Brian’s parents just visited and we had a grand time.  We went snorkeling in Hilo several times and had a great time seeing the variety of fish out and about.  I saw my first snake eel and later snake eel babies.  On Brian’s birthday he and his father went hiking in North Kohala and had a lot of fun exploring Polulu Valley and the neighboring valley.  We also went to the Lava Tree State Park down near Pahoa.  We also visited the astronomy center at UHH (Imiloa) and did star gazing on Mauna Kea.  The evening on Mauna Kea was less than enjoyable for me though - I was car sick on the hour long ride to Mauna Kea which was further exacerbated by taking a 1 mile walk at 9000 feet mostly uphill on the way back at sunset when it was about 50 degrees.  I felt horrible the whole night but fortunately I woke up feeling better the next day.  We also visited the Kaumana Caves but I did not walk very far as my shoes proved to be inadequate for the task.  I think everyone had a good time…

Brian and I also went to an rough water  race while his parents were visiting.  We checked it out and I am currently thinking about doing the 2 mile Kealakekua Bay rough water race.  I surely will not win but I think it would be a lot of fun.  Brian is now using this as yet another excuse to talk me into doing qualifying races for the Ironman.  I think I will pass as I am not interested in dying before I turn thirty, thank you very much.

I was also able to bodyboard at Hapuna and was able to ride one absolutely perfect wave and a bunch of not so perfect waves.  I did get a nasty burn.  While in the water I was trying to remember why I had made such a big deal about wearing my board shorts but I could not recall why - it became obvious to me later when my derrière burned.

While at Kona Bay Books, Brian spotted Da Jesus Book - the Pidgin Bible.  Seriously, I am speechless.

In other news, the Big Island is getting Target, Circuit City, PetSmart (I think), PF Changs, and Office Max all on the Kona side.  I am not exactly excited.  I like Target and would gladly trade in Walmart and Kmart for it but seriously we don’t need all of those stores.

Popularity: 20% [?]

I was not able to sleep last night because of my sunburn but I got out of bed at 7 AM when Brian got up. He announced that we needed to head over to Kona AGAIN (we just went on Thursday and returned on Friday evening) so we could drop off this packet at the Kona office that he forgot to leave on Friday. He claimed it could not be faxed or sent via mail but this is entirely untrue. So, we ventured over to Kona and made the almost three hour drive to Kealakekua (south of Kona) and he just had to stop at every bookstore in Kona and finally we ate lunch. Then, we drove down to Kealakekua to drop off this *super important* packet and the gate was locked so we were unable to leave the packet. We drove all the way over there for NOTHING. The ONLY thing I wanted this morning was some advil to kill the pain of my sunburn and to take back a couple of DVDs to Blockbuster. I was unable to do anything I needed or wanted to do today. Then he bailed out on the drive from Kona to Kealakekua and also the drive home because he was tired and driving like a maniac and had a major attitude problem. Naturally, the better driver was me since I had no sleep to his 9 hours of sleep… Yeah, right. After we found out that he couldn’t drop off this *super important* package that we just drove three hours to hand deliver he just shrugged his shoulders and said “oh well” and did not even bother to call the director to get them to come or ask to drop it by their house. Yeah, it must have been REALLY important. Right. What’s he doing with the packet tomorrow - he’s faxing it. What a way to waste the day…

It really gets under my skin because he gets annoyed with me if I run only one errand in town - like *only* going to the grocery store which puts a grand total of 5 miles on the car roundtrip.  But he just takes off on a random joy ride to Kona and that is okay - especially when we JUST went there!  Gas is incredibly expensive here and to top it off he always has to buy a ton of books and then we have to eat at least one meal en route to Kona or on the way back - it’s just an absurd waste of money for a trip that wasn’t even fun.  Bleh, I’m not even going to talk about how horrible the rest of the trip was today, it’s just not worth it.

I am done venting now.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Brian and I spent Thursday night and all day Friday in Kona because he had some business to attend to over there.  Unfortunately, we were not able to stay over the weekend because we had to volunteer at the library on Saturday morning.  Brian, of course, was not willing to give that up for the weekend because the reward for volunteering an hour is being able to have first pick of nearly new books for less than $1.  While he had a fun day of doing a presentation I went to Hapuna Beach in North Kohala.  I love that beach.  I would live on it if I could but my skin does not like that beach as much as I like that beach.  I  was on the beach from 9:30 AM until 1 PM  and I applied sunscreen three times and my skin still burned like crazy. I went bodyboarding and had a great time - the waves were huge and the shorebreak made it all the more fun for me.  My nasty sunburn has created quite an annoying problem for me.  I wish to sleep but cannot because the sunburn is hurting too much so I have taken some Ibuprofen to help with the pain but it has caffeine in it so I cannot sleep.  Joy.  Plus, Brian is mad at me because I got a sunburn so he is intentionally going out of his way to be mean to me about my sunburn - poo on him.  I have ordered a rashguard shirt with UV protection to protect me in the future.

Brian found these weird old board games where you recreate one of Napoleon’s Campaigns in Germany - no one had even bothered to play the game and we’re still trying to figure out how to play exactly.  Very strange…  He also found a World War II game that is somewhat similar - both should be quite interesting.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Brian has been training me yet again for Powerlifting and Strongwoman competitions since we moved to Hilo. It has been great and I have made a lot of progress. Hopefully, I will be ready for aPowerlifting meet or a Strongwoman competition by this summer… I am putting on a lot of muscle mass, yay! Who said putting on muscle mass for women is hard? I need protein powder, we ordered 11 lbs. of it and I just ran out of my other protein powder today…

I need to start keeping my food diary again but I eat about eight times per day and it makes it too difficult to record everything. I also eat a lot of food. Oh well, I will try to keep the food diary up…

It has been raining here off and on but that is to be expected in the rainiest city in the world. Plus, March is supposed to be one of the wettest months here in Hilo. We did drive over to the Kona side on Saturday to go to Costco - we are SO glad we do not live there - people are incredibly rude and mean on that side of the island. It also takes us two hours to drive over there and then another two hours back but it does mean that we only have to go shopping for groceries once a month, yay.

More later, when I am not so busy…

Popularity: 11% [?]

We live in the most expensive part of the island of Hawai’i and thus the food and gas prices are absurd. Last week, when we arrived we went to Foodland in the Parker Ranch center to buy some groceries to keep us until we could go to Costco in Kona. We paid $5.99 for a half gallon of soymilk, yes, you heard me right. We also saw that a small box of Cheerios were $6 but we did not waste our money. We only spent $47 that day but that is mostly because we looked at what was on sale and only bought that. So, today we had to go to Kona to check on my TB results (I passed, of course) and so we went to Costco. The gas is 21 cents cheaper at Costco compared to the cheapest gas in Waimea. After that, we shopped around Costco and bought 25 lbs of bread flour for $4.99 total, which is less than what we paid for 2 lbs of flour at Foodland. We also bought 25 lbs of rice, 10 lbs of pancake batter, 3 half gallons of soymilk for $6 total, a giant box of 50 granola bars, a giant box of cheerios (at least 4 times bigger than the one at Foodland and cost less too!), giant box of Newman’s blueberry cereal, giant tins of tomato sauce (gallon size) for less than $2 each(!) and we bought a ton of pasta and other random things. I think we came out at about $90. If we bought it all at Foodland we would have spent a billion dollars, I bet.

On the way home, we saw this guy on a moped driving along the side of the road in Kona (coming from Costco) with a case of beer and chicken in his basket. It was funny…

We also got some books today, a juicer, and a random aloha shirt at Sal’s Boutique (Salvation Army). My juicer cost $8 and it is in perfect condition. It is just like my old juicer that cost about $75-80.

And who said living in Hawaii is expensive? I suppose it is if you are dumb enough to shop primarily at the grocery store in Waimea, love to buy gas at the most expensive place in town, must drive a $50K car, live right on the beach in a multi-million dollar home, and buy all new stuff all the time and only at the mall.

Oh yeah, in other news, I got a job. I will be working for Easter Seals helping developmentally disabled adults… Yay! Brian will be working at the University of Hawai’i and writing his book about Hawai’i.

Popularity: 9% [?]

We finally settled our issue with Budget Rental Car. When we were in Hawaii the car locked itself with the keys inside while we got gas and we needed a replacement key. We called Budget’s Emergency number and they basically told us to call the local office and hung up on us. We then called the local office and they were shorthanded so they told us to take a cab ride down to Kona and get it at $80 round trip. Finally, they agreed to send the keys up for $40 and we had no other alternative so we had to agree. It was not our fault they were shorthanded… We tried explaining to them that the car locked itself and it was not us who locked the doors. We also tested the car numerous other times to see if it would do the same thing and sometimes it did and other times it did not. The electrical system in that car was really messed up. The keyless entry almost never worked too. However, we were promised that the car would be checked out by a mechanic by this evil Budget woman. Of course, that was a big lie, so it was never checked out. When we emailed Budget customer service about all this they said it was basically too bad that it happened but they could not do anything about it. So, we were very angry since we were treated badly as customers, not to mention the verbal abuse I took from the rude Budget woman in Kona, so we contacted the Better Business Bureau. All of a sudden Budget is interested in “the spirit of customer service” and we end up with a partial refund plus the $40 taxi ride for the car keys. Of course, we will never use Budget again… After our experience with American Airlines we will also never use them again. We are quite glad to have gotten rid of our American Airlines travel vouchers on our last trip to Hawaii.

Popularity: 7% [?]