Swim Meet and Grammy and Grandfather Come to Town

Grammy and Grandfather came to visit a few weeks ago, ending our long and glorious stretch of visitors that has lasted almost non stop since October. We love visitors, so it is somewhat sad to think we have no more coming until after summer vacation. 

Ricky and Linda were only here for about five days, so we made sure to pack it in. We spent much time at the beach, of course, and then we dragged them to a swim meet out in Lahaina. I just read somewhere that Lahaina means, "Land of the merciless sun" or something like that, and I believe it, but it is still such a great place. There are places on earth that are alive, breathing and teaming with history and from the after shadows of some many souls living in such a small area. For me, the greatest and richest place like this is Jerusalem. London is another... well, actually, most of Europe fits the bill. Boston... New York... New Orleans almost audibly breathes, its so alive with history--it's even sticky with history. And luckily so close, there is Lahaina. It's charming and hot and dense with humanity all at the same time. And yet it's just a small little town. I love it. I would also especially love it if I wasn't constantly sweating, but no great historically rich city has great weather. Seriously. Humans don't like to make history when the weather is perfect. 

Anyway, the kids did well in their meet. They aren't the top of their age groups, but they both improved their times and had a fun day, so that's a success in my book. 

Po is a little flushed in the heat, can you tell? She's probably especially flushed from all the running she does at swim meets, trying to escape me and giving me aneurysms with all of her near fall-ins. Seriously. How much longer until she can swim too?! 

Coach is giving Cam some pointers. 

Cam ready for backstroke. 

Ana's favorite stroke is the fly.

Afterwards, we walked up and down Front Street where I think Ricky and Linda explored every single shop. The kids were in heaven. They know where all the best samples are, but they had never gone down Front Street with someone who actually bought anything! They all ended up with a multitude of treasures thanks to Grammy and Grandfather's generosity. 

And their whole stay was incredibly generous. We've never eaten out at so many great restaurants in such a short amount of time. Many great talks too. We were all nourished both mind and body. We were sad to see them leave, but I'm 100% positive that they will be back soon. I'm actually surprised they don't just move here for the winters. Come on... you know you want to!

And finally, here is Ana capping off our Lahaina adventure with a leap from the Black Rock beach cliffs.

We love you G&G. Come back soon!

Easters

I'm not the most creative mom when it comes to cool holiday traditions. I love great traditions, but honestly, I just dont' have the energy to pull it off most of the time. I would love to have an Easter Week that is centered on the Savior and is the spiritual highlight of the season and culminates in the great symbolic Easter dinner with the kids all talking about everything they learned... but it has never happened. Thankfully, Jonah comes in where I fall short, and he does much to help us all focus on the significance of the holiday by reading scriptures and passages from Jesus the Christ by James Talmage to us during the week.  

We have been trying for a couple of years to do all the Easter egg hunts and basket hoopla on Saturday, but we've had packed Easter Saturday schedules for the last few years and haven't been able to do it... yet. But for now, we at least managed to have a calm and simple Easter celebration, keeping with a few traditions we've picked up over the years. 

For example, the Easter Bunny leaves a yarn tied to your bedpost and tangled in a web all over the house, leading you to your Easter basket. It's pretty crazy if you get up in the night to use the bathroom. You have to be very very careful.  It's like Mission: Impossible-style ducking under the laser beams. 

Ana was happy to get some candy and a new leotard in her basket. 

Elsie gave Jonah and I a card. I love that the speech bubbles have many hearts in them, which means, according to Elsie, "You and I always talk about how much we love each other!". Jonah is the little bunny on the left side of the page. 

The kids had an outdoor Easter egg hunt after church. We have a great yard for egg hunts...

But the chickens were not amused. 

Here are our eggs. Jonah put some scripture references on one of the eggs, which we read through after the egg hunt. 

And then Jonah completed my favorite Easter tradition... making deviled eggs. Actually, my favorite traditions is eating deviled eggs. Jonah did all the hard work in order for the rest of us to enjoy the tradition. 

We went to our friends' house for dinner and a nice reading of the Easter story through discovering the meaning of many of the Easter symbols. (Can you tell that Ana loves Po?)

It was a nice Easter after all. Some year we will get around to trying some more in-depth activities, but for now, I guess our main tradition is simplicity. 

Crazy Hair Day

 The kids had Crazy Hair Day at school. Even the two bookend kids who don't go to that school decided to participate. I found the idea above on Pinterest... post from non other than my sister-in-law Shawni's blog. Jonah and I always tease that we are going to make her a bumper sticker that says, "I'm famous on Pinterest".

Anyway, Elsie loved her hair do, and it stayed in all day... even through PE... thanks to my 1980s hairspray skills. Since she is only one of five or six ultra-blonds at her school, she especially stood out, and she loved it. She also loved that I told her to keep the method of the hairdo a secret... She loved having such a valuable secret all day.

Po's Crazy Hair Day-- no hairspray required.

Crazy Face Day!

Cam opted for the "Kind Of Crazy, but Still Cool" hair do.

And I don't think Ana released that this is how I wore my hair every day in 5th grade. Well, except with a scrunchie instead of a bow. Oh, and we had big poofy bangs back then too. 

We are already making big plans for next year.

Hoshmonger Comes to Visit

Jonah has some funny nicknames for his siblings. He calls his older brother Hoshmonger Shrine. His other brothers are Tam, Nobie, and Piglet. His sisters are Sabrina, Shas, and Licker of Chesternuts. I'll have to have him explain some time. 

Anyway, Hoshmonger came to visit! Josh is a school teacher in Arizona, so he doesn't have a lot of free time to travel, so we were so happy that he decided to come see us for spring break! He doesn't have any kids of his own, but he makes up for it by being the best uncle he can be. The kids climbed all over him, pestered him, played with him and learned from him every single moment of the day, and they still couldn't get enough. He has amazing patience and really gets along well with kids... which are great traits for a teacher!

Our friends came over and Josh helped all the kids reach some amazing heights on the trampoline. 

The kids were also on spring break, so we spent much time at the beach, in Lahaina, diving, hiking and exploring the island. We all went ont he Bamboo Hike, but the little girls and I stayed back at the second waterfall so the older kids and Jonah and Josh could do the rest of the hike more quickly. While there, we carved some ginger root dolls and made them a river rock house.

After the hike, we enjoyed some of our new favorite treat, peanut butter and carrots. Mmmmm.

Unfortunately, my memory card in my camera got corrupted, so I lost the rest of the photos from Josh's stay, but I have to say that we were very sad to see him go. We tried and tried to get him to move here, but he's got a great thing going in AZ, so it was a lost cause. Hopefully we at least convinced him to visit more often!

When Josh left, we realized that in the last five months, we had had seven of Jonah's nine siblings come visit, plus his parents! It's great to live on Maui.

And just because I have no where else to post them, here is a photo from Cam's Cub Scout banquet. He was the clock in the skit. You have to love those cute Cub Scout skits. 

And here is Elsie's lovely little PlayDoh mermaid that she made me keep in a ziplock bag for a few weeks before I smashed the Doh back into the cans. Wow. She loves mermaids, doesn't she?!

Mores of Daily Life

Cam was taking a belly slap for fame. In an attempt to reenact Po's favorite scene from Nacho Libre, he  ended up with a stinging midsection. Go Cam!

We do put forth much effort to tend, entertain, and teach Po. She is quite fortunate to have five people living with her who are all devoted to her well-being. And good thing, too. She's more two-year-old than we've ever have, so we need all the help we can get!

 

We have learned that Po stays out of trouble when she's actively involved in a good cause. So, we have been trying to get her involved in the daily chores. We've tried to teach her to unload the silverware, for example. 

She still has some work to do, but at least they are all in the drawer. 

What she really wants to do is help me feed the chickens and help ana collect eggs, but after finding huge piles of expensive chicken feed scattered around the yard, or hearing, "Oops! I dropped a egg!", we are moving away from assigning her those specific tasks. 

 

She's also been trying to learn to brush her own hair...

Baby steps, Po. Eventually you will be knee-deep in chores like the rest of them, with no time for any more trouble making. 

The Big Dance

The Big Dance. And no, I don't mean the playoffs. 

Last year, Ana watched Elsie's performance in the Peter Pan ballet with a local dance studio, and she resolved to be in the performance the following year. She signed up to clean the studio in exchange for dance classes and signed up for one of the new jazz classes since she decided she wasn't ready for the time commitment needed for ballet. Finally, the weekend after I got back from California, they performance took place. (Fortunately, it wasn't in Lahaina like last year... that was quite the drive back and forth... it was at a private school only three minutes drive). 

Ana's class performed a number from the musical Cats, if you can't tell by her outfit. I have to say, I was fairly impressed with Ana-- she went from being a 100% non-dancer to being the star of her number (partly from her dancing skills, partly from the age-old trick I taught her of smiling big enough that no one notices if you mess up). 

Po only got to watch the dress rehearsal, but she loved it so much that she tucked her dress into her undies. Whoops. She really does love pretending to dance ballet and loves watching the ballerinas ("bayawyinaws" as she says). 

Since I was out of town for the photo day, Ana managed to get her makeup and hair done by a friend. She stayed in character for the whole photo shoot...

And while backstage...

And finally stopped being a cat when her friend Johnny brought her flowers.

What a star! We were so pleased with her hard worked and all she put into the performance. She loved it (and hopes someday to be running the show... she saw some real room for efficiency improvement...)

And then there's Elsie...

Elsie Elsie Elsie Elsie....

She's been dancing for a couple of years now... 

And she is as cute as can be. 

I think she really catches the drama of the dance...

And loves being on stage...

But maybe doesn't pay attention in class so well. 

But whenever there is free dance...

Or a solo part...

She really shines!

And Mom and Dad breathed a long, joyous sigh of relief when the performance was over. I really respect you parents who keep your kids in dance for years... it's incredibly expensive and time-consuming, but we can see why it is worth it. Girls are meant to dance!