New Year's Day Dinner

We rang in the New Year with a special New Year's eve dinner - one of Jon's Mother's recipes - Roast Beef with Onion Gravy. We did not have the recipe but, with a little help from Jon's sisters, we figured out the a recipe - braise the meat with a little oil, put in a lodge pot with one packet of Lipton Onion soup, some carrots, and some water and cook on medium low for about eight hours. Take the meat out and add a little flour to make the onion gravy. It turned out great, just the way Jon remembered it. Very tender. We also had the rest of the bottle of champaigne that Jon's team gave him at his retirement party. We had the first half of the champaigne on New Years Eve.

Hualalai, Hawaii

In mid-January, we went to the Four Seasons Hualalai on Hawaii's big island. This was our fifth visit since we first went in 2000 and each time we have stayed the same room - albeit newly renovated. We hung out at the beach and the pool, had a birthday dinner with our friends Ron (his birthday) and Barb, played tennis, and swam... The first night we were there, the beach in front of our room was hit by waves from a tsunami so we woke to the sounds of heavy equipment cleaning the beachfront sidewalk. Fortunately that was the only impact of the tsunami.

The hotel had a snorkeling lagoon which was stocked with about 1000 fish. We snorkeled there and tried out our video cameras underwater. Check out the 360 videos of snorkeling and walking along the lagoon.

A PGA golf tournament was going on but it did not really affect our visit.

Volcano National Park

During our Hawaii trip, we drove around the southern tip of the island to the Hawaii Volcano National Park. There were an amazing number of microclimates just a few miles apart.