Life with the Woods

I'm posting a few more pictures from this past spring in Hawaii as we catch up on the season finale of "Lost" online. Yes, we are "Lost" junkies. One of our favorite things to do is to figure out where each scene is filmed around the island. We've actually driven up on scenes (or the results of certain scenes). Mike has even seen some of the stars around the island. Very exciting. Hope you enjoy looking at us! :)

Maui:

When we went to Maui, we went to Kepaniwai Park Heritage Gardens with some of the college kids that were still in town after the Happening weekend. Kepaniwai is a park and museum that showcases ethnic houses and gardens from the various cultures represented in history on Maui. We saw traditional houses from the Hawaiian, Portuguese, Japanese, Caucasian/American and Filipino cultures.

Mike in front of the caucasion (haole) house (hale).

Mike in front of the Hawaiian house.

Tami at the Filipino house.

We made the Filipino kids get in front of the Filipino house. (notice the white Will-ipino?)

Chinese house.

Japanese house.

From the beaches on the South Shores of Maui, you can see the edge of an underwater crater (Molokini Crater). Good place for snorkeling.

You can also see the island of Kaho'olawe. Mike decided to take a quick swim over. :)

Seriously.... this is definitely "God's country."

On one of our busiest adventure days, we went on a whale watching tour and then headed to the sumit of Haleakala to watch the sun set and star gaze. I've never seen so many stars in my life! Even more than at Camp Capers, believe it or not.

We went with the Pacific Whale Foundation. Can you tell that this was the highlight of Tami's trip?

This dude was nice enough to stick his arm in our picture to give you a good idea of how close the whales got that day.

Double breech about 1 second too late.

After the whales, we stopped for lunch at the Kula Lodge not quite halfway up Haleakala.

Our view at lunch. Darken your screen and you'll see the coastline on both sides of the picture.

On the drive up Haleakala, we actually drove through the clouds. We're under the clouds.

We're in the clouds!

And, we're out of the clouds again....above the clouds!

After hiking down into Haleakala's main crater for about 20 minutes, a nice couple offered to take our picture. Can you see the shadow of the summit? We went a bit further, but had to turn back before it got too dark (and cold).

Back on Oahu:

Easter at St. Peter's with Bill, Abigail, Carrie, and Maggie Allport. These are the people responsible for our amazing life here in Hawaii. They are part of our family here. Our god-daughters (Maggie is officially and we claim Abigail) are 2 1/2 and 5 years old respectively.

Mike and Tami in front of this year's Easter cross.

Sometime later this Spring, we hiked a new trail to a waterfall. People were jumping off a cliff much higher than the top edge of this picture. We watched.

After our hike, we went to Lanikai beach to cool off. Mike is sitting with our best friends, John and Anthea Wang ("Wong"). They are also part of our family here.

Lanikai has been voted one of the best beaches in the world. We drove there!

Hope you enjoyed catching up with us. Our next post will be from new adventures.

Bye bye!

Welcome to our new blog! I know that this is a really exciting day for all of you, so enjoy the wonders that are the Woods. As many of you know, we have been in Honolulu, Hawaii since August 2006. No, this is not the vacation that never ended, though it often feels like that, but we actually live here. Over the past few years, we have gotten to do so many new and exciting things. We went to Maui for a Happening and stayed for a nice little vacation. Our new favorite weekend trip is to Kauai. We've actually been 3x to visit our friends Ben, Linda, and Cooper Nelson. Coop-a-loop! The Woods B&B has had a steady stream of visitors including our families, friends, and friends that feel like family. We love to hike, snorkel, golf, eat, go to the beach, and (our new favorite) stand up paddle boarding!... just to name a few. We have met some of our favorite people while living here... some of whom have become our family away from family. We are developing new traditions and have definitely created a life out here. Life looks a little different than the view from our little pool house. We're excited to share our adventures with you from this point on. Since we waited so long to start this, we'll catch you up with a few pictures from the adventures we have had thus far. We love you all and would love to have you visit our Hawaiian hale anytime. Aloha! ~Mike and Tami