Art just reminded me of something. He is 5 years older than me. He's wondering how he'll feel when he hits that magic 80 mark. Actually he's in much better condition than me. I suspect it's from all the exercising he does. He's also got a FAR BETTER memory than me. 

OK. OK... I suppose this is a warning for me to start moving.

Sigh...

POSTSCRIPT: The other day, mom asked Art how old he was because although he's losing his hair, it's still pretty black. He told her to guess and she said, "70." 

What?!? I asked her if she actually thought he looked younger than me. She said, "He has black hair."

🙄

And no, I'm not dyeing my hair. I'm lucky if I remember to comb it in the morning.

Spam Comments That Are Not Spam

I do periodically check my Blogger Spam box and often see legitimate blogger friends' comments placed there for inexplicable reasons. 

Spam is really annoying. If I do spot it in my regular feed, I try to quickly mark them as Spam. Several of the ones I'm hit with often are from: Aaliyah, Sport-KH, footballandcasinoufa, Emma, Emily, Escort Service in Gurgaon, ufa88cambodia, Rajani Rehana, okbet13, Achima, Mary,  Anna.... and so on and so forth. 

Recently, I decided to look way back in my spam file and saw a number of comments that went to the Spam box that were from regular blogger friends.

I'm finding that these comments had only 1 or 2 words.

So...

Then I'm wondering if Spammers had at one time confiscated identifies and thrown in these 1 word comments or did friends happen to actually write 1 word comments which were then thrown by Blogspot-bot into the Spam box.

Sheesh! 

I don't know.

Whatever the case, I really need to check my Spam box more often.

And just in case, I'll be sure to comment with at least 5 word sentences.

You never know...

Thoughts and Prayers?

 I saw this cartoon last month on the editorial page.

It's funny because right after that awful Maine mass shooting tragedy, I heard another politician say he was offering "thoughts and prayers" to everyone.

I wince every time I hear that phrase "thoughts and prayers." It's become so trite and for me almost uncaring. I know that's weird, but it's used so often that it feels meaningless.

I guess it's easier to offer thoughts and prayers instead of working on gun control. 

And then there's that Maine U.S. representative, Jared Golden (Democrat, no less) who now seeks "forgiveness" for his past opposition to gun control.

What?!?

You were opposing gun control despite all those other mass shootings going on around our country? BUT when it's in your own hometown, THEN you change your mind?

I don't know what else to say. I'm so %^&** off.

Pandemic Project Completed At Last

It all started out as a pandemic project. I decided to go through all our scanned family photos and make books detailing what happened each year. I've kept a journal since our children were born so I could fill in explanations for the photos.

I had been using Costco to print our books, but during the pandemic, Costco stopped printing books and turned all our accounts over to Shutterfly where books cost a LOT more. 

There was also a steep learning curve for me. Costco always listed their books as 8.5"x11". Shutterfly's books are listed as 8" x ll". However, when I made that 1/2" adjustment, my photo pages got cut off at the top and sides. Arrghh...

It turned out that although Shutterfly lists their books as 8"x11", it's actually the same as Costco. 

Arrrghhh...

When I got to Book 2, I discovered that Shutterfly was printing my photos much too dark. Luckily, they allowed me to redo my pages and they printed it again. 

When I got to Book 3, I learned that they also periodically offer deals which give you free pages. Since my books have 100 pages, it's really expensive. So Books 3 and 4 cost half as much as Books 1 and 2. Arrrghhh! 

So finally, finally.... I got done with Book 5 a couple of months ago and it was finally, finally perfect. 🙄

Sigh... I hope my kids and grandkids are happy.

POSTSCRIPT: 

And now it's the holidays. I know it's a time of happiness and all that... but gosh... right now... it's rather stressful thinking of all I have to do.

Do You Know Your State's Nickname?

Last month I wrote a post about all the evergreen trees at our daughter, Tiffany's home in Illinois. Margaret and DJan reminded me that their state of Washington is nicknamed the Evergreen State.

On that same day, Art and I were having lunch and testing ourselves with the Super Quiz in the Star Advertiser.

The Subject was Potpourri.

The question that really stumped us was #7.

Which state is  "The Land of Steady Habits"?

Really?

We thought and thought and really couldn't even come up with a guess.

When we looked at the answers, we discovered it was CONNECTICUT.

Seriously?

Connecticut?

When I looked it up at 50 States.com, I saw that Connecticut is actually called the Constitution State.

But when I looked under Connecticut's Nicknames, I discovered they had FOUR nicknames!!!

The Constitution State, The Nutmeg State, The Provisions State and yup...The Land of Steady Habits.

What? Couldn't they decide on just one?

I've lived in Illinois and now in Hawaii. We have only one nickname for each state.

The Aloha State and the Prairie State

Hmmmm...

Granted, I've also heard Illinois being called The Land of Lincoln.

So anyway...

Do you know your state's nickname or nicknames? 

And how about the Canadians? Do you have nicknames for your provinces or territories?

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! 

As for us, we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving next week due to scheduling difficulties with family members. But it doesn't matter. We'll enjoy the family celebration next week with just as much fun and joy at being together again. I hope my Canadian blogger buddies had a glorious time last month celebrating your Thanksgiving get-togethers also.

Another Banana Twin

Last year, I posted a photo of a twin banana we found in the hand of apple bananas that we'd bought. We like apple bananas better than Cavendish because they don't all ripen faster than you can eat them.

We thought this pair of twin bananas was pretty cool.

Well, believe it or not, we found another one. But this time the twin bananas did not have its own peel separating them. They were truly stuck together.

OK... so it's not a billion dollar lottery ticket, but we thought it was pretty neat.

Two Guys on a Safari

When Art mentioned going on a safari in Tanzania, I really wasn't interested. It's been a very busy traveling year. I'm willing to go on one distant travel a year. This year, we went to the British Isles in April. That was wonderful! But then, we had another trip in June to celebrate our 50th anniversary in Tokyo with the kids and grandkids. I thought that was a LOT of travel. I thought it was ENOUGH travel for one year.

But then Art had mentioned earlier that he and our good friend, Dave were planning to go on a Tanzanian safari in August too. It was a trip that had been postponed for 3 years  because of the pandemic. He wondered if I'd like to go along. Dave's wife, Diane is my classmate and childhood friend. She and I said, "No way." I was tired. Diane is not for long, long, long plane rides.

Keola joined the Peace Corps in 2001. He was assigned to Mali where he valued all the experiences he had there. In February, 2002, Art had retired and decided to visit Keola and explore some of Africa. I was still teaching at the time.

Father and son had a fabulous time climbing to the peak of Kilimanjaro, joining a safari in Tanzania and trekking through Kenya with rather rustic accommodations.

So now...here was an opportunity to visit the area again with some nice upgrades.

Diane and I were happy that Art and Dave would be able to have this adventure together.

They wanted to see the wildebeest migration crossing over rivers and grassy plains. They also wanted to see lions and warthogs and elephants, oh my! Dave is a professional photographer and looked forward to taking a lot of photos. (I will write about some of their adventures at a later date. Art is still trying to organize his photos and creating a photobook to document what they experienced.)

Hoooowever... at their first stop, they were given a room with one bed.

When they notified their safari leader, the beds were separated.

The following day, the same thing happened.

When it happened again on the 3rd day, they began to suspect that it was assumed they were a couple. 😂

Diane and I laughed about this when they texted us from Tanzania about their chagrin.

Well... I'm glad the guys had a great time. And I wondered if the safari folks would make the same assumption if two women were traveling together.

Uuumm... And do you know what Art just told me a couple of days ago? He said Antarctica was on his bucket list and wouldn't I like to go because Dave was interested. I don't think Diane likes the cold. Hmmm... I do have a down coat I can loan her. 😁

Goodbye Again

Our son-in-law, Ed returned from his job related travel for our last three days in Chicago. It was wonderful to be able to spend even this short time with him.

I always tell him he's my favorite techie. "Only your favorite techie?" he laughed.

I also tell him he's my favorite son-in-law. OK, it's true he's my only son-in-law. But the important thing is he's my favorite. 😄

I told him about the problems I was having receiving calls from Tripler Hospital that were going straight to voice mail. Arrghhh... I'd missed some important calls. 

He fixed it. I can't remember what he did but he somehow did it.

Then I told him that my Line app had stopped giving me notifications when someone texts me.

I'd looked online for solutions and even mirrored all the settings from Art's phone and still, my iPhone refused to give me any notifications.

Yup. He fixed that too. I don't know how. But he did. 

He and Tif then said we needed to learn how to use the Uber app so he set that up on my iPhone for our trip to the airport.

It really wasn't very hard once he explained it. I don't know when we'd use it again, but it sure is nice to have this option. Our Uber driver came right on time and off we went. 

It was sad to once again look out the car window and wave goodbye to our daughter and son-in-law. KC was already at school.

On the way to O'Hare, the Uber website gave a status report on my iphone telling me the time we'd arrive at the airport.

And yes, I did do the online check-in again. The bag drop shortcut was a lot more convenient than the one in Honolulu.

And before you knew it, we were on the United flight which incredibly left on time.

We got to watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which was fun.

And wonder of wonders, we arrived in Hawaii on time too. 

Our luggage was one of the first to come out and my brother came to pick us up and bring us home.

This was the shortest trip we've ever taken to Chicago but just about the smoothest we've ever had.

Fingers crossed it will be the same when we return next year.

And so we're back and here I am again.

Fall Colors At Last

Living in Hawaii, we haven't been able to enjoy fall colors unless we travel to the mainland, Asia or Europe.

So here we were in Illinois in October, but the colors weren't quite at its peak. It was two days before we were to leave and we'd been getting mostly cloudy, drizzly weather.

But then suddenly... the sun came out. 

"Let's go to the woods," said Tif. "This is probably going to be your last chance to get a good day even though there might not be much color yet."

And so off we went. The reds weren't really on display yet, but it was still beautiful.

I loved the comfortably cool weather knowing that we would be returning to hot and humid in a couple of days.

We were warned by friends in Hawaii to expect it upon our return. 

And then suddenly we heard what sounded like thundering hooves. We looked to the left and saw the biggest deer with giant antlers that I've ever seen in the wild go thundering along the riverbank. That was quite a sight. 

It was a truly wonderful day even though Tif texted a week later that we missed the reds by just a week. 

Ahhh well... we'll be back.