Maui Built. part 5: Final Saga

I wish my life was a little more thoughtful and introspective than just a string of pictures. But it's not worth sharing all the drama taking place outside of the pictures right now anyhow. There is one really really really AWESOME piece of good news-- Lucy is half-way potty trained! She wears panties during the whole day, but not at night yet. I think the timing of my determination and patience finally colided with her being ready to do it. It took a little chocolate and a special Sleeping Beauty "potty present" to aid the trick. I'm so proud of her- even if it is only half mastered. I'm sure there'll be accidents, but she's done well so far. With that good news, here's the string of pictures:

Birthday Excursion to Iao Valley: I happened to take Jeremy to work and realized on the way it was my birthday. I should do something special, I thought. I took the kids (and myself) to Iao Valley, a very histroic Maui heritage park. And it did turn out to be a special birthday outing. It was fun just to play there all morning with the kids; beautiful, shaded. Iao Valley is where 4 streams converge together and it serves as an important water source for the whole west side of the island. They've made cool paths exploring the history of this spot to ancient Mauians. A signature area is the Iao Needle (shown in the first picture) that's on a lot of postcards. It was so early in the morning, there were still some morning clouds trapped in the valley, so beautiful.



These kids turn just about everything into a horse, by sticking it between there legs and galloping around. Horses are kinda big with the kids right now. I was impressed to see them find something to ride tandem.
The first birthday surprise I got was when we wandered into this "Interactive Nature Center." I thought just to walk around the gift shop thinking I'd come back with Jeremy and actually go through the nature center. But the cashier nicely gestured to me, "Are you local? Why don't you take the kids in, I won't charge you." Awesome! The center had just opened for the day too, so there was only one other small family of adults inside, we played around a lot.


The second birthday surprise came when I took the kids to buy a smoothie at the little cafe outside. We were just trying to waste time til we were picking Dad up for lunch. But I forgot my wallet, so we just started to walk away. Then these super cool tourists behind me just ordered it for us. I told them it was my birthday and thank you for the present. They laughed and thought the kids were cute and talked for a bit. Aah, got to love gifts from the heart.
Back at home with my birthday candles in some watermelon cookies.
Just a scene of Maui. This was a shot on the way to Lahaina. If you can look in the distance over the ocean you can see two islands- one is Molokini and Molokeawe (I'm not sure those are spelled right.) You can also see other islands from Maui- Lana'i and Molokai'i. It seems so timeless to me to think that I live on this tiny speck of land, where you can see other tiny specks of land, all of which is oblivious from the shores of very distant and much larger continental shores.
Sugar Plantation from the Hwy. There are a lot of sugar cane fields here.
Maui has a great network of youngs moms! If you ever move here, you won't be lonely. There is always something going on with these moms. I've been so impressed! And I'll miss getting to know all these great moms. The first activity I went to was a group trip to the Lavendar Farm. It was cloudy overcast day, but the garden was still very nice. We did a "treasure hunt" and got lavendar cookies for the prize. I'm not sure I liked those kind of cookies, but it was interesting to taste.

Another activity the Maui Mommies group did was an animal education class at a Vet Clinic. Lucy and Willie really enjoyed being with the animals. Course, there was a chicken that scared Willie half to death when the trainer let the kids feed her from their hands.



Guess one last update is July 4th, one of my favorite holidays. We decided we couldn't pass up the Makawao Parade. Makawao has the biggest rodeo in the state that weekend as well bringing in rodeo participants from all over the world. It's pretty big. And we definetly got our fill of horses- kids loved it. It was fun to see them all decorated. You be the judge- you pick the winner and you pick the category. The most patriotic? Best Decorated? Best Lei? Take a vote. Here's the entries:
Star-butted Horse

Flag Brigade
Mystical Bluuties
Rodeo Queen
"My Other Pet's a Minature Pug"
Mini Paints
Born to be Free
Peace Riders
Junior Polo Team
Arrreba RidersSaloon Scandalous
HorsePower...? Just look at that tongue...
After the parade we went to Stopwatch in Makawao, not our top pick (which was closed) but we did get our Maui Cattle Beef steaks. :) Afterwards we stopped for some red, white, and blue shave ice at Aloha Ice in Paia. The shave ice was HUGE, awww, so good. Then we did a little home firework show. Our neighbors out did us all around, but we just wanted to see if Dad could use a lighter (turns out he can't, lol.) Willie wasn't too sure about the fireworks. And here's Jeremy doing a little dance in the flashes of light.






PS- I just finished New Moon too.

Pop Quiz

Who's baby picture is this?
Might as well tell you now... I was thinking people were going to be guessing my little brothers because, to me, it looked SO much like those little "non-twin" boys, but I remembered the only ones who would probably guess that would be my own family, which I'm not sure how often they read this blog... ;)
The question was a bit of a trick because it's not really someone's baby picture because the boy is still a baby...it's Willie. After I had just given him his first full-head hair cut. Yes, first full-head haircut at 21 months. Sigh, it's always so hard to do the first one.
It's an awful haircut, if I'd known that my clippers were so rusted I wouldn't have tried. But I really was in the zone to cut it off, and I had to go with what I had. He wasn't the most cooperative as well. He's so different now!! He looks more babyish, yet more like a bully, more serious and more grown up all at the same time. I'm still getting used to it, and I'm still trying to figure out when I can trim up all the mistakes...