When we first left Tom’s place, we drove up to Mich, Upper peninsula, to visit brother Ken’s cabin, he past away last year.

Ken had this cabin over 40 years, when his children were young, he took the family there at summer time; often in winter, he and his buddies had hunting parties there. There are 7 or 8 bedrooms  on upstairs, plenty rooms for a gathering. After he retired from his successful career as a lawyer, he spent most of his time at the cabin, except in winter, he lived in Arizona.

Brother Ken had been a very special person for Terry and I. It was complicated and long term process to get visa for me to come to states. Even Terry had an immigrate lawyer to get fiance visa for me, we still need someone as financial guarantee, Ken was there for us, it still took 16 months to get my visa.

I arrived in Kona on April, brother Ken organized and hosted our wedding in UP in June (Since all of Terry’s relatives are live in mainland and Canada). As the elder brother, Ken was always the one who organized family reunion every year, the very important key person for the big family. For our wedding, he sent us air tickets, told us that all we needed to do was just show up. He invited other family members, arranged the place for everyone to stay, meals, photographer, even got the priest to marry us.

That was  the first time I  met most of Terry’s family, totally moved by how Ken opened his heart to accept me, how generous he was to us. I was so happy to find out that, Terry has a very nice big family, they are all very kind people.

This place is surrounded by trees, wild flowers are everywhere. Sonny and I walked around the house and took some pictures in the day time, there were too many of mosquitoes in the shady  woods, we didn’t go very far into the woods. We spent two nights there, it was still a little chili at night, Terry brought in firewood and made the fire in the living room, gradually it brought warmth and life back into this big, cold and empty space. Thought about how many people had been here, how many good times had became memories in people’s mind, some of our special memory had been born in this place. This time, we came here to say thanks and goodbye to Ken and his cabin, because we don’t know when we will visit here again. Sat by the fire, we had ice cream in this very quite space, very comfort and peaceful moment.

 

 

On second day, Terry’s university buddy, Bill and his fiance Marcia drove 4 hours to visit us from Michigan Tech, just for a few hours. We hoped they would stay over a night, but Marcia had to work next morning. It’s good to see them again, and know they are still very happy together.

 

From there we went to Canada, then went to Detroit, stayed at Joannes (Ken’s youngest daughter) and Mark’s place.

Joaney and Mark have two boys, Connor 12, Jack 10. They both like Sonny and very nice to him, they met Sonny 6 years ago and might even have better memories than Sonny has. Sonny had so much fun with them, now he wants to move to Michigan, to live with Jack and Connor.

From those few days we stayed there, Terry and I both think that, Connor is a very intelligent and exceptional kid. He likes to read (When we visited them last time, Connor was reading Harry Porter, he was just 6 years old),  his interests to different knowledge are way ahead of other same age kids, polite, kind and respect other people. When I think of him, it make me thrill to know such a wonderful child, all I can wish for him is, he will find his special place in this world when he grows up.

 

 

Kendra is Ken’s eldest daughter, she lives cross street from Joany. We had our first day supper at her house, Nancy,Kendra’s mother came, and Shelia and Trish (Shannon’s two sisters) drove over an hour to spend some time with us too.

When Ken’s whole family first time visited Terry in Kona, his children were very young, Joany was around 2 years old. They remembered that uncle Terry lived in tree house, because coffee drying deck built above garage and kitchen, over look the tree tops. They even had a nick name for Terry, “uncle Lolo”. As eldest child, Kendra has kept in touch with Terry, visited Terry again with Shirley when she was about 20, they are close good friends.

Another evening, Nancy brought the food over to Joany’s house, made a very good meal for everyone, and good conversation together. Wish we had more time with them, but their lives are busy, and we only had limited time at each place on this trip.

 

 

After we returned Tom’s car, spent a few more days with him, we flew to San Francisco. We stayed with Rodney and Ann for a couple of days, rented a car and drove down to Big Sur.

We visited Jack in Monterrey, he has M.S. and stays in the house most of his time. He seems always has positive energy, doesn’t complain a lot even he has more health issue than most people. Terry and Jack talked and laughed about old time stories, listened to them, some of their stories were really wild and crazy. Amazing is that they still can laugh about it when they look back, they had fun in their old days. We went to a Mexican restaurant, brought back some food to Jack’s house for lunch, it was very good food.

 

We left jack’s place, then met John and Lori at the store where John works, Sonny chose to ride in Lori’s car, we followed her car to their house. Terry and I wondered what Sonny and Lori talked about  on the way. Lori told us that Sonny wasn’t shy at all, told her all about Minecraft game. She is super patient with him, even after we arrived their house, she sat with him, looked at the book and let him explain the new information he had just learned. Except her gentleness, there is one thing I notice of her, Lori has twinkle in her eyes. She is the only person I found who has sparkles in the eyes at her age.

Both John and Lori are very gentle people, they love children, they have two daughters, Lily and Jessie. John is also a musician, under his influence, Lily and Jessie both can play guitar very well, sing and write songs. John showed us his own recording studio, played few songs they were still working on. John has very nice voice, it sounds much young than his age. For someone like me, who don’t know much about music, listen to songs someone produced, just left me marvels how intelligent they are.

Lily showed us a song video she had put it on line, I kept the link on my i Pad, watched few times with Sonny. He remembers the melody, I caught him humming the song several times, he asked me to record the song, so we can listen to it when we are picking coffee.

 

 

Lori grows some flowers in her garden for their scents, she makes scented essential oils. It’s my first time to see lavender, I used lavender scented soap before, don’t really like it. But the smell from actual lavender flower is wonderful, so light and sweet, I love it.

 

 

 

On second day, Danny, Suzi and Aniya came to join us, Lori and Lily made yummy Mexican lunch for us.

Lori and Suzi grew up together from same area, good friends since their very young age. Danny had a place in Kona long time ago, he is the first person whisper “Kona” into Terry’s ears, and Terry end up to live in Kona.

Terry hasn’t seen Danny  for 27 years, it’s a long time, they could use days to catch up with each others stories. But they couldn’t spend the night, and we had to to leave next day, so the time was well spent to talk talk talk, and the weather was perfect.

 

We drove back to San Francisco, spent last day with Rodney and Ann, another couple of good friends. We are so lucky to have so many good people as our families and friends, and we will meet more good people in our future.