Hawaii, Day One

We had a beautiful morning - sun rose over the clouds and there was cheer and blue sky. We had an easy flight to Honolulu, arriving about 20 minutes early. After sitting for over 5 hours in the airport and on the plane, I opted to walk from the terminal to the baggage claim to wait for my ride to Kailua. David picked me up and brought me to Mom's place.

Mom looks very well, has put on a little weight, and seems to be using her hands better than when I was here in August. She's still getting around ok with the walker. We had a nice visit, then I hooked up the laptop and skyped Michael in Toronto. Mom was enthralled - said she could recognize Mike and Debbie, and finally got the hang of just talking to the computer screen - the webcam has a microphone, so she and Mike could chat a bit. We're going to try it again during the week.

The weather here was overcast and drizzly with a brisk breeze; in Sacramento, Marty said it started raining buckets around lunch time, and hailing! Can't complain - we need the rain. If it's not raining in the morning, I hope to go for a walk on the beach around sunrise.

Dave will be going tomorrow afternoon with Lea and Kathy, and they will be returning Monday, instead of Wednesday - so it's all good.

Aloha 'Oe!

I can't believe a whole month has gone by since my last post. I've been in touch with Carol in London, and with Michael via Skype, and with Allen Hall, son of Pamela (Soutar) Hall in Urbana-Champaign. There was a flurry of e-mails about Simon Soutar and his descendants. He certainly was a colorful character, and left very few of his many children who are willing to talk about it.

Tomorrow morning, I'm flying to Hawaii for a week to stay with my mom. Lea and Kathy will be flying to Philadelphia and Boston for auditions, and I'll stay in the house while they're away. Isy will be coming with mom to the airport to pick me up. Marty and Laurel will have to hold the fort by themselves for a few days .

At least Marty and I are mostly over the nasty rhinovirus that struck a couple of weeks ago. It behaves like the flu, with fever, aches, and chills, and then a most aggravating upper-respiratory thing that had us both coughing for a week. Marty is still feeling the effects, but I'm mostly over it - just a little bit of head congestion left now.

Well, off to bed - got to get an early start tomorrow.

Taurus, Ole!

We got our new car today. After driving the Dodge Stratus for a week, when we looked at the Ford Focus and Fusion models at Senator Ford, they just seemed too ... small. But we happened upon a Taurus sedan for a good price and decided to go for it. We signed the papers this afternoon, and now we own a silver 2006 Taurus SE with 18,167 miles. It is one year and one month old, according to the Carfax report, and the dealer says it was part of their rental fleet. It's not hard to see why the Taurus was such a popular car - it feels solid, handles beautifully, and has lots of room inside. We're happy!