Christmas is right around the corner! As usual, it’s coming faster than I thought.  I still have a couple of gifts to buy.

This past Saturday, I went to an annual Christmas party with friends and family.  We’ve been having our annual party at my sister’s house in Hawaii Kai the last few years.  The main reason is that her house is on the marina, and there’s an annual boat parade each year.

This is a fun event!  Most of the boaters go all out to decorate their boats.  I have a couple of photos above.  But there were many more awesome participants.  The last boat actually had a working trapeze.  And someone was actually swinging from the trapeze!  I kid you not.  That’s one of the more original ideas that I’ve seen in a few years.

I hope everyone has a joyous and safe Christmas.  Merry Christmas to all!!

Yesterday, my daughters and I hiked the Koko Crater Trail.  For those not familiar with the trail, the trail is an old train track that runs straight up the face of Koko Crater.  I believe the train was used by the military since there are bunkers at the top of the trail.  The trail is quite steep at the top since we’re hiking straight up the face.

I would rank this as an intermediate hike mostly because of the steepness of the trail.  The first half of the hike is not that bad, but the second half is pretty steep.  My 6 year old daughter had a tough time after the midway point.

There’s a little over 1,000 steps to reach the top.  Once you’re there, you have a panoramic view of the surrounding areas.  You can look into the crater and the Allen Davis/Kalama Valley area.  You can see Hanauma Bay and all of Hawaii Kai. 

This is a popular trail.  It looks like a lot of people hike it to stay in shape.  A few ran up and then ran back down.  It took my daughters about an hour to reach the 900 step level.  I had them turn around at that point, although my 6 year old was still game to go for the top.  However, we were running short on daylight.  We had a bonus of watching the sun set as we descended down the trail.