Last week we were on the north shore of Oahu. In addition to the still shots of the Bonzai Pipeline, I took this movie of the waves at Waimea Bay. I was standing barefoot in the surf. You'll see Steve washing off his sandals. You'll hear the wind and and waves. It's a little bit hypnotic.

Today, Thursday, was our last full day in Hawaii. We fly home Friday evening, arriving in Dallas at 7:00 AM Saturday morning. Those overnight flights are not fun. Steve and I stop in Dallas and drive on home to Sherman but Linda and Paul have to catch another flight to Grand Junction. But we all agree that the trip is well worth the cost of the trip home.

Steve and I climbed Diamond Head this morning. You can see all of Waikiki and a lot of Honolulu from up there. It was a cloudy day but I took photos anyway:

Can you see the pink hotel? That's the Royal Hawaiian and some day I hope to stay there. All it takes is money…

That stretch of sandy beach is the famous Waikiki Beach. Click here to go to the live cam on the beach. It may or may not work on your computer. It was early in the morning when I took this so you don't see many people or surfers out yet.

Yesterday we went to the North Shore and saw the huge waves on the Bonzai Pipeline. I did post one iPhone photo – here's a better one. You should be able to see what looks like a surfer on the right. He was actually riding a boogie board.

I took a movie of the waves at Waimea Bay that I'll upload to YouTube and post later – probably when I get home and have a better connection. Aloha!

It's not just that the fuschia (from light to dark) is beautiful – it is that it is mixed with the different shades and values of green and brown/gray. Great colors for a quilt.

The ombre shading of the banana leaf (below) really stands out in this photo. It's an interesting idea – to use this sort of shading on one motif in a composition to draw attention to it.

…on the north shore of Oahu. They are supposed to be 30′ and they looked that big. We watched 5 surfers brave the waves and if you look really close you might be able to see one or two of them. Amazing! We agreed that their mama’s wouldn’t want them out in those big waves.

Sent from my iPhone

We've been looking at a lot of leaves as we walk around Hawaii and we've noticed some interesting veins and textures in those leaves. It's a good idea to file away interesting patterns provided by Mother Nature to fall back on when you are quilting leaves. Here are 3 of our favorites…

Lava does the darnedest things – like cutting across an important road. We had been to this spot before except that I really do think that there has been more lava in the intervening 2 years.