We arrived on the Big Island of Hawaii Thursday. It is about a 2 hour flight to Seoul, Korea from Shanghai and then another 8 hour flight from Seoul to Honolulu, Hawaii. Korea Airlines flew us and we arrived a little bit tired but without incident although a little hungry as I found out Sabrina doesn't enjoy the delicacies of Korean cuisine. All in all, I think we are getting used to the long flights and this one just happened to be shorter than the normal marathon ones from Shanghai to the Minnesota or visa verse.
We are staying in Kailua-Kona which is on the big island of Hawaii. This is another 1/2 hour flight from Honolulu. The big island is the "volcanic" island as you can see by the first picture and the one above. We found this rental beach house on http://www.vrbo.com/ {the green roof - I'll take some better pics of the property for a later blog}. The house sits on a volcanic beach and our bed room on the upper floor looks to the west and the ocean. It has been hazy in the past two evenings so we haven't had a nice sunset yet.
About five minutes down from the beach house is this little tide pool and sandy beach area. We checked it out today before my parents and Brandon arrived. The tide was down so we did find a lot of sea life - star fish, urchins, fish, and even a sea turtle.
About five minutes down from the beach house is this little tide pool and sandy beach area. We checked it out today before my parents and Brandon arrived. The tide was down so we did find a lot of sea life - star fish, urchins, fish, and even a sea turtle.The owners of the property left these floaties for us so the kids enjoyed them in the water.
Brandon and the grandparents arrived right on schedule as well and we enjoyed the evening with them without the margaritas (yes, my fault - sorry honey).
The beer was cold and on tap (Tiger beer or Heineken) as you can tell by the thumb's up.
But I'm not so sure about the band...?? 
Actually the band was called Jagged Edge and they were very good. The picture above is me doing the happy birthday song...Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday...to me.
And this is our friends Mike and Cheryl.
We were also joined by our friend Don who was visiting Shanghai this month. He and his family just moved back to Minnesota from our neighborhood in Shanghai this past December. {Lisa, we took good care of him} We also enjoyed spending one more evening with Don and Michelle before they move back to the east coast of the US next week. We'll miss you.
Yesterday (Saturday) we attended a brunch for families with twins. Sabrina connected with this group online and the group just kind of grew so finally it was time for everyone to get together. About 20 families attended this event....ahh that calculates to at least 40 plus children as twins come in packages of two (no kidding) and most of the families had other children as well. See if you can find Caden and Ava in the "sea of kids".
The get together was held at a restaurant called "Sydney's" which labels itself as an Australian bistro. It was a great place for this group to meet because the center of the restaurant was a large beach like sand box.
All of the parents appreciated this set up as the kids could just play in the sand while the adults mingled and made new acquaintances. We met people from the UK, Sweden, Australia, Brazil, and elsewhere. It was good to share "twin" stories as we all share a common appreciation. 
Another interesting note was that most of the twins attending were between 3 and 5 years old, so all the kids played well together. Most of the twins were also boy/girl combinations.
Until next time here is the answer to the trivia question...the chances of a boy/girl combination is 50%, while a girl/girl or boy/boy combination is only 25% each. 
