You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2012.
“We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.” Orison Swett Marden
And . . . today is our last day in this gorgeous paradise.
It’s been a wonderful adventure for us, with lots of new discoveries, visits to old haunts, and just plain relaxation and kickin’ it! Tomorrow morning early we head back to San Francisco Bay area for Christmas with family. I think I’m ready. The only reason I could stay longer at this point is if family could join us. That’s not possible, so we will go to them. Because there is nothing more important to me than my family. It will be a magical Christmas this year with our little 2 year old Grand Daughter. How can I possibly miss that??
I can’t and I won’t!
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“It’s ironic, but until you can free those final monsters within the jungle of yourself, your life, your soul is up for grabs.” Rona Barrett
Our second to last day here on this beautiful paradise found us walking through the Limahuli Botanical Gardens on the North Shore of Kauai. These gardens are built upon an ancient Hawaiian community. They’ve done an amazing job preserving and showcasing many of the indigenous plant species, as well as many others that were introduced over the years.
The tour today was self guided – which meant we took four hours to go about a mile! It’s a nice wandering trail that is a nice hike up the mountain to a beautiful vista of the ocean, and then a nice meandering path back down to the bottom. It was completely different from the tour we took the other day at Kauai Botanical Gardens, and very well worth our effort. We took tons and tons of photos.
I’ll be posting a few of the photos on my other blog: Me’n My D800e.
The weather co-operated as well . . . it was windy but didn’t rain on us once. At least not until we arrived back at the Villa’s.
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“Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.” Elbert Hubbard
We’ve had so much rain lately, it was pure pleasure to see such a stunningly gorgeous sunset tonight! Every year on our visits to Kauai, we make it a point to have dinner at a wonderful restaurant in Poipu called Beach House Restaurant. They have the best seafood that I’ve eaten just about anywhere. I particularly love their Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi. Yum! We were fortunate enough to get a “front row seat” with an unobstructed view of the sunset. I set the camera on our table on self timer and took this shot of us looking in to the sunset. Just a beautiful memorable moment for us. And a great way to round out this really wonderful trip. We head back to San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday so our time here is quickly winding down.
Aloha!
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“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” Ashley Smith
It’s yet another windy, rainy day here on Kauai’s beautiful North Shore. I feel like a stuck record! We headed out for a tour of a local Botanical Garden. It’s a privately run enterprise just a short distance from where we are staying in Princeville. We took the 3 hour guided tour (highly recommended!) which included tastings of many of the local fruits, as well as a very interesting Chocolate tasting and presentation. Despite the downpours that happened frequently during the tour – we really enjoyed ourselves and learned about the local fauna.
My husband and I lagged behind the group most of the time as we stopped to take many photo’s of the beautiful plant life.
I think we look a little soggy here in this shot. Luckily, umbrella’s were provided but we still got wet!
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“Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, hate less, love more, and good things will be yours.” Swedish Proverb
We had great plans today to tour the McBride Botanical Gardens in Poipu, Kauai. We woke up to dark, stormy skies. It had stormed all night long with stretches of heavy rain. We hoped that perhaps it was a bit calmer and clearer on the south part of the Island, as it so often can be. However when we arrived at the Gardens, the tours had been closed due to wind gusts up to 50mph.
Instead, we drove around to a few spots that we’d visited before.
My shot for today is at the Spouting Horn. The surf is quite high right now so the Spouting Horn was giving off a good display. I decided to get away from the crowds at the lookout, and walked down around the end of the fence and on to the lava rocks to get this better vantage point.
The sun even came out for a few minutes!
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“Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.” Marcus Aurelius
I’m giving everyone a break today from all the Hawaii shots. I dug in to my Las Vegas stockpile and found this shot that I took the first night hubby and I stayed at Mandalay Bay. This was the view from our room.
Sin City. Fascinating City. City of Lights. City that never sleeps.
Most people come to Las Vegas to gamble, drink, party . . . or even to get married!
I came to live my passion of photography with an amazing group of people I’ve gotten to know over the last year through this 365 Self Portrait Project.
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“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.” Jim Rohn
We’re down to our last week on the Island. It’s amazing to think that we’ve been here two and a half weeks already! How wonderful it has been to not have an agenda when we get up in the morning. We have our list of things we wanted to do this trip, and we’ve been ticking them off slowly but surely. There have been days we’ve been on the go from sunrise till way past sunset. Other days, we’re just out and about leisurely exploring and discovering and experiencing, as much as we can, what the Island has to offer. A few times we’ve just stayed “in”, lounging around the pool, soaking in the hot tub, taking naps.
We’ve been coming here every year since 2005. Every year we seem to stay a little bit longer. This year it seemed to take us a good two weeks to really relax and get in to the kicked back attitude of the Islands. We are working while we’re here as well . . . so it’s not all play and no work. But how can we complain – telecommuting from a place like this?? Having a good team back home is really enabling us to take this time for ourselves. Being able to spend this time away together is something many people only dream about doing.
We’ve turned our dream in to a reality.
( This is the view from our Villa. Can you find us in the photo?)
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“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” Audrey Hepburn
We hiked a few more beaches today finding a few more spots that we’d never been to before. Some of the trails are quite steep and slippery as we’ve had more rain the last few days. We did a little geo-caching along the way, dropping a couple of trackables that my son sent over with me. Geo-caching is how we’ve discovered quite a few out-of the way places on the Island that are not traveled by the average tourist.
It’s a fun activity that can be done all over the world. I highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful activity for kids as well. They love the excitement of “the hunt” and it gets them outside in the fresh air, getting exercise and quality time with Mom and Dad. It’s a GREAT family activity any time of the year.
These days all you really need is a cel phone with GPS tracking on it – or for the more serious Geo-Cache’r purchase an actual GPS unit. We haven’t done that yet – but after this trip when we’ve had a few times without 3G access . . . I’m seriously considering purchasing one.
Check out Geo-Caching.com for information on cache’s all over the world. You’ll find many in your area!
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“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” – Agnes Repplier, 1855-1950
I’m not sure I can really say much more than what that quote states.
I do believe it’s a choice I make in every action, thought, interaction to be accountable for what I put out in the world. In turn that comes back to me ten fold in what I interpret as happiness. I find in my relationship with my husband that together we keep each other accountable and on track. We support each other through the times when it’s not so easy to keep a positive outlook. However, it’s not his job to “make” me happy.
I am responsible for the experience I create for myself.
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“The relationship between husband and wife should be one of closest friends.” B.R. Ambedkar
12.12.12 @ 12:12
Where were you? What were you doing?
Considering that this phenomenon will not happen again within our lifetime, I decided it had to be documented in my 365 Project. It was interesting to set this up with other people watching with curiosity. In fact, there is a fellow just off to the right in the hot tub smiling at us while the camera snapped away on Self Timer mode. This will be a great memory to pass on to our Grandkids and Great Grandkids so that they can see their Ya Ya and Papa G living life, not letting life just pass by. I want my future generations to be motivated and excited about exploring the world and living life to the fullest for as long as is possible. We live in a very mobile world where it is easier and easier to travel the world over and experience life on a level that my parents never did. And I never did either until recently – within the last ten years. And I’m now hooked!
And I’m doing it with my Best Friend!
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Nurture Self 365 