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. 

Dreaming of Spring Salmon

It's hard to believe last Friday morning we had almost a foot of snow. The weekend turned really nice and warm, melting lots of snow. We almost forgot about winter. The weather was so nice on Thursday, close to 70, Joe had to leave his work early afternoon to hit the break walls to fish for spring salmon. He missed one after 3 hours and saw a guy on a boat catch one. Next day, Friday, I patiently waited Joe to get off work, bought my new season fishing license, then we went out to the lake. It was just nice to just sit in the sun, with most of the ice gone. After 2 hours absolutely no fish, but very picturesque views: blue water, clear sky, lighthouse, and even cityscapes.
All for a taste of fresh salmon. Earlier this week I made sushi rolls with the last of fall salmon stored in the freezer, dreaming of catching that first salmon of the season. This day I made a pork wrapped asparagus dish, which was also a taste of spring. I guess it's worth taking our time noticing many little seasonal changes, especially from cold winter to spring. This coming week may bring us some more snow, but we'll continue dreaming... of spring.

Spring Backward

We woke up to 10 inches of heavy wet snow this morning. The thick fog and rain yesterday changed into snow overnight, as forecasted. It probably would have been a snow day had it not been the spring break. The good news is that this is perfect snowman making snow.
Still, we suspect that this snow will melt quicker than it would in the middle of winter. Living up here, we know very well that spring doesn't come effortlessly. We'll be happy and lucky when spring finally arrives.  

Waiting.... for Spring

These pictures are from our walk in the neighborhood this weekend. As you can see we can hardly say spring is here. And it's been pretty cool, dipping below the freezing point, so not much has changed. Oh yeah, it snowed this morning, just a little bit.
The spring salmon season is starting also, and Joe is itching to go fishing with his new rod. In fact, he has gone out a couple of times so far, but where he really wants to be is inaccessible: the harbor packed with ice. Still, last weekend he fished a river till he couldn't feel his fingers, and ice would form on the eyes of the rod. Brrrr.
But this is totally normal this up north. This year what's NOT normal for us is that we know exactly when we can escape from the cold. In a month we'll be flying to Hawaii, whether spring is here or not. Currently our Japan room is our Hawaii room with almost all our summer clothes.
Eventually, spring shall come.

Night Before Joe's Birthday

Today we woke up to some snow. Nothing serious, maybe 6" total by the end of the day. Definitely the white snow cleaned up the dirty brown yards and roads. And tomorrow is Joe's birthday, so we celebrated a day early tonight with a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) dinner- Joe's request. We even toasted with Asahi Super Dry beer!

And homemade frozen strawberry yogurt for dessert.
Joe got a tiny 4" square oil painting of his trout stream that I just painted this morning. I'd been meaning to paint him a small piece he can put in his deer blind. Happy Birthday, Joe!