Flip Flops

Our youngest is obsessed with flip flops. I have no idea why, but she has been taking every pair of them she can find and wearing them around the house. Her sister's, which are a bit big, but are pink so that makes them appealing. Her brother's, which are brown camouflage and several sizes too big. Or mine or Mike's, which she can barely keep on her feet. They are all fair game and I find them all over the house.


I figured that she might as well have her own pair, so we headed to Old Navy to find her some. Turned out they were having a sale - 2 pairs for $5 - even better! I found a cute pair of white ones with butterflies and purple straps and she put them on as soon as we got home, took them off long enough to take a shower, and wore them until she went to bed. Best $2.50 I could've spent!

The Cookie Monster

No he's not blue, but he did eat 2 dozen oatmeal raisin cookies this afternoon.

I made a batch of cookies this afternoon for my son's birthday celebration at school tomorrow. They finished up just in time for me to leave to pick the two older kids up from school, so I left them on the counter to cool, covered by towels. I had a brief thought that they might be in jeopardy, but I really didn't have any choice since they were too warm to put into containers. I just hoped that Zatarain would ignore them and I could put them away when we got home.

No such luck. We got home and Zatarain immediately went out to his dog run and didn't come back in. Never a good sign. I walked through the kitchen and sure enough, he had eaten all but 6 of the cookies. We'll see how this comes out in the end (get it?). I'm sure it won't be funny when he's running for the door at 3 am.

So I had to make another batch, but I didn't have any Crisco left and I had to take Zatarain to his obedience class (fat lot of good that's done!) this evening. That meant heading to the grocery store at 9:00 tonight to get Crisco, and since I was there, I figured I might as well get the things I need to make soup tomorrow. I finally got home at 9:40 and got the cookies finished by 10:30. At least I don't have to go to the store again tomorrow. And I get the adoration of my son for making him the cookies he asked for, which makes it all worth while.

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup Crisco
1 1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups oats, uncooked
1 cup raisins (optional)

Directions:
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add Crisco, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat smooth, about 2 minutes. Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by heaping teaspoonful onto greased cookie sheet. Bake in preheated 300 degree oven for 15 minutes. Remove from tray when cool.

Round-to-it Recommends - Dog Shampoo

Buddy Wash and Buddy Rinse
I love this shampoo and conditioner! It leaves the dog smelling clean, but not perfume-y, the conditioner leaves Zatarain's coat incredibly soft, and the effects last for at least a week. It takes very little of the shampoo to wash the whole dog and even less conditioner to keep him soft and detangled. It may be more expensive than a lot of dog shampoos out there, but it's well worth it for how great the dog looks afterwards.

Handsome Boy

And here he is laying on my lap afterwards. He's so soft right now!

The Remains

Here is what I raked off of him AFTER spending close to an hour
blowing out his coat at the bath place. You should have seen the
clouds we left behind there.

Bath Day

I finally got to take Zatarain in for a bath today. He was giving me
his best pathetic look, as you can see, but it didn't do him any good.

Vacation Photos

I've added photo slideshows to my Maui posts, so be sure to go back to each day and check them out.

The Project

I have found myself in the middle of a viral project. It's one of those things that seemed simple enough - spackle the holes where my daughter's curtain hold-back came out of the wall. I figured that if I was spackling, I might as well do all of the spots that needed it, which turned out to be many since we seem to have a talent for knocking large chunks of wall off of our corners. Of course, the spackle is white and our walls are not, so that means that all of those spots now need to be painted to match the rest of the walls. It didn't make sense to have these clean spots where the walls were just painted surrounded by the normal grime that we usually think of as our wall color, so that meant cleaning all of the walls. And that has found me on my knees all morning with a bowl of soapy water and a rag scrubbing all of the walls and baseboards. I have managed to do the downstairs so far, which has allowed me to see more spots that need to be spackled and has created more spots that need to be painted since we have the world's cheapest paint and it tends to rub off as I clean. I'll make my way upstairs to do the rest of the walls next.

On top of that, I need to do a second coat of paint in the kids' bathroom because I'm in the middle of repainting in there; I desperately need to bathe the dog because he's now shedding in chunks after being at the beach last weekend and he still smells a bit ocean-y; I have to finish building my drip watering system for my garden, that I started to work on about 5 weeks ago and have yet to finish; and I have to get to the grocery store today because we are now out of just about everything except toilet paper (stocked up just before we left for Maui). So much for a weekend with absolutely nothing planned!

I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it when these things are done and we can enjoy them. I'm beginning to think it may just be easier to move and start over.

Maui - Day 8

It's always hectic getting ready to leave. We managed to get everything packed, the fridge cleaned out, the trash taken out, and the condo closed up by 9:00, so we had time to get some breakfast on our way out. We stopped at McDonald's, which has some interesting breakfast options that we don't get here. We stuck with the standards, and the kids got a kick out of watching the chickens that hang out by the parking lot.

We had an easy time getting the bags checked in and making it to our gate. Our flight was delayed, so the airline put us on a different flight to Honolulu to make sure we would make our connection. As we were waiting, a woman saw our little one's temporary tattoos and said she was happy to see them. Turns out, she was the owner of the Haile Maile General Store and Joe's Bar and Grill and is the head chef for Hawaiian Airlines. I didn't realize who she was at the time, but Mike recognized her name right away.

We got to Honolulu and luckily our flight to Oakland was at a nearby gate. They started boarding us just as we got there, so our timing was good. The flight was uneventful, just long. I do have to say that the movie, "Bedtime Stories" was good and Mike, our son, and I really enjoyed it. We picked up some dinner at Carl's Jr. (banner day for nutrition) and ate as soon as we got home and then got everyone to bed at about 11:00.

So that was Maui. We had a great time and did less this trip than we've ever done before. It was just quiet and relaxing and exactly what we all needed.

Maui - Day 7

This was our last full day of vacation, so we decided to keep it simple and go to our beach and pool. We snorkeled and played in the sand and boogie boarded. The tide was out, so Mike took the kids over to the tide pools. There was a family there who lived nearby and the kids were pulling interesting animals out of the water and showing them to our girls. They got to see a brittle star, an urchin, a sea cucumber, and quite a few fish. The youngest was fascinated by the fish swimming in the pools and climbed all over the rocks to see them.

When we were done with the beach, we went up to the pool and the kids swam and swam. We needed to leave eventually to meet some friends, who had just arrived for their vacation, for lunch at the Paia Fish Market. We stopped off at Ho'okipa Beach on our way home to watch the wind surfers. When we got back, our son finished his homework while the little one was supposed to be napping (she didn't sleep, though), and I started laundry and packing. It was back to the pool for the evening and the best sunset of the trip. We ordered pizza (again) for dinner and put the kids to bed and then I got most of the packing done before heading to bed.

Maui - Day 6

The kids wanted to check out a different beach, so we packed up our stuff and headed for Wailea Beach. The boogie boarding tends to be better there, so our son was very excited about the morning. We managed to find a parking spot (which was remarkable for a Saturday morning) and hauled all of our stuff down to the beach. We set up camp against the rocks at the far end of the beach so we would have some shade, and it turned out that the family set up next to us was from Sunnyvale and the dad works about a mile from our house. Small world!

Mike let me go out to snorkel first, so I swam out along the rocks to get past the break. The visibility was terrible, so I continued out to see if I could find some clear water. I ended up in a swarm of jellyfish instead. I'm not easily freaked out while in the water, but jellyfish in the tropics can be really bad news, so I quickly turned around and swam back in. There were no ill effects from the jellies, but we stayed close to shore for the rest of the morning anyway.

There were some great waves, so Mike and I took turns on the boogie boards. Our son had one to himself and happily spent the whole morning riding waves. We all got some great rides and the waves got progressively bigger as the morning went on. I was in my element and had a great time! Our older daughter spent her time snorkeling in the shallows and picking up rocks and bits of coral that she found on the bottom, while our youngest hung out with Mike in the water.

All in all, it was a great morning. We finally got hungry, so we left the beach and went to Maui Tacos (again). The family that was next to us overheard us and decided it sounded good, too, so we ended up seeing them there. Our older daughter didn't really want tacos, so I took her next door to the natural food market to put together a salad. She's the only 5-year-old I can think of who would happily choose a salad over tacos!

We went back to the condo for the little one to nap. Our older daughter had been complaining about her ear hurting, so I took her to urgent care to get it checked out. We waited for an hour for the doctor to see her for approximately 60 seconds and diagnose her with exactly what I told him was happening. It was a lovely case of swimmer's ear, for which he prescribed ear drops and told her to stay out of the water for at least 2 days. Yeah, right. So we went back to the Safeway pharmacy for another prescription and more Motrin.

After we got back to the condo, we took everybody down to the pool for a while. We all swam for a bit and then went back up to the condo to get cleaned up for dinner. We went to Joe's Bar and Grill, which we've been to before, but it wasn't really as good this time. The food was just average and I ended up feeling pretty nauseous for the rest of the night, so it wasn't the highlight of the trip. The kids had fun riding the golf cart to and from the parking lot, so it wasn't a total loss.

Maui - Day 5 (Part 2)

It was only 12;30 when we got back to the marina, so we decided to go to the Maui Ocean Center for the afternoon. It's a remarkably good aquarium and we make a trip there every time we're on the island. The marina is about a block away, so it made sense to do them both the same day so we wouldn't have to make another trip up there.

The exhibits were basically the same as last year. They did add a tank with baby turtles, which had letters on their shells to identify them. The kids thought that was kind of fun. The octopus was out and swimming around it's exhibit, and our youngest was absolutely fascinated by that. She watched for probably 15 minutes as it swam up and down and dug around in the sand with it's tentacles. I love octopuses, so I was happy to stand there with her. Our son really enjoyed the marine mammal exhibit this time. There are a lot of hands-on activities in that room and because he reads so well, he was able to check them all out and understand the point of them all. His sisters were not nearly as interested, so we finally had to drag him out of there to head to the shark tank.

The largest tank at the aquarium is the shark tank. It has a big room with a large viewing window, and next to it, there is a tunnel where you can watch the animals swim over the top of you. There is also one spot in the floor that is plexiglas and you can watch the fish swim underneath you. The kids have all loved that window in the floor and they lay down and become road hazards as they look down. This tank also has a tiger shark, which is rare to see in an aquarium. It has been there for quite a while - we've seen it on at least 3 trips now - and it's a cool shark to watch.

We headed to the gift shop from there and the kids were each able to choose something from either there or the next store. Our older daughter got a pretty necklace and the other 2 decided to wait and choose something later. We got a couple of things for the people who took care of the cats for us as well.

We were done with the aquarium, so we walked over to the Pacific Whale Foundation store, another one of our standard stops. Our son and younger daughter both chose stuffed animals from here (an angelfish and a dolphin) and I got 2 new rash guards. They have some of the best rash guards I've found and I was needing a new one since one of the ones I brought was completely stretched out. Got one more gift and then we were done.

We headed back to the condo for a quiet evening. We went down to the pool to swim until sunset and then went back and made a frozen pizza for the kids. I went out and picked up sushi for Mike and me from Sansei to round out a very big day.

Maui - Day 5 (Part 1)

Something different today!

We decided on Thursday that it might be fun to try a snorkeling trip with the kids, since both older kids had become so comfortable in the water. Mike and I hadn't done the trip to Molokini in years, so we thought that if we could get a reservation for one of the boat trips, we'd give it a try. We had no trouble getting on a boat, so that's how we spent the morning.

I tend to get miserably seasick, so I wasn't completely enthusiastic about the trip to start out. I did take Bonine ahead of time and I felt fine the whole trip, luckily. It was a bit rocky getting out there, so I was glad I had taken the drugs. The kids enjoyed the boat ride and had no problem at all. The little one did end up falling off of a bench and scraping her knees, so we had to do some minor first aid, but that was the only hitch.

Once we got out to Molokini, everyone got in the water to snorkel. Mike and the two older kids went off together while I tried to deal with our youngest. She was less than thrilled with the idea of being out in the ocean, even with a life jacket and riding on a float, so she and I got back on the boat and waited for the others to return. The kids didn't want to stay in for very long; even with wetsuits, it was cold for them. So after a turn around the reef and seeing some of the fish, they, too, got back on the boat. Mike took some time to snorkel on his own while I rode herd on the kids and when he came back to the boat, the two older ones spent some time going down the slide and jumping off the side of the boat. Our son even did a flip off the side at one point! There was a group of guys and girls who were maybe in their early twenties who were doing tricks for each other, so our son had to follow their example. They were really nice and very sweet to the kids, so it was fun for all of them. Mike came back on the boat after a while and I went in to snorkel for a bit. It was super clear and neat to see the amount of coral along the walls, but the fish life wasn't any more exciting than what we were seeing right off of the beach by the condo.

On the way back to the marina, the boat stopped at an area just off the shore at the north end of Kihei where turtles tend to hang out. There were 24 of them that our son counted, and many of them were huge. Definitely the biggest turtles I've ever seen out there! That was probably the highlight, as far as sea life was concerned.

We all had a really good time on the boat and I'm glad we decided to do it. I think we even managed to avoid major sunburn out there, which with our complexions can be the biggest challenge.

Beach blog

As if we didn't get enough beach time in Maui! It's ridiculously hot at home today, so we headed to Half Moon Bay to hang out at our favorite beach. It's gorgeous out here - about 70 degrees, sunny, light breeze. The kids are running between the water and the flowers and the dog has been chasing his ball like crazy.

Can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Maui - Day 4

Yep, more of the same.

Our mornings are very relaxed when we're on vacation. The kids wake up first (why they feel the need to get up at 6:00 every morning is beyond me!) and turn on PBS Kids (Maui has extensive kids' programming on PBS). I take the little one's diaper off and let her watch TV with the older kids while I go back to bed. I admit it, not qualification for parent of the year, but at least I get to sleep some more. When Mike and I are ready to get up, we do breakfast for everyone, which is generally Cranberry Almond Crunch cereal. I don't know why, but this is the cereal we eat while on vacation, and only while on vacation. Sometimes we'll have bagels as well, but it's mostly just cereal. Mike and I have tea and juice, too, and it's always our personal challenge to find a decent loose-leaf tea in other places. We lucked out this time and found one at the gelato shop across from the Paia Fish Market our first day, so we were set for the week for tea. Then everyone gets into bathing suits, we do the ritual sunscreening, and then head down to the beach and pool. We generally manage to get ourselves out the door by 9:00.

Today was our son's turn to go snorkeling. Mike took him out the same way he took our daughter out yesterday, on the boogie board, so he wouldn't have to swim that far. He could swim that far, but he's a bit intimidated by being far from shore, so this way he was comfortable and able to enjoy looking at the reef. They actually saw a turtle this time, which was very exciting for our son. He thinks it's neat to check out the reef, but he's not that impressed by just looking at the fish, so seeing a turtle made his day. He swam around out there quite a bit before they headed back in. The girls played in the sand and our older daughter snorkeled in the shallow water right by the shore. I snorkeled after the boys came back in, but the turtle was gone by then.

We went back to the pool for a while and then went up for lunch. We had a bunch of random food in the fridge, so we just did that for lunch instead of dragging everyone out again to eat. The little one was falling asleep in her seat, so she went down for a nap pretty quickly.

Our son was given a big packet of work to do while we were gone, so each afternoon he took it out to do several pages while the little one napped. He is amazingly independent and did more than I would have expected without being nagged or complaining. It was actually really impressive to see him work so diligently on his own and he had no problem finishing all of the work he was given.

After nap, we went back down to the pool to watch the sunset and let the kids swim again. It's amazing to me that they don't have gills by the time we leave with the amount of time they are in the water! We left after the sun went down and had pizza delivered for dinner. Our son was so tired that he barely ate and then went straight to bed.

Maui - Day 3

We started the day at the beach once again. Our older daughter was very excited to try snorkeling (and as anyone who knows her will understand, she can be very, um, persistent when she wants to do something), so Mike took her out to the reef with him first thing. He towed her out on the boogie board so she wouldn't get too tired swimming out there and then she was able to slide off when she wanted and look around and get back on if she got tired. She absolutely loved it and is actually a really good snorkeler. She has no problem using the snorkel and is strong enough swimming with fins that she can comfortably hang out and look at the fish. Our son spent his time playing in the waves on the other boogie board we rented, while our little one played in the sand. Someone dug a huge hole that she co-opted when we got down to the beach, so she spent her time hiding out at the bottom of it.

After I took my turn snorkeling, we went back up to the pool for a while. Our little one much prefers the pool at this point - it's a bit less intimidating - so she was happy to have her water time. By about noon we were all getting hungry, so we went back to the condo, got cleaned up, and then headed for Taco Bell for lunch.

Nap time came next and our youngest took a killer nap - over 3 hours. When she woke up, she was seriously crabby and sweaty and clingy and complaining about her ear hurting. Before we left, I had taken her to the doctor to have her ear checked again and was given a prescription for antibiotics in case the fluid turned into an ear infection. I was pretty sure that's what was happening, so we trekked over to the pharmacy at Safeway to get the prescription filled. Mike took the two older kids to the bookstore next door while I waited for the medicine and they came out with a couple of new books each (Dora/Diego and Star Wars).

The shopping center right by our condo is called the Shops at Wailea and every Wednesday evening they have some sort of entertainment, which they call "Wailea on Wednesdays". We have lucked out in the past and seen hula dancers and musicians there, which makes our older daughter very happy - she loves to watch hula dancers. Last year, it was just a musician, so to satisfy her we did a luau, which we all ended up really enjoying, but we didn't plan to do another one this year. We lucked out this time and got to watch a hula dancing school put on a performance, so there were dancers there ranging in age from about 5 to 18. It was great fun to see the kids doing the dances and our girls both loved it. When they were done, we had dinner at Cheeseburger and then put everyone to bed as soon as we got back to the condo.

Photos to come soon - we don't have them on our home computer yet.

Maui - Day 2

No one slept very well last night, even after getting up early, travelling much of the day, and swimming in the evening. The youngest was up a couple of times during the night and all 3 kids were wide awake at 4:45 this morning. We were NOT happy. Everyone was sent back to bed, but they were up again at 5:45 and I finally turned the TV on for them at 6:15. Needless to say, I was in pain, so Mike let me go back to sleep while he got breakfast for the kids.

Once I dragged myself out of bed, we all went down to the beach and pool for the morning. It's not super hot here this time, so it was really nice by the water. Mike and I took turns snorkeling around the reef and the kids got used to being in the waves and using snorkels and masks again. The little one did a bit of swimming between us and seemed to like being out in ocean once she got used to it. After we were done with the beach, we spent the rest of the morning at the pool.

We headed back up to the condo to change and then had lunch at Maui Tacos, another one of our regular places to eat (there's one in Gilroy, for anyone in northern California). We stopped off at Maui Dive Shop to rent a couple of boogie boards and got new snorkels for Mike and the two older kids. then we went back to put the little one down for a nap. She ended up sleeping for 4 hours, so Mike took the other kids back down to the pool for a while. I had some quiet time to read and check my mail. We had pizza delivered for dinner and then the kids all went to bed. They were all exhausted, and even the little one went right back to sleep. Hopefully they will all sleep well tonight and we can head back down in the morning for more water fun.

The one unusual thing we're seeing this time is vog. When the winds are just right, the smoke from the volcano erupting on Hawaii blows over Maui, resulting in really hazy skies. That's vog. Kind of ruins our sunsets, unfortunately.

Hello From Maui!

I'm trying my first mobile blog, so bear with me as I try to figure this out.

We left yesterday morning for our yearly trip to Maui. Yes, we pulled the kids out of school for a week, and no, I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. We'll make the trip as educational as possible - learning how to snorkel and surf and about the various local fish are all very educational!

The trip out was fine, with the exception of the little one peeing in her pants -twice - on the flight. Grrrr. I, of course, only packed one extra set of clothes, so she wandered around the Honolulu airport in her shirt, a diaper, and pink sandals. The looks we got from the Japanese tourists were priceless. I was finally able to put some shorts on her when we got our luggage in Maui.

The luggage was it's own story. In Honolulu, there were two flights to Maui at neighboring gates leaving about 20 minutes apart. Mike and the kids watched our bags being loaded onto the OTHER flight, which was supposed to leave first. It didn't. So we ended up beating our suitcases to Maui and then having to wait around baggage claim, checking each of the carousels as bags were unloaded. It wasn't that long, maybe 30 minutes or so, but it wasn't how we wanted to start the trip. Everything made it, though, and we got the car without a problem.

We had lunch at our favorite right-off-the-plane stop, the Paia Fish Market. Still as good and as casual as ever. We also went to a new gelato place right across the street that was fantastic. We'll
definitely go back there next time we're in Paia. We got our youngest a new hat (hot pink with a dolphin and a turtle embroidered on it) and then headed for the condo. Had a nice evening swim and got everyone to bed at a decent hour.

So that's how it all began. I'll update as time allows.