A "Presidential" Home on Kailua Beach

A few weeks ago I visited this property right on Kailua Beach. It is not your average home. For starters, the price comes in just under a cool $12 million, at $11,888,000. What do you get for that kind of cash? Let's see: almost 12,00 square feet of living space, 13 bedrooms all with baths, plus 2 half baths. If you are looking for something cozy, this is NOT your house. 

Herend for Little Prince George

A while back I blogged about the beautiful Herend dining set the Duchess of Cambridge has (here). The lovely duchess Kate has many fans, making that post one of the most popular on the blog. Now it looks like her son, Prince George also got his own Herend gifts. The manufactory has come out with new collection of baby gifts to celebrate the birth of the little prince.  The pattern is the same as Prince William and Duchess Catherine's Royal Garden wedding gift set, this case being a reinterpretation of the Petite Victoria motif.

(source)

Great Architecture: The Pannonhalma Benedictine Archabbey

For years I have been looking at it from afar. The town of Pannonhalma in Western Hungary is along the way as I often drive in the summer from Germany to our cottage at Lake Balaton. The abbey sits high atop a hill, clearly visible from the road. When one has just driven (or is about to drive, as in the case of the way back) for eight to ten hours, stopping for a bit of sightseeing is generally out of the question. So this year I took advantage of having flown to Budapest directly, and not having to simply drive by the Pannonhalma Archabbey, I planned a day trip to make it our destination.

The abbey is one of the oldest buildings in Hungary, having been founded in the year 996. Yes, it is over a thousand years old. And it looks mighty well for its age. As expected of a compound structure with such history, the archabbey is a beautiful blend of architectural styles throughout these past thousand years. On the picture above, the building on the left is part of the refectory, built in the 1720s in baroque style.

A Small Table Gets a Facelift

While on my recent pumpkin painting adventure, I decided to splash some blue paint on a small table we created a while back. Below are some before and after pictures.

More Painted Pumpkins

When we visited the pumpkin patch a while back, I picked up some larger pumpkins. Having hand-painted my first batch of purchases (which were small) blue, white, silver and gold, I decided to spray-paint these new large ones. Two of them got a shiny silver coat of paint, and one got a glossy white. The largest we left orange, to be carved right before Halloween. If we do the carving too early, the pumpkins tend to rot in the Hawaii heat.

Painted Pumpkins

These days carving pumpkins is so last decade. What to do then? Paint them! I for one did not want the painted pumpkin train to leave the station without me, so I hopped on. Below are some of my creations. 

Coffee table vignette with painted pumpkins

Waimanalo Pumpkin Patch

It is October and with that of course comes Halloween. Last Sunday we went over to the pumpkin patch in Waimanalo to have some harvest fun and pick up a few (more) pumpkins. 

October Flowers...

... bring November showers? Could be, as the closer we get to the end of the year the closer we are to the rainy season. 

However, it is only the beginning of October, and my garden is in full bloom.

Allamanda, or golden trumpet flower is creeping down around the phoenix 

palm. The blue thing in the top left corner is our trampoline.

Falling into Autumn - Hawaiian Style

The weather outside is frightful  I mean glorious. Oh, the crisp fall air, the falling leaves - who am I kidding. The temperature outside is 84 degrees (that's 29 C for my metric system educated readers) and our pool is a balmy 81 F (27 C). But it is officially October now, and Halloween is looking at the end of the month. Time for a little "autumnification" of our home.