The First Guests

Ben's brother Brady & his wife Theresa were the first visitors we have had in Hawaii. They were actually one of the last visitors we had in Maryland, a mere 4,900 miles away, a six hour flight in either direction from California. Joining them a few days later were Andy and Yolanda, who came via Austin. I, of course, love having company, especially those as easy to please as these. They rented a van so we could travel around the island together and here is a photojournal of some of our expeditions:

Of course every trip has it's highs and lows. A few of the highs include: Ben taking a few days off, Ben, Brady & Andy seeing a smallish (4 ft) shark while snorkeling, Brady retrieving and opening fresh coconuts off of our tree in the backyard, the Polynesian Cultural Center, the new green tea flavor shave ice (with vanilla ice cream in the bottom) at Aoki's (good choice Theresa), Yolanda & Theresa taking turns holding Miles so I could actually cook an entire meal using both hands, seeing Hawaii through vacationers eyes.

There were few low points including a minor kayaking accident which was taken in stride but the major one was thankfully mitigated by the in-house doctor...and I actually mean Ben this time. Brady woke up one morning with the inability to blink his right eye (he had to manually close it periodically so that it wouldn't dry out!)and general paralysis of his facial muscles on that side as well. Of course it was an easy diagnosis of Bell's Palsy (and a touch of Tourettes), but I don't have any herbal salves for that, so Ben M.D. had to step in and save his brothers life. A quick prescription actually did stop the progression and Theresa was relieved to find out that it wouldn't be permanent. I'm sure it was scary to Brady although we did manage to find the humor in his discomfort:

WARNING: Rated PG13 for Language, Frightening Images