Golden Bathtubs

May is a busy month for most moms of school-aged children, isn't it!? We like to add to all the end-of-the-school-year by getting ready to leave on a two-month trip and preparing our house for two months of renters by packing up all of our personal belongings and storing them, finishing all of the in-progress house projects, stocking up the house with cleaning supplies and toiletries, and preparing the garden and yard to be virtually ignored for two months (we do pay someone to mow). Oh, and we have to eat all of our food and try not to buy any new food. It's a little stressful. 

But I was thrilled to put the finishing touches on our golden outdoor bathtub at the beginning of the month so we had time to enjoy it before we left for the summer. Well, actually, Po had time to enjoy it. It's like a jacuzzi, bathtub, and shower all in one. And I can see her perfectly from the kitchen! It's awesome. I especially love that she can splash and spray water with reckless abandon and she's actually doing me a gardening favor at the same time!

The bathtub is the original iron clawfoot bathtub from when the house was originally built in 1919. It was too big to keep in the indoor bathroom, and to be honest, I hate showering in clawfoot bathtubs. But it has a happy new home as the showpiece of the yard. 

The kids had some fun swimming events, including a fun(ny) meet with goofy swim races. Here's Ana with one of her best buds, Sydney. Someday Ana plans to pass her up in height. 

Ana's class (she went to school two days a week for three hours each day with all the other six graders in her program. It's a virtual-hybrid charter school, so most of the academic stuff was done at home online. Most of the projects, science experiments, field trips were done with her teachers and classmates in class). They had a "Great Leaders of Civilizations" dinner party. She was the Indian leader Ashoka. She was also recovering from a two month bout of something mono-like but that wasn't actually mono, but for which the doctor gave one last try to knock it out with a cycle of penicillin to which Ana had a horrible allergic reaction, complete with four days of a 103-104 degree fever and measles-like rash. That's why she looks a little worn out. She finally told herself she couldn't be sick for summer vacation and healed herself with mind power (and probably just because the virus had run its course) about a week before we left. Whew. 

We harvested and drank the last of our oranges until probably October. 

Here are photos of our final product before we left and gave the keys to our friends who rented the house for the summer:

We finally got the curtains up to keep the bugs out of our lanai dining area. It's a favorite area of the house (except its the one place in the house that doesn't get cell reception. Weird.) 

It was hard to plan to leave Maui, but by the time came, we were ready for a vacation. And plus, nothing like a vacation to remind us how lucky we are to live somewhere where life is almost a constant vacation.