New Year’s Day. We spend the late morning and early afternoon at the Hapuna Prince Hotel with Ariella’s family. The waves at Hapuna Beach turn out to be perfect for bodysurfing and general wave-jumping.
In the evening, we drive up Mauna Kea to the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, a visitor center below the observatories at the summit of Mauna Kea. We get there in time to see the sunset, which lights up a number of pu’u (cinder cones) and desert plants. We’re met there by the family of Bree’s friend, Serena.
As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature immediately drops, and we bundle up. The visitor center hosts a nightly stargazing event, which tonight turns out be completely thronged. The stargazing is, in fact, amazing — the clear weather, high altitude, near-equatorial position, and low light pollution all combine to create optimal conditions. But the girls get pretty cold, and their interest wanes before the program completes. Before we have to go back down to civilization, Angela does get a chance to look at the Orion Nebula through a telescope.
Per prior arrangement, we bring Serena back to our place so she and Bree can have a sleepover.
Jan, Angela, Liya, and Bree take a boat to Kealakekua Bay for an afternoon of snorkeling and snuba diving. On the way, we see a humpback whale, and plenty of spinner dolphins right alongside the boat. Liya manages to see one dolphin leaping into the air.
Angela and Bree spend the time at the bay snorkeling. It’s Bree’s first time in deep water, but as long as Angela’s alongside her, she enjoys it quite a bit. Liya, meanwhile, does a snuba dive with Jan. Snuba is an activity about halfway between snorkeling and snuba — you have a regulator in your mouth like with scuba, but it’s just attached to a long hose up to the surface, so there’s not as much gear to fiddle with. Liya takes just a few minutes to adjust to the experience of breathing underwater, and then the two of them have a great dive. They see black durgeons, yellow tangs, an eel, and a crown of thorns.
All done, and heading back to port. Along the way, the boat captain points out a manta ray swimming at the surface.
Angela, Anya, and Liya do a zipline course near the little town of Hawi. (Bree’s too light to do it, even if she wanted to. Which she doesn’t.)
While the others are doing the ziplines, Jan and Bree do a hike down into the Pololu Valley.
Some visitors to the rocky Pololu Valley beach have piled up rocks into cairns, so Jan and Bree make a cairn of their own.
After the hike, we all meet up back to Hawi and have lunch at a yummy sandwich shack called Local Dish.
One last trip to the beach and pool on the morning we have to leave Hawaii.
Yesterday was the first day of skiing with the girls’ school. For 6 Fridays, all students participate in a winter sport. Today, Bree decided her stuffed otter needed to try skiing, so she made him a winter scarf, sewed him a helmet, and made him some skis.
During January and February, the girls’ school takes each Friday as a winter sports day. For our girls, that means a day of skiing. The school organizes busses to the ski area, but Angela likes to drive the girls and go skiing herself.
This Friday, Jan joins them as well. He and Angela enjoy a day of skiing together, and he’s happy to have a chance to try his new skis and boots.
For a while now, Sabriya has had four stuffed animals that are particular favorites. She likes to have all four with her at bedtime, and generally takes all of them with her on trips. She recently created a series of four paper hand puppets — one to match each favorite stuffed animal. From left: Lambie, Chico, Boing-Boing, and Froggy.
Parent Debate. Anya and two of her Debate team friends, Kaila and Ariella, gather their three families for dinner and a Parent Debate tournament. They divide the parents into Moms vs. Dads, then give the teams a bit of time to prepare their arguments for two impromptu debates. All the kids judge the arguments. The Moms win the first, arguing that the Chicken came before the Egg. The Dads win the second debate, arguing for the proposition that, “You can never trust a skinny chef”.
Jan’s happy to receive his results for the 2015 Japanese language proficiency test. He was able to improve his overall score from 124/180 to 154/180. He improved his score in all three test sections, but is particularly happy he was able to raise his reading score from 29/60 to 44/60 after struggling last year through the fiendish reading comprehension essays. He’s at a loss to explain why his listening comprehension score also went up, though. He was just as baffled this year as last year, and can only assume he got luckier.
Based on this result, Jan will probably take the same N2 test one more time this coming December, and then shoot to start taking the N1 (most difficult) level in 2017.
Anya’s school Debate team has its final tournament for the year. Her team wins 2 debates and loses 1.
One memorable exchange, in a debate on the proposition, “Schools today overemphasize STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs”. Anya’s team was debating against the proposition:
Anya: “And many people don’t want to pursue careers in STEM fields. Many people would rather be musicians and artists.”
Opposing team member [interjecting]: “Evidence?”
Anya: “There are many musicians and artists.”
Liya sews a herself a snug pair of penguin mittens. The one on the left is named Penn; the one on the right, Gwyn.