AndrewBarna.org

It has been a while since I last posted, the main reason is due to being without a computer for about 2 weeks. The reason? My grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in Kauaʻi and all of their descendants attended.

On the way to Kauaʻi I had a 24 hour stay on Oʻahu. While there I got to show my brothers my school and also take care of some registration business. I am now all set for the upcoming semester where I will be taking the following classes: Intro to Japanese I, Calculus II, Physical Chemistry I, and Physics I. It is looking to be a busy semester for me.

After a quick 30 minute plane ride to Kauaʻi a stop off at Costco and a 1 hour drive to the north shore we arrived at the Hanalei Colony Resort where I would be spending the next few days.

Each of the buildings had 4 apartments, while the buildings were identified by letter they were also identified by a Hawaiian name. The building I stayed in was named after a Hawaiian Owl

I stayed on the second floor of the building and we had a rather nice view of the ocean.

The first day I drove back to Kapaʻa to meet up with a friend from HPU to go hiking. After which it was our turn to make dinner for the whole family. Having lived in Hawaii for some 2 years now, I have some idea as to what would be some good local flavor to introduce my family too, so I made spam musubi, ahi maki, spicy ahi poke over rice, and teriyaki chicken. It was a big hit with the family, though some didn’t eat any of the fish because it was all raw. There was plenty of rice and all I was missing for a good plate lunch was some mac salad.

The next day was a beach day. I, along with my brothers, walked down the beach to a place called Tunnels, about a 2km distance. While at the beach I did some swimming around the reef and managed to spot a very colorful eel and a healthy looking turtle. I don’t have any photos unfortunately.

On the 4th of July itself we were again responsible for dinner for the family, about 20 people and guests. This being America we decided to cook up some American food, hamburgers, hotdogs, and corn on the cob.

The above photo is of my brother cooking the corn. Earlier in the day we had all posed for a family portrait.

Much food was had and the countries independence was celebrated, naturally, by blowing part of the country up with fireworks.

With my stay in Kauaʻi soon coming to an end we took one of the last full days on the island to go check out Waimea Canyon also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It was very impressive.

On returning to the mainland I only managed to spend one night in my own bed as the next day I, with my brother who was moving there, drove to San Jose for the weekend. Things didn’t return to normal until yesterday.

So I’m a bit late with this… but better late than never.
Every memorial day I go out to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery where I place flags in front of grave markers. I have always placed flags in front of the same set of stones and even met the family of one of the people buried (not this year but previous years). They were happy to learn that I was the one who always made sure their father’s (and grandfather’s in the case of the kids) had a flag properly placed in font of his marker.

This year I noticed that the same marker had a new inscription on it, on reading it I realized that it was the wife of the man who was buried. I realized that I had met her, with her family, visiting her husbands grave. This year their grave received extra care.