A Change of Scenery!

Hi, everyone!

On Ground Hog Day, I did NOT see my shadow!  I heard that some groundhog in Pennsylvania did, but not me! The weather was cold, though, so Grandma said I could wear my hoodie if I wanted to.  It was still cold on February 3.  Grandma decided it was time to do some baking and use up vegetables.  First, I helped Grandma make potato and leek galettes.  There were pistachio nuts in the crust!  Then we made Chinese sesame scallion bread.  That was a lot like making scallion pancakes, except we made one big loaf instead of individual servings.  I was surprised we could bake a loaf of bread in a skillet on top of the stove!  Everything we made was yummy!

That night the temperature outside was 0 degrees F.!  It was that cold when I got up the next day, too!  There was some new snow that Grandma said would be perfect for another snow bath!  We had to do it in the morning, because the weather was supposed to warm up later and make the snow too wet.  Grandma got my paws clean!  I was happy Grandma used the hair dryer on me, because my mane was matted from wearing my hoodie!

Uncle Steven came over to help Grandpa put the new mattress in the bedroom!  There were lots of corners to get it around before it was in place!

The weather warmed up enough that all the snow melted.  In the sun, it almost felt like early spring!  Grandma told me we were going on a trip!  I asked Katie’s lion to sit in my window spot while we were gone.

Last Friday, we got up very early!  We took a flight to Chicago and saw sunrise from the air!  Once we got to Chicago, we took another flight to Denver.  There was no snow in Rochester, but I saw lots of snow on the ground between Chicago and Denver!

Our final flight was from Denver all the way to Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii!  That’s one of my favorite places to be!  There was lots of snow between Denver and the Pacific ocean, then nothing but clouds and water until we arrived in Hawaii.  We got in 40 minutes early! That gave us time to shop for supplies before we arrived at our resort unit.  Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara stayed in this unit when James was a toddler!

Because of the time zone difference, we woke up early on Saturday!  There were high wind warnings and there had been rain overnight.  We had time to walk to the beach before going to the Farmers Market in Lihue.  I was happy to see the green turtles were still spending the night on Poipu Beach!

Our first stop at the Farmers Market in Lihue was the Midnight Bear Bakery stand.  It was easy to spot because of the long line of customers!  Grandpa had put in a bread order on-line last Thursday to pick up today.  That meant we didn’t need to stand in the ordering line!

After we had our bread, we walked around to see what fruit was available.  I made friends with a lot of fruits and flowers!  We bought some apple bananas and a special white sweet pineapple!

After lunch we walked to Makahuena Point.  That’s a good place to watch for whales, but the wind and heavy surf made it hard to see spouts or backs.  We did see one big splash!  Because the surf was heavy, we drove to Spouting Horn after our walk.  The surf wasn’t as heavy there, but the water spouts were still nice.  It started to rain again as we were leaving!

The rain passed before sunset, so we went to Brennecke’s beach to watch.

Grandma and Grandpa went out to dinner.  Guess what?  They brought me home a piece of hula pie!  It was yummy!  We ate it out on the lanai!  Then I helped Grandma break down the special pineapple.  That was enough activity for one day, so we all went to bed!

Love,

Lion-san