When It's Cold Outside...

We've had decent weather (temps around 70s, which is our summer) and easily gotten used to wear sandals. The 4th of July looks to be nice, reaching 80, but before the weekend we are having the effect of the cold front from north. I'm pretty sure it started out in the 40s this morning and stayed cool and breezy all day.
I just made an awesome noodle dish with warm spicy soy-milk-based soup, which I hardly followed a recipe for. The bowl was complete, topped with slices of chashu (braised pork belly) that I had made. Not much else could have made me happier than slurping warm noodles on this cold day, despite the fact that it's the last day of June in the middle of summer.
Joe's been fishing whenever he gets a chance. I had my chance this Sunday, but chickened out because of mosquitoes and other biting flies. Besides trout fishing really hasn't gotten good (the catching that is) yet.

Father's Day

In honor of Father's Day today, Joe cooked up a batch of BBQ ribs for our dinner. It was so good.
Joe also paid a visit to Apple Creek in the morning. No fish. Lots and lots of mosquitoes. I still would have liked to have been on the stream, not at work.
Fishing and ribs, we decided, was the perfect combo to celebrate Joe's dad. Happy Father's Day to all our father figures! 

Trout, Morels, and Wild Leeks

Yesterday (Sat) I got a text message from Joe asking if I wanted to have leftover curry or fish with morels and wild leeks for dinner. As you might have easily guessed, I said YES to FISH, though I had no idea what kind of fish or where he even went fishing. It turned out three respectful trout from Apple Creek. It was so wonderful to come home from work to a fish dinner!
P.S. We spared you the picture of the fish bones I (Kayo) mostly picked.

Loco Moco

Last week Joe gave his first try at making Loco Moco-- a Hawaiian dish, complete with sides of macaroni salad and rice, just like how we had in Hawaii. It was pretty good, though Joe put too much flour in the gravy this time. A new dish to be added in our repertory (that Joe can cook).
Since we had enough leftover mac, later in the week I made chicken katsu (breaded cutlet) for a plate dinner. Yum. One of those nights we ended the evening with Joe's pina colada. I'm pretty sure our friends in Hawaii would have been proud! 

Memorial Day Weekend

We hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day weekend. Things are finally starting to bud out and bloom up here. All things considered, this is a fairly nice, even close to normal, spring around here. It's just hard to get adjusted back from the Hawaiian standards: so much greens plus flowers of every color from a painter's palette.
Yesterday (Sunday) I finally got to go fishing on Apple Creek. No fish, but plenty of mosquitoes and ticks. Still, we were happy to be on our favorite stream. Bright cheerful marsh marigolds were in bloom along the banks, too.
This morning (Monday) we went out on a quick fishing trip to the other spot in the rain. To our surprise the water was a lot higher and faster than expected. So we just ended up getting wet without much chance of fishing. At least it satisfied my mild fishing fever.
Our grape vines are budding, and apple trees blooming in the back yard. Slowly, but steadily.

Hawaiian Vacation

We are home from our Hawaii trip, back to work, back to normal. With our memories of the island still fresh, we had a good homemade pina colada listening to some Hawaiian music (thanks to Youtube). If and when our friends from Hawaii decide to come this far north, they can feel right at home! There are too many fun memories of our trip to even write in our blog... we'll at least post some pictures, starting with a view from our hotel in Waikiki for a week.
Fruity drinks with umbrellas at La Mariana Sailing Club, a classic tiki bar.
One of our favorite things was to take out a plate lunch from Rainbow Drive-In and have a picnic by the beach at sunset.
The biggest treat to our selves was the luau (traditional Hawaiian party) with Mai Tai, music, fire dance, and hula girls, of course. Touristy, but we were definitely glad we did this.

We were very fortunate to have our own local tour guides: we feel we got to do a good mix of tourist stuff and local favorites. The small island was actually full of surprises. Within an hour drive you cover the ocean to mountains, and tropical flowers to cactus. Most of all, it's still hard to believe it's a part of USA.
Hawaii  was indeed a lot more than the picture perfect beaches of blue and turquois. Yet, at the same time it was just like a mixture of "Lilo & Stitch" and "Dragon Ball Z" without the super power and aliens. Simply put, we both had lots of fun.

Cinco de Mayo!

Wishing you all a happy Cinco de Mayo. We hope you are having some tasty Mexican food no matter where you are. I made Kahlua pork for a taco dinner. Joe also whipped up a good batch of margarita to celebrate our anniversary.
We are now counting down days before taking off on our Hawaii trip on Friday. It's still hard to believe.....
P.S. Joe just started watching an episode of "Magnum p.i." as a preview of Hawaii.