The First Week

Friday January 7th to Sunday January 9th.  What do new residents to Hawaii do when they find themselves with ample time on a Friday night?  Well, they go to Puka Dog of course.  A Puka Dog is a Hawaiian hot dog, vegetarian or polish style, which uses a hollowed out mini bread loaf as a bun.  (Think Torpasta, but more tropical)  Toppings include the likes of pineapple relish, lilikoi mustard and garlic lemon sauce.  Overall evaluation, fair.

Joe at Puka Dog

In between searching for apartments on Saturday we found ourselves at Pali Lookout.  In 1795 King Kamehemeha I and his army, in an ultimately successful effort to unite the Hawaiian islands under one rule, trapped the defending army of Oahu up against these cliffs.  An epic battle ensued and many warriors fell to their deaths, their final view being this...

Pali Lookout

After the lookout we were both hungry.  We went to Zippy's, which is Hawaii's version of Denny's.  The menu is a quirky mix of Asian, American and strange. 

Lunch at Zippy's

As Saturday's typically do, this one gave way to Sunday, our first North Shore Sunday, an idea borrowed from the Mexico Gonzalez's Sayulita Sunday.  North Shore Sunday means shave ice.  This week from Matsumoto's.  I've been looking forward to this for years, literally.  

Raspberry, Cherry, Watermelon and Orange, Strawberry, Cherry

Going and Coming

Monday January 3rd to Thursday January 6th.  On Monday January 3rd we had dinner at Pizza Port with some friends.  It was a good time.  Sam cried.  It broke my heart a little.

Brandon, Becca, Joe and Emily

Aaron, Sam, Joe and Emily

Jose and Joe

We still had to finish packing which we barely did.  We went to bed at 5:30am and got up to go to the airport at 6:00am.  By 4:00pm we were in Honolulu, and after spending some time walking along the beach we were exhausted.  

The next day was spent looking for apartments (still looking) and exploring town.  I rode a bus for the first time.  The public transportation system on the island is very efficient and easy.  

Tomorrow we will be looking for a place to live, but Sunday is the first installment of North Shore Sunday.  I'm super excited!

 I like this plant

 The Bus

 We got my car

Olden Palace, A Food Restaurant

Last Night In Town

Monday January 3rd.  What we did in the last 26 weeks isn’t what mattered.  It wasn’t significant that we went to Mexico, countless dinners, or spent hours at work.  Camping, going to shows and spending time at the beach means little.  The things that made all of this important are the people that shared in it with us.  Relationships were formed and made stronger.  Sundays lasted a little longer.  The last of each time (for now) came closer and went just as quickly.

These people spent a cold last night of the year outside with us.

And then these ones danced.

Some played dominos.

I am confident that all of this is what matters.  Tonight, Pizza Port in OB, our last night in town.  

I'd stay the whole night long

Friday November 26th.


...but the boys are playing those old sad songs and I must sing along. 



Lucero - Can't Feel A Thing from Joe Gonzalez on Vimeo.


People ask the question "who is your favorite band?" often the answer is "I don't have one, I love so much." I'm not so diplomatic. Lucero is my favorite. Joe and I have seen them every time they have come into town in the last five years. If I could have picked any band to open for them, it would be Drag The River and that is exactly what happened. Fantastic line up. Missing Lucero play in San Diego is going to be one of the things that I miss the most while we are gone.

Why I Like It.

Friday October 22nd - Monday November 1st.  This is a photo summary of our Puerto Vallarta vacation.  Joe will be posting photos and making a video soon.

The view from the 11th floor of Los Caracoles.

Alex was really excited to see Coco.  Coco mastered her stink eye.  

Sienna Katalina at Ocho Tostadas.  

This is what we did about half of the time.  This is why we are tan in November.

Hammock on the patio.  I need a hammock in my everyday life.  

Prayer Flags in the Zona Romantica.

A traditional candy store in Puerto Vallarta.  We bought giant marshmallows, peanuts, gum and mexican chocolate.

'Quino eating sherbet.

In my opinion, American ice cream is much better than Mexican ice cream.

Remember who you are.  A mural in Puerto Vallarta.

This is what Michael and Jessica looked like most of the time.  Their child couldn't be contained.

Coco ran everywhere that she went.

Papa Chuy is the happiest when he is with his grandchildren.

The kids love to be with Grammie.

This is Boca de Tomatlan.  We caught a water taxi here to go to Yelapa.  I love this town.

Karla and 'Quino on the water taxi.  Joaquin might have spent a few moments alone on the beach as the boat began to float off. 

In Yelapa, we hiked through the town to get to a waterfall.  This bridge doesn't look anywhere near as scary in this photo as it did in real life.

This is the waterfall.

Fabrics for sale in Yelapa.

Wheels in the junk yard.  This is the most organized junk yard that I have ever seen.

Michael and Peter at the junk yard.

Papa Chuy's land in San Sabastian.

We hiked though the land and got lots of mosquito bites.  Jessica ate a worm.

San Sabastian was founded in 1605 as a mining town.  Now it is best known for the coffee grown in the region.

We spent a night in Sayulita and stayed in the adorable Aurinko Bungalows.  

Juanito sold us some bracelets while we ate lunch.  When Peter asked him who the president of Mexico was, he said "David."

We all enjoyed hanging out both in the warm waters and back at the bungalows. 

Sienna and Coco hate the sand.  Sienna was happy to be on firm cement.  

Apple Days

Sunday October 3rd.  I have a mild apple obsession.  That is not to say that I endlessly eat apples, rather than I find them to be interesting.  Most of this stemmed from reading Michael Pollan's book, The Botany of Desire.  The most intriguing thing to me about apples are the seeds.  Each apple has five seeds.  Each seed contains the genetic information for a completely different apple species, thus, specific apple species cannot be grown from seed.  They have to be grafted.

Today Beth and I went to Julian to the Apple Festival.  After walking around town and buying pie we decided to walk to the festival, but, due to no fault of our own, we walked the wrong way for a while.  This made us hungry.  Luckily Beth packed us a lunch which was especially good because we had $11 between the two of us.  Instead of actually going into the festival we wandered around the winery.

I stole apples.  Beth stole apples.  Apples were stolen.  All of these apples were just falling on the ground.  The trees were by the side of the road.  The apples were hanging from the branches.  Really, we rescued these apples from a certain fate of rotting on the ground.  We could have easily gone into the nearby orchard and paid $10 to pick a bag of apples, but why when there were free apples across the street.  

There weren't only apples, there were also pears.  

Before heading home, we went to a favorite childhood place of mine, Frosty Burger.  I don't remember ever having food from here, but I love their soft serve.  It isn't anything special, but it's good.  I wasn't having two cones to myself, I was holding Beth's in this photo.  I believe that she might be writing about her first Frosty Burger experience so be sure to check out her blog, The Delighted Bite.