Maryland in March

Aloha to all who read our blog!

It is 6:15 AM on a Saturday morning and Tiffany wants me to come back to bed, but it is beautiful and sunny today and I am so excited because we are going up to the Hawi side (Northern Coast) of our island and going hiking. After that we are going to chill out on the beach and then have a nice dinner. I am sure we will get lots of pictures and may even have a neat story to tell about it.

A lot has happened since our last Blog of February 10th. In early March, we returned to the mainland in Maryland and visited first my parents, then Tiffany's parents. When living so far from home, sometimes special occasions are the motivation to buy those $$$ plane tickets and take off work. The special occasion was Tiffany's dad's 60th Birthday.

First off, we received a warm reception from BOTH of my sisters at the airport in DC. Elise flew in from Oregon to surprise us and it went off without a hitch! We were blown away that she was here.

I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with my dad as we played disc golf, took the dogs walking and frisbee on the beach, and generally just driving around. My mom made fantastic dinners and amazing breakfasts and we played games as a family. It was a wonderful time! Also, Tiffany did my mom, Sarah, and Elise's hair all at once and they had a great time doing "girl stuff." We introduced my family to Tyler Perry movies and laughed and cried together.

Next we drove down to Raleigh, NC to visit Tiffany's Aunt and Uncle and also visit some friends. We had a very relaxing time down there, and went to Tiffany's favorite restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory.

After that we drove up to Williamsburg to stay at this place called Great Wolf Lodge which has an indoor water park. We spent a day and a half there celebrating the birthday! Shawn and Kara drove in from Ohio and we came back into Salisbury on Saturday night. We got to spend three more days in Salisbury, then went up to Cockeysville to stay overnight with Jon and Shannon before returning back to Hilo.

The whole time we were gone in Hilo, it rained EVERYDAY! It wasn't a downpour, but a steady drizzle for 24 hours a day. March had 31 inches of rain! We are glad that we missed all of that rain.

We are just now coming out of the rainy season and the sun is so beautiful!!! For some reason this thing won't let me upload any pictures...I will try again later!