We stayed in Volcano on the rainy and lush side of the island, Waipi’o Valley in the north, and Captain Cook (near Kona) on the dry, west side of the island. This gave us ample opportunity to experience hiking on (cooled) lava, seeing active volcanoes and steam vents, visiting great local farmers markets, touring coffee farms, visiting a cacao farm where they make chocolate bars from locally grown beans, doing a lot of snorkeling with beautiful fish and coral, and relaxing on beautiful, remote beaches.

It was especially exciting to see the volcanoes. We took a surreal guided hike through a 1974 lava flow that led us to the summit of Mauna Ulu. At the edge of the Mauna Ulu crater we were warmed by the many steam vents surrounding us while at the same time being battered with wind and near-horizontal rain. Fortunately we found a naturally heated area that somewhat protected us from the rain until the squall passed. We got to see an active eruption of Kileaua Volcano’s Pu’u O’o Crater, where the lava was flowing into the ocean and making huge clouds of steam, which at night glowed orange as they reflected the glow of the molten lava. Although we had hoped to be closer to flowing lava, this was probably safer at 3 miles away.

The snorkeling was the best we've experienced, with an incredible variety of sea life, including surgeon fish, trumpet fish, needle fish, trigger fish, butterfly fish, Moorish idol, box fish, puffer fish, lots of coral, sea urchin, and huge Hawaiian green sea turtles!

My usual investigation of local beers mostly changed in favor of the tasty Mai Tai's and various fruit drinks because beers available were very common. The most interesting of the beers there was Kona Brewing’s Passion Fruit Wheat Ale with its tart fruit flavor.

We really enjoyed the coffee while in Hawaii - we have a newfound respect for 100% Kona coffee! We helped Joanie (the neighbor of the B&B we stayed at in Captain Cook) pick some coffee cherries (and they do look quite a bit like cherries), then got a personal, tour of the small scale processing facilities at Rowesview Coffee. There are many small coffee producers through the region, so nearly everywhere we went, especially farmers markets, we got to taste many different local coffees. Yum!

We hope you enjoy our photos:

I'll let you browse the rest of the photos here: B&D in Hawaii

A party later in the evening proved to be entertaining, although I don't think we got pictures of our costumes this year. Debbie was Talon, the eco-super hero with a costume made by designers she worked with (wow!). Brett went as a christmas tree with a strand of tinsel wrapped around a green shirt, battery powered lights, and ornaments.

• Going to (or in Brett's case, being in) Matthew and Windy's wedding
• Working in the garden (The strawberries are yummy!)
• Planting lots of fruit trees and bushes (Blueberry, Huckleberry, Fig, Apple)
• Making lots of cherry things including cherry cobbler, dried cherries, cherry wine, and soon to be cherry beer of some kind.
• Removing our chain-link fence
• Having a front deck, wooden fence and pergola installed
• Moving a broken-up concrete patio to our backyard
• Digging out the area under the pergola for a patio
• Next up... a patio!

Here are some photos, in no particular order. You can visit our photos of the deck and some other pictures from various events lately!

We saw some peacocks on the drive home, and stopped at Double Mountain Brewery for a meal.

You can see more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/bretthall/Sasquatch2008

We arrived in La Paz and rented a car to visit La Paz, Cabo Pulmo, and Todos Santos for 7 days. We saw so much in those few days and had a great time snorkeling, kayaking, drinking "floofy" drinks (and light beer..) on the beach, and just relaxing in the warm weather. Although most of the places we visited were somewhat tourist-driven they each had their own local flavor and style, amazingly it didn't detract from the wonderful atmosphere of the place. The food we had in Cabo Pulmo, a tiny tiny little village, was really amazing, the surfing was great near Todos Santos, and Carnival in La Paz was really a blast.

Somehow, Portland has had some warm weather since we got back.. maybe we brought it back with us?

You can see the rest of the pictures here, but here's some teaser photos:

Oops, now I have to go so I can meet my friend at the Laurelwood brewpub!

 Typical day in the life of Brett?

(It's a shame having so many friends we can't fit them all in the house at once, but I guess there are worse problems to have!)

Here are some more pictures

We've posted more photos here.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Weather really held out for Halloween night, and work had a great halloween party this year. I even won best pumpkin carving at work with the Chinese Phoenix jack-o-lantern (on the left). The one on the right is a penguin.. it's the Linux Mascot if you must know.

Here's a bumpkin pumpkin:

I had a lame costume (for work) but our favorite dog dressed up for Halloween this year too!

Hope you've recovered from your candy overdose this year, I'm already planning for next year.

Today is Blog Action Day, so I'm posting about environmental things for a change today. One of the ways Debbie and I make a difference is to learn how to make things ourselves. Often we can recycle something into another use with some work, but for food products we have found it gives us a new insight into tastes and often provides a new experience too. It also gives us full choice of ingredients and process, choosing local, farmer's market bought, organic, free-range, low-salt, etc.

Debbie and I love to make our own stuff, and regularly do so.
* We love to cook from scratch on weekends when we have time
* Brett made a batch of tomato chutney and canned it
* Debbie is making soap at home (today!)
* Brett makes home-made (and tasty) beer, hard-cider, and root-beer
* Debbie loves to make pasta with her new stand mixer
* We plant a garden and grow hops at home and enjoy the spoils
* We've made grape-juice and apple cider in NY
* We make ice-cream at home in the summer with our cool kick-ball
* We are going to try making cheese at home next..

It's fun to make things at home, and more environmental!

Of course we've also "contributed" in lots of other environmental ways with household work and daily activities:
* Only have one car, we bike and walk when we can
* Brett works from home 1 day a week to avoid miles in my commute
* Have a programmable thermostat, keep it turned down
* Insulated the walls
* Changed most of the bulbs in the house to CFLs, turn off lights when not in use
* Chosen energy/water saving appliances
* In the remodel, used "green" or environmentally responsible materials when possible including Fuze counters and FSC lumber for our cabinets.