Rounding Out April

	One of the biggest events of the year here in Hilo is the Merrie Monarch Festival, celebrating Hula, and the King who brought it back from the edge of extinction. This is his statue, bedecked
	Naturally, we have a parade. And what's a parade without honor guards?
	The Navy group sure could swing! Who knew?
	And what's a Hawaiian celebration without some form of royalty? I have no idea what sort of royalty they're supposed to be, though.
	Yeah, it's a big happy Mac Nut. Yum!
	I've seen this float in a couple of local parades: a smoking mountain.

The last two have nothing whatsoever to do with Hawaiiana....

	Chicken Soup! Came out pretty well, as usual.
	Architectural detail from our downtown post office, which dates back to the '20s or '30s.

  ¶ Saturday, May 19, 2007 0 comments

  Lower orders, April BUGS! Actually, I don't think spiders qualify, and that's mostly what I've got. All of these were taken in our very own backyard.


Flowers, of course.
  ¶ Thursday, May 17, 2007 1 comments

  Higher Order Vertebrates, April

From a performance mixing Aesop's Fables with Saint-saen's Carnival of the Animals, plus some dance and acting.

From our local zoo: Namaste the Tiger, Ring-tailed Lemur, Bearcat, Blue Dart Poison Frog and peacocks.


Birds seen on campus: Saffron Finch (I've been trying to get a picture of the local finches for ages) and Northern Cardinal.
  ¶ Thursday, May 17, 2007 0 comments

  Max and Friends: April Costumes! The Bumblebee is Max's costume for the Island Dance Academy's Cinderella; he'll be dancing with chickens. The elephant and flamingo are old Halloween costumes, again. He loves sharing them with friends.

Haircut! Before and during, obviously. It's not easy to get a decent picture of him during a haircut, let me tell you.


Sharing with a friend: These are both pictures of Max and his school friend Elijah. Taking turns riding Max's bike at the park, and playing some kind of animal make-believe behind Max's dresser.


Old and New: Apparently climbing into and popping out of boxes doesn't get any less fun, though it's a tighter fit than it used to be (also, computer monitors aren't as big as they used to be, either!). And Max has become quite the board gamer: staring with Go over break, he's now taken up Chess, Chinese Checkers, and regular Checkers! Woody's even taking a Chess course to stay ahead of him...


Knitting in Paradise: This is Woody's latest project, a sweater-vest, at the "finished knitting" stage and at the "buttons and all" stage. Max picked out the pattern, color and buttons: it's all him. And he's the one who likes to wear it over sweaters in April, yes.

Did I mention his penchant for climbing anything that will stand still?

  ¶ Thursday, May 17, 2007 0 comments

  Plants and animals around the island One of the more exciting things we did on our trip was the Glass-bottomoed boat tour of the coral reef. We even got a bonus: a school of spinner dolphins.

This was our boat. The view was better than the pictures came out: autofocus wasn't helping.

They're called Spinners because they jump out of the water and spin.

And here's some more miscellaneous flora and fauna, starting with a funky bud we saw in Honoka'a, and its full-flowered version.

	Ants eating ice cream.
	Because you can never have too many bright lizard shots. Also at the ice cream place, oddly enough.
	Like the flower above, this was at the Tex Drive-in in Honoka'a. Love the colors.
	Needlenose fish at the Waikoloa
	Also at the Waikoloa. Note the ants in the Hibiscus: I really don't recall ever seeing ants in flowers before we moved here, but it's quite common.
	That little thing poking out of the water in the circle is a sea turtle head at the black sands beach. It's not easy to catch them in the water, even in burst mode.
	Much more sedate honu at the Waikoloa.
	Shield Urchins, we were told, on the Kona waterfront.

  ¶ Wednesday, May 16, 2007 0 comments