Jungle adventures

Another Maui tradition is driving the road to Hana.  Driving the 620 curves over 68 miles with a 5 year old prone to motion sickness and a 3 year old did not sound like a fun time, so we drove a couple of miles down the road to Twin Falls and hiked up a short trail and called that our road to Hana experience.

This is the classic Emily picture. She filled 4 very large memory cards on the trip.

More attempts at the elusive family portrait.

Austin and Calvin hiking down the road

Zach with his gap toothed grin.  He lost a tooth while we were watching a Hula show at the mall.  Butch and Emily had slipped out to do a little shopping when Austin bumped Zach's mouth and the tooth fell out. He could hardly wait until his parents came back to tell them and he was richly rewarded with amazement and hugs.  I hope he appreciates how much love he is loved. And what great parents he has.

After we left the jungle we went to Ho'okipa beach to watch the surfers, but the surfers weren't nearly as interesting to Zach and Austin as running through mud puddles in the rain.

Lahaina 2013

 There are certain traditions that you must observe when visiting Maui.  One is a visit to the banyan tree in Lahaina for family photos. So we spent a fun evening in Lahaina admiring ourselves with cameras.

 Ignoring the signs about not climbing on the banyan, Zach and Austin hopped right up for a picture.

It was a little rainy while we were there so we saw some spectacular rainbows.

We found another tree that didn't have signs about climbing.  That made everybody happy.

 And no trip to Maui would complete without whale watching.  It was high season for whales, so we saw spouts and splashes all the time.  Past experience tells me that taking a picture of a whale is usually not successful, but taking a picture of people watching whales is another story.

 Another traditions is eating a traditional Hawaiian meal.  After our very first "authentic" meal many years ago we are a little more selective so we opted for a traditional plate lunch with macaroni salad and rice instead of lomo lomi and poi.

With tropical drinks of course.

Maui 2013 Beach and pool time

We just got back from a two week vacation in Maui.  We had a wonderful time and yet it is really great to be home again.  Butch and his family were there for the first 10 days and that made it twice as fun.  Zach and Austin have non-stop enthusiasm for life and Butch and Emily encourage and nurture them with non-stop love. What a treat to get to spend time with them.

We all spent a lot of time digging giant holes and creating complex sand castles on the beach.  Zach's specialty is creation and Austin's specialty is destruction.

Beach time was usually followed with pool time to wash away some of the sand.

Even the big kids saw a little water slide action.

 This is Austin's signature move going down the slide backwards.  Both boys are pretty fearless in the water.

We stayed to watch the sunset one evening and they were still going strong.

Hawaii is really a kid's paradise.

Frosty Mug

The highlight of last weekend was a visit to the iconic A&W in Reno.  I practiced using my phone camera and after a couple of shots figured out that I was in video mode. 

 Truthfully nothing satisfies quite like a "frosty mug" even if it is diet root beer.

Roatan 2013

We just returned from a trip to Roatan with Sarah, Toby and Clare.  The only reason you would want to go to Roatan is to scuba dive or seriously relax.  Calvin, Sarah and Toby got into the diving but Clare and I went after the "seriously relax" option.  We stayed in a lovely home right on the beach with a small pool and a lovely outdoor deck.  It was close to a good grocery store and several convenient eating places and that sums up what we did for a week.  A little diving, a lot of eating and a lot of relaxing.  Calvin is our main grocery shopper on vacations and makes sure that there are at least two desserts for each day of the trip.  Some of our "eat in" meals were a little sketchy, but we always had a great dessert.

We brought the camera, but I have to admit that most of my pictures were total disasters.  The last time we were in Roatan I found myself interested in fauna and flora of the island, but this trip Clare seemed to be the most interesting thing around and I hardly noticed anything else.  Clare has an adorable lightning quick smile and I would say that I missed it 100% of the time, so you'll just have to imaging how cute her smile really was.

The Boredelons look a little angelic at dinner.  Calvin took this picture

It rains a lot in Roatan, but most of the storms passed by quickly.

There was a dive site just off our beach, but Calvin was the only one willing to brave the waves to swim out to it.  This lovely beach is swarming with sand midges.  I spent about 20 minutes on the beach our first night there and got over 50 bites on my legs.  I hardly noticed the bites when they happened, but my legs looked like I had chicken pox the rest of the week.  I gave the beach a wide berth after that.

Clare had great enthusiasm for everything.

Sorry Sarah for the terrible picture of you, but I wanted to show off Clare's curly hair.

And then I noticed how similar Clare's hair color is to yours.  I don't usually look at the back of your hair.

We ate a couple of times at Temporary Cal's Cantina, so named because it is hard to make a go of a restaurant in Roatan and the owner didn't want to make a permanent commitment.

Good times splashing in the pool.

This is the view that I loved waking up to each morning.  A great master bedroom!

Christmas 2012

We really enjoyed our Christmas this year.  We did some of the traditional activities, just not on the traditional days.  We usually decorate gingerbread men over Thanksgiving, but this year we decorated when Peter, Roque,Rosie, Jay, Kelly and Brack were in town.

Roque and Brack really raised the artistic bar on the cookies,

but we still managed a few "creative" cookies.  

We spent a lot of time gathered around the fire watching the snow fall.

Despite a great effort the puzzle did not get completed, so it is back in the box waiting for the next Smith gathering.

We had our tradition music night, with a twist.  Katie and Jason volunteered to start

and stole the show!

We had a real white Christmas.  We went skiing on Christmas Day, but it was so snowy we didn't take any pictures.  Calvin loved skiing in the snow and dragged Jay, Brack , Jason, Katie and Kelly all over the mountain.

The birds at the feeders entertained us,

but the highlight was my Christmas cactus

 putting on a glorious show as usual.

Christmas Tree 2012

In answer to the question "can we chop a Christmas tree and load it on the car without any kids to chop and carry the tree" the answer is yes.  But we did look for a skinny tree, on the uphill side close to the road.  We went with the Gabbarts and after all these years of tree chopping it was just the four of us this year.  We are a few weeks after our traditional chop date, but it was a beautiful day, and the roads, although deeply rutted, were still frozen so we could get in to our favorite chopping spot.

This is Calvin's first selection. But we decided to look a little more.

We found a tree that is actually legal according to the rules, small diameter trunk, back from the road, and so close to another tree that it is pretty much flat on the back. I will admit that it is not our best tree, but it is big and green which is basically what we look for in a tree. I hoped to put it flat against the wall, but that didn't work as well as I hoped.  We took all of the traditional pictures.  

Chopping the tree

 Loading the cars

Family pictures

(Actually Fay and Vance were just waiting while Calvin set up the group shot.  They got a couple picture on their camera.)

And the group shot.

It is great to have friends who share "empty nester" adventures.