Travel

we are still over in hawaii, staying with jon’s grandparents at their home in kaneohe. it’s nice getting to know more about their daily lives. watching donna cheer for the tennis match on tv or sharing peanut butter toast with dick. these are the kind of visits that fill in the gaps of not seeing each other for the rest of the year. love that dick and donna are always up for an adventure. on friday we all went downtown to the art walk in honolulu. every first friday of the month the galleries stay open late in the new revitalized area of chinatown. art and music were the focus inside, while some hula dancers stole the show outside. we wandered around the galleries and enjoyed people watching in between.

jon and his grandpa watch some hula.

taking a load off with grandma. below is my favorite piece of art work of the night. a collection of twenty five gecko poop samples on microscope slides. I love the presentation. never would have guessed it was poop. oh those clever hawaiian artists.

couldn’t resist posting this one of jon in action at the wedding the next day. i tell you, he will do just about anything to get the shot. saturday we were so busy and shot for eleven hours straight, our longest day yet this summer. we were having so much fun it didn’t feel like it at all.

we went up to the north shore on sunday and enjoyed all our favorite spots along the way. today we were lucky enough to get an inside look into a ukulele factory. a small business right down the street from here. the owners are in donna’s ukulele club. we drooled over a handcrafted beauty that was out of our price range. next, we stopped at a hawaiian fabric store and i ran around like a maniac. buying lots of floral prints to use in my mixed media pieces. love the selection i picked, could not believe the variety of aloha prints at this place. ended the day with a sunset dip in the ocean. didn’t listen to jon’s warnings at the shore. should have known that if he wasn’t getting in i probably shouldn’t. enjoyed my float until my arm started to sting. a blue bubble got me good, but i was tough. no tears. am hoping to end the trip with a beach day, need to find one with no blue bubbles in sight. because the sting really does hurt. jon loves it because he doesn’t have allergies here, i love it because
i don’t have to hear all the sounds related to allergies. each time we visit we start plotting our return and start brainstormimg about how we could live here. this is where jon lived as a little boy so it always feels like a homecoming.

have just returned from a week on the east coast. selling lots of miniature pots and celebrating people who love them. after four days of miniatures, we headed to boston to see the sights. the skies cleared as we headed out on the town to possibly catch a game at fenway park against the yankees. a rain delay on the game worked in our favor, as we strolled up to the park just in time to hear the roar of the crowd. stumbled into someone with tickets outside and decided to splurge a bit. sometimes you can’t put a price tag on certain experiences. i guess that’s the whole concept behind the popular advertising campaign by visa. but the game, the third of the series against the yankees, really was priceless! fulfilling a 22 year baseball dream-priceless. jon’s smile looking out from the green monster-priceless. the drunk guy screaming "yankees suck" behind me-priceless. joining the drunk guy and becoming a crazy cheering baseball fan for a night-priceless! i didn’t know i had it in me.

in additional to miniatures and baseball, we squeezed in a little trip to the coastal town of gloucester to shoot a family portrait. once again my friend susan from maine set up the shoot, with the hopes of getting a nice image to paint from for her friends. susan and her husband josh drove down from maine, we drove up from boston and we all met at her friend’s very special summer vacation home in gloucester. had a lovely evening enjoying a little slice of heaven. enjoyed all three kids, but of course the nine year old named soren automatically had a special place in my heart.

was very interesting photographing another soren. weird that he was the same age, had the same tan skin and brown eyes, the same charisma and spunk. but he wasn’t my soren, not the one i started photographing in my sister’s belly almost ten years ago. not the same one that i bought clothes for in italy when he was still the size of an olive. not the one i watched enter the world through my viewfinder as i struggled to focus with teary eyes and a tight throat. not the one i watched take first steps, or sang silly lullabies to as he danced in his crib. not the same one that loves to be the center of attention and has the potential to be a rock star. this family had never know another soren and were quite surprised that i had a special one of my own. i have know a few, actually three officially and then there is this local film critic that makes four. i have never met him but i do take his advice. what do the three have in common? a special spark and big brown eyes. my soren is the one on the left and my next new favorite soren is on the right. am thinking these two need to be pen pals.