Maui – Day 1 – Beach and Pool Update

We purchased a waterproof camera specifically for this trip and tried it out on Christmas Day at the pool and at the beach.  My feelings are mixed about the camera right now; the automatic zoom isn’t the greatest and thought at the end of the day on Saturday there seemed to be condensation showing up in the pics……but, I was able to take some pictures I never would have gotten without it, so, I should stop my complaining.

Matthew, in full attack mode.  First picture is the pose, the second is the attack on the helpless wave.

   

Pictures 1 and 3 are my favorites of this Christopher set; always love the big toothy grin he has and then he’s on the boogie board in the 3rd picture but it looks like he’s a shark trying to sneak up on us…

Some boogie board action from Kevin and Matthew

 

And then there were beach games; Kevin and Matthew are doing some beach crawl in the top photo, and then Kevin and Christopher are trying to keep out of the surf in the bottom two.

  

Switched over to the pool to finish the morning….the pool is all of 100 feet from the beach.  Followed Matthew around at first.

     

And then ran into Kevin and Christopher as we moved around the pool (it surrounds this rock structure that you can see in the background of some of the photos)

Maui – Day One – Mele Kalikimaka

Lots of multimedia to process; not sure how much we’ll get up and through each day.  Will try to at least keep the iphone photos on schedule and throw some video in when I can.

 

Yeah, it takes a lot of luggage to get to Hawaii!  Top Reebok luggage has our snorkel gear; light tan bag has Santa’s loot, and the one bag beneath the Reebok bag is mostly empty, anticipating a few purchases.  Another benefit of Gold Medallion status is ‘bags fly free’.  Thanks Goodness.

 

Boys did remarkably well on the trip; this picture is of Christopher asleep on my shoulder.  On the 6-hour flight from Salt Lake City to Kahului, Fric and Frac sat together across the aisle from us and really did a nice job!

Flew over the big Christmas storm; cleared up as we hit the Rockies and Christopher and I took some great pictures as we descended into Utah.

This was the last of them even though there are more clouds in this picture…

 

This was the view as the sun rose from the balcony of the room this morning.  Suzanne and I were up before the boys and had a nice talk on the balcony listening to the surf waiting for dawn.

 

Santa’s sleigh made it to Maui; included in the stockings were pictures of the tree at home with presents waiting there as well.  Not sure if we’ll make it another year with Fric and Frac still completely on board the Santa train, but, this year, despite the characters at school trying to convince the boys otherwise, we think we succeeded.

Christopher asked for a lot of sticker books!

An Iphone Panorama on the beach near the hotel; the island of Lanai is off in the distance.  Did another panorama later in the day that will need some ‘editing’ to make it right….it’s hard in the bright sun to make those ‘ramas turn out well….

 

This sperm whale skeleton sits in Whaler’s Village, a grouping of shops just to the north of our hotel.

Before we went whale watching, we traveled north from Kaanapali to check things out.  Stopped north of Kapalua when we saw a bunch of cars pulled over; they (and us) were watching the professional surfers tackle the huge waves.  Pretty cool!

This boy posed for me.

Continued further north, and the east, around the island and stopped at a few more scenic outlooks.  This is along the north shore of Maui, the western edge, and I’m looking west at the island of Molokai in the distance

A little further east form the last photo, again looking west.

Videos:

1st up is video from Christmas morning; Christopher’s song request did come true, sort of!

2nd is the surprise hit of Christmas morning; Matthew keeps referring to “the clarinet” but, is enjoying this stocking stuffer a lot.

3rd is the video highlight of the whale watching cruise this afternoon. 

Going where no boy has been before

This boy, the self proclaimed rainbow angel

Managed to pull off what Kevin and Christopher failed to do…..bring home a red note from Mrs. Hoffman’s class for poor behavior.  Apparently, this was the second version of the note, the first ended up in the trash because he didn’t want to give it to Mom and Dad.

Threatened mightily to punish severely if a red card came home but, in the end, pushed it back to “It had better not happen again” after listening to “I was so excited for Christmas, and Hawaii, and the party at school….and I just wasn’t listening.  I’m sorry”.

Artwork came home today…along with the red note.

Art Project

Suzanne and I went to the store Monday night; this was waiting for us when we returned.

Dumb Ass

Kevin achieved his first ‘A’ on a quiz or test since we’ve instituted the “get an A get a driving lesson” policy last week; so, last Sunday, we went down to the High School and let him do left turns and right turns for 30 minutes.  Kevin got better as the day went on, learning the ‘feel’ of things, etc.  Last thing we did was pull into a parking space and had him back out; pointed out how many times he would have hit another car (3) and said, the next time we would practice more on reverse….so that’s all good.

We were talking during this lesson about Dad’s favorite word to use for some drivers…..dumb-ass.  I use it enough that the boys have asked me, after someone does something stupid, “Dad, was that person a dumb-ass?”…..Okay, so, I’m not a good role model here.

But, as we were talking, Kevin, who finds this term hilarious, asks me how many times a week I use it.  I tell him, I don’t know, but, next week, I’ll keep track.  And so I did.

The total:  4.  One was for Kevin, can’t remember why exactly, but, both Mom and Dad were talking with him about something Wednesday night and he earned the moniker.

The other 3 were at my favorite driving part of the day most days; navigating the pick-up line at Bennett Woods to get Matthew and Christopher after school.  I could break down the Moms and Dads who go through the line into the following categories:

a)  The grizzled vets:  Includes myself.  Know the pattern, know the routine, and rarely rarely do something that’s not the routine.  Realize this goat-fuck(!) of a situation isn’t good but doing anything else just makes it worse.

b)  The foreign press:  BW has a lot of international students because of the university nearby; typically, the children speak English better than the parents.  I’m almost on board with the children driving better than the parents.  Just no common sense; everyone else pulls forward to the end to drop their kids off, Mom A drops her kid off as soon as she hits the circle or Dad B dashes inside(!) the school while everyone in the circle waits.

or

c)  The “my timers”:  My time, to them, is way more important than ‘your’ time; so, they are always trying to short-cut the system, pull into the lot at the last minute and walk up and grab their kid and get back to the car quickly and try to pull out while 40 cars are in line (hey, buddy, my reverse lights are on, let me out please?). 

Group A very rarely gets a DA for me; they do nothing to get me riled up.  Group B gets there sometimes but Group C…..far and away the DA winners for the week.

More Videos

You can go the video link and see that I’ve uploaded a few more videos there:

Star Wars: Took a lot of video here; I wasn’t the only one participating in ‘illegal’ activities, but, they never made an announcement that I can recall either.  Most of that video; really, anytime the screen was bright or the lights were pointing towards us, is just unwatchable; the iphone camera is ill-equipped to deal with bright point sources.

So, the three Star Wars clips that I did post, for the most part, don’t have that.  Thought the Iphone did a great job capturing the sound; the side screens look much better than they did in person…..have to wonder if they were set up that way on purpose, but, that makes no sense. 

Trampoline: Not much to explain here; this is the #1 activity on the trampoline; trampoline football.  Ashton and Matthew against Kevin and Christopher.

Indoor Soccer – Game 6

Lost, 8-3, to Holt again.  I think, but am not entirely sure, that the Holt team has added some U10’s to their roster as well (or, they were a mixed team to begin with) but it sure did look it, just bigger kids, more skills, etc.  The one time they seemed to have younger kids on the field we scored twice; that lineup never seemed to happen again. 

Hard to gauge how we did; ended up playing at a different facility with bigger goals and it just made it easier to score.  Certainly don’t think the team followed through with the effort they had in the last two games on defense.

We’ve been preaching, preaching, preaching to the kids on goal kicks to not kick them to the middle.  We’ve told the kids that we would rather have them kick the ball out of bounds than to the middle.  Fifteen games into this year we’re still having kids go to the middle with the ball and it’s just frustrating….this week’s offender..Christopher!  And, sure as heck, he boots it out in the middle and the other team just takes it and scores off of it. 

Just makes you want to tear your hair out……

Went out with Suzanne for dinner sans kids Friday night and were talking about the future; still very undecided whether to keep Matthew playing up next year…he does well, but, certainly isn’t the dominating presence we (and he) have grown used to.  I think, if we had to make the decision now, he’d play at his age level next year.  May have to seriously consider doing a travel team just to get some better coaching for soccer moves for him.

Ensemble Recital

Not entirely sure that this was the first time the business where Kevin takes viola (String Connection) held an ensemble recital, but, it’s certainly the first time Kevin’s participated in this type of recital.  HIs instructor asked him to be part of the Chamber Orchestra at first, and then part of the viola quartet after someone else dropped it. 

Those videos are also at the link from in the Hippo post below; they start with ‘SC-‘.   You can see Kevin better in the quartet, and, hear him pretty well during some parts where he carries the melody.  The Chamber Orchestra is more to feature the violinists..not so much is heard (or seen) of Kevin there.

He has a school concert Tuesday and his Mason Orchestra concert next weekend, so, there will be more music posted soon.

Hippo?

Christopher and the Bennett Woods 3rd graders were invited by the Music Patrons to sing at Barnes & Noble as part of the day’s fundraising events.  So, Suzanne and the big guy headed over there Saturday morning as everyone went there separate ways.

Turns out only about 15 of the 40 some 3rd graders show up for the event; Cpher is one of 3 boys.  But, he loves to sing, and we know he’s going to enjoy this.  He’s not nearly as outgoing with the songs as he is at home; kind of held back with shyness when he first walked up on the group in the beginning.  But, they did well, sang a bunch of songs (I stopped editing the video shortly after they went to the songbook) and had a good time.

The videos are here

http://blindnutsquirrel.shutterfly.com/284

Christopher’s favorite?  Hippo’s the runaway champ here, followed by Senor Del Gato.

A quick basketball note

Went with Matthew today to the last of the basketball clinics while Kevin was at rehearsal for his ensembles tomorrow and Christopher was at his mini-performance (both of the latter two events will be blogged about later).

So, I’m standing there, talking to some friends, and watching Matthew go through the station rotation…he finally comes over near us to do layups…

The kids that I had been watching beforehand, when they do the layups at the station, have had varying amounts of success.  Matthew, guy that he is, never missed one, from either direction.   Some with banks, some with no banks, left, right, bad bounces, didn’t matter.  All went in the basket.

That kid amazes me.

Snoopy

Didn’t blog about the musical performances; was waiting for the videos to be processed.  I’ve finished that, so, let’s get to blogging.

The videos are here

http://blindnutsquirrel.shutterfly.com/284

If you’re trying to find Kevin, well, it’s hit or miss.  He’s in a green shirt and near the front in several of the songs (Snoopy’s Song, Don’t Be Anything…etc.).  He has speaking lines, but, they aren’t in these songs online; he’s prominent in ‘Writer’ and you can hear him, but not really see him, when he sings a little in ‘Clouds’.

As always, Kevin really enjoyed being in the musical, and as always, did a really good job.  Wish he could have more of a role, but, he’s probably going to have to get use to the fact that he won’t. 

Thought, last year, that School House Rock production was kind of ‘mailed’ in…kids on risers, all in the same shirt, not much going on in terms of dancing and choreography.  This year, just completely different, thought the music, the costumes, the set, the dancing….just all really well done.

Should mention that, again, the boys are simply enthralled with the musical; Christopher and Matthew are still singing the songs from the show (Matthew, in particular, does a great job at “Sit up, roll over, play dead”).  Really hope that we can convince them to try out for the musicals…am not at all sure they’ll be as eager as Kevin has been to participate.

Photo Dump – December

The latest from the world of the Iphone

Oh man, I can’t believe I forgot to blog about this….well, now is as good as time as any.  On the journey east for Lloyd’s wedding, we stopped for lunch before getting to Grandma’s.  First choice was the Friday’s that the GPS had located, but, it was out of business, so, Suzanne suggested the Red Lobster we had passed, saying that Christopher had really wanted to go there.

Ok, fine….we figured out the last time we had been to a Red Lobster was right after we moved to Michigan, before we even had an apartment in Ypsilanti.

Walk in, we have to wait, and the boys are drawn to the lobster tank….and are quickly very sad at understanding the ultimate fate of their new friends.  So, of course, this is the time that the waitress comes over and using the special fork-like device, retrieves two of the guys for a one-way trip to the kitchen.  She holds the guys on a tray and ask the boys “Do you want to see them before I take them away?” and they look, but, it’s all bad news from here.  Nothing can make Christopher like this meal now that he knows some of this new friends are getting steamed in the back…..

The good news?  Kevin really liked his Cajun Chicken pasta and can’t wait to go back to Red Lobster……sucks for him that we won’t be back anytime soon.

Hockey-neighbor across the street gave us two tickets for Michigan State – Notre Dame hockey, so, Christopher and I went…..this is the big guy sucking down a diet coke….tried to take a full on photo of him here but his tree-wounds quickly convinced me to hit ‘delete’ on those photos.

Suzanne and I got to Pittsburgh for our overnight and realized we had walked into light-up night.  Literally, Suzanne said as we came down 279 “Why is everything lit up tonight???”…..

Had a good night over at Station Square; dinner and watched some fireworks and some of the live performances.

Suzanne was disappointed at the view from the hotel; I didn’t mind the view of Mellon Arena.

This picture was sent from Grandma’s on Friday night showing the goofiness in all of its glory.

The married couple at the reception. 

   

The family went out and captured this 7’ Fraser Fir…..can’t believe it walked right out into the clearing where our saw could get it!  Had to get the tree and lights up early this year since for the back end of the holiday season we’ll be outta-here

A view of part of the project I’m working on down in West Virginia; we’re removing contaminated sediments and rebuilding the channel of this stream that leads to the Kanawha River in the background

Driving

Today was Kevin’s first driving lesson.

We’re loading up the Odyssey to take the boxboard and cardboard out to the recycling center…..Kevin, for about a month, has been saying, I can drive, I can drive.  And since the van is backed into the driveway, I give him the keys and say “let’s go!”

Kevin can’t believe it; I tell him we can go down to the end of the cul-de-sac and back….but he has to figure out how to do it.  He starts the car (is about to start it again and I have to point out that you don’t want to do that) and finally figures out how to take the parking brake off, but, can’t seem to move that pesky gear shift. 

Mom finally comes out, realizes what we’re doing, starts to put her hands on her head and says “has he figured out he has to have his foot on the brake?”

Kevin does figure it out at this point, and, off we go. 

We’ve learned the following things:

1)  Dad will most likely be the primary Kevin driving teacher…..just the thought of Kevin driving off turned Mom into a mess.  The lasting image of the day is when Kevin, after successfully navigating the cul-de-sac and is heading towards home decides to turn right and do the other cul-de-sac, and I look over towards the house and Mom has her head in her hands and I swear I can hear her saying “Nooooooo!”.

2)  No big surprise here, but, Kevin needs a lot of work….we’ve agreed on a reward system…he gets an A (not an A-) on a math quiz or test and I’ll take him down to a parking lot and see how he does….

The end is nigh!

Felines

One of the most important things we do before we go on a trip is pet control; Wiley goes to ‘camp’ and we either arrange for someone to come and feed the cats every 2 or 3 days or leave them to fend for themselves if we’re not going to be gone long.  That was the case for the recent trip for Lloyd’s wedding.  Friday morning, as we stumble across the cats, we isolate them in the basement.  Madison and Daphne are locked down there, and we can’t find Marino.  As we leave, we figure she is still outside and leave a bowl of food and water out for here and a big bowl of food and water out inside the house for the other two. 

And off we go!

On the drive back home, I look at Suzanne and go “you know, I think I screwed up…I don’t think I opened the basement door”

Uh-oh.

Get home, get inside, and yes, I had forgotten to re-open the basement door.  This stupidity had the following results:

• open the basement door and two cats come screaming out of there…heading straight to the food and water dishes
• Marino, was not outside as we thought, but, inside.  And comes out, and I realize that closing the basement door had cut her off from the kitty litter.  Matthew’s bed was the guest litter box for the weekend, and, some environmental remediation activities were quickly undertaken.

If I had realized Friday that I had done this, we could have called back and had one of the neighbors check.  Since I was stupid, the cats suffered until Sunday.

I still think they are looking at me strangely today……

Brazil

I have a new favorite small plane; the Embraer 145…can’t name another import from Brazil…..

The CRJ’s are still the worst thing on earth, and, for the most part, I’m doomed to be on them for the hops to most places.  But, the recent flights from Cincinnati to Charleston have been on the Embraer 145; it’s 2 seats on one side, one on the other, which is great, since it’s easy to avoid being next to someone and, the best part…..the windows are huge!  Compared to that crap-tastic CRJ, where they are small and you can’t see crap when you are on the ground, the Embraer’s windows have to be at least 1.5x bigger.

Air flow, another important feature on a small plane, is good.  Two thumbs up…more of these, less CRJ’s, and I’d be a happier flier.