Leaving Maui Back in June and Sand Iego!

As I mentioned long ago when I last blogged, we had a lot to do before leaving for the summer. Some of it wasn't very fun, like packing up all of our personal items and clothes and storing them, finishing last minute house and car projects, and cleaning everything. But some of it was great, like juicing all the oranges off the tree and drinking orange juice non-stop before we had to ship back our semi-broken juicer to the seller for a refund. We also ate everything in the garden that was ready to be eaten and consumed all the food that couldn't be left behind. We did a fairly good job, if I must say so. 

Ana also had her first official Young Women activity (Young Women is the youth organization at our church for girls 12-18).  She was going to miss what would be her first year at Girls' Camp, but she still did the five mile hike with the Young Women since we decided to go for it a month before camp just to get it out of the way. The hike was amazing--we hiked up this gorgeous green ridge with infinite views. If Ana looks a little strained, it was because she was still trying to get over a weird ailment that she had throughout April and May that made her incredibly tired, groggy, slightly congested and have occasional bad stomach cramps and fevers. And it wasn't mono. And when the doctor finally decided to try antibiotics, Ana had a scary allergic reaction to the penicillin that gave her a 104-105 fever for three days and a measles-like rash covering her entire body. It was crazy. I think she finally prayed and willed herself well because she didn't want to have to miss Swim Camp in June. But, she's a trooper and still made an attempt to go to swim team every day and even made it on this hike right in the middle of the worst of it. But man are we glad she's all better! We missed our active happy Ana!

After many weeks of back-aching hard work, June arrived and it was finally time to leave. Back in January, I had found some great friends from high school to rent our house in June and another old

 high school friend and her family to rent it in July. We were so relieved because we knew both families would take good care of the house and car and really enjoy Maui. It made the departure much easier than last year when we had total strangers rent the house. Whew!

My one friend traded us stand-by tickets for part of the rent for June, so on Saturday, June 1st, we made our first attempt to get to San Diego on standby. 

 

(Po finally trying out "Trunki", the ride-on suitcase she got last winter)

Well... only Jonah and Cam made it on that first try. But even though it was a hassle to get all the way to the airport only to have to turn around and come back with the three girls, it ended up working out well for two reasons:

1. Alaska Air standby tickets allow you to check two bags for free, and they take them even if you don't make the flight. Jonah had a bunch of car parts to ship to our "new" car waiting in San Diego, including a rear window AND the entire rear-facing back seat, so the stand-by tickets ended up saving us a lot of money in bag fees. 

2. Since we left the house ALL ready to go, when the girls and I didn't make the first flight, we got to go back to enjoy an immaculate house and had a good excuse to just have some fun and relaxation. Plus, we had already eaten all the food, so we had to eat out for all of our meals. The girls loved that! We couldn't sleep in the clean sheets, so we camped out in sleeping bags. It was a party. 

The only major problem about missing the first standby flight was that  a friend had given us a ride down to the airport, so we didn't have a car to drive back home. Po was delighted when we decided to take the Maui Bus, which is $2 a person and stops about a block from our street. She loved it. I had all the carry-on bags and car seat on my lap, so I was a little uncomfortable, but Po's delight made it worth it. 

The next day was Sunday, so we went to church and then drove our car down to the airport and parked it in long term. My friends who were renting the house needed a car at the airport anyway, so we figured that would be a good way to do it, especially since there is no bus service on Sundays. 

But, we didn't have to worry, because we easily got on the Sunday flight and we were on our way to San Diego!

And, welcome the new addition to our family (did you read that sarcastically?!). Ana is here taking photos with the iPod touch she bought with lemonade-stand money. It luckily arrived at our house from Amazon.com just in time to come on vacation with us. 

San Diego

We had a great visit with Jonah's younger brother Noah's family in San Diego for a few days. They have four fantastic kids, ages 1-7. The cousins were in heaven. Elsie and I had been to visit in February, but the other kids hadn't been to their house, and they loved it. It's kid paradise. Even the blue couch was fun until Po slipped off the stool on top of the coffee table, went crash!, and then cried so hard that she passed out... which happens a lot with my girls so no need to panic, but it's still always a bit scary.  

 Elsie was over-the-moon to be reunited with another one of her "twinner" BFFs-- cousin Lyla. Lyla is a couple years younger than Elsie, but the same height and same level of princess. But, Lyla's awesome hair is about a foot longer than Elsie's, so they're not total twins. However, that doesn't keep me from accidentally calling them by each other's names about ten times a day. 

We had some good times using Kristi and Noah's awesome pool. We only had one near drowning... of Ana's iPod touch... baby Bennett grabbed it from inside and was about .2 seconds from plopping it in the water before I happened to see it and snatched it mid drop. WHEW!!!! I think Ana would have cried for the whole summer if it had drowned. 

 It was mostly a "kids and moms party" since Jonah and Noah worked for the few days we were there-- Noah at his job, and Jonah about 40 minutes away at the house where our new car had been sitting unloved for four years. We serendipitously found this car when a family came to our house in Maui to buy some snorkel gear we had listed on Craigslist. The wife mentioned that her husband had a similar car to ours in their yard in San Diego. They were South Africans who lived part of the year here in Maui and part of the year in San Diego (Lucky!).  The wife lamented that she wanted to get rid of the car since it had been sitting in their yards for years and years. Well, that was music to Jonah's ears! He and the husband made contact and once the family went back to San Diego, Jonah found out what parts were needed (including the back window which had been shot out with a BB gun) and brought them with. It took him two days, but he got the car running and street worthy and came to pick us up in our new travel wagon, complete with rear-facing back seat which was brought from a junk station wagon in Maui. This baby made it 3000 miles without a hiccup!

We named it Ox. Jonah quickly converted it to run on veggie oil using a kit FedEx'd to us from our friend in Washington and we were on our way in a previously unloved car running on free used veggie oil. Jonah wouldn't had it any other way. :)

Stay tuned for our summer adventures in Ox the 1983 Mercedes 300td.