Maya’s love of the Moana movie was still going strong in October (and still is today). Moana shows strength of character, nimble thinking, and an ability to solve her own problems. But Moana is not who Maya loves best. Maya loves Te Fiti. She could watch the last few minutes of the movie again and again. Seeing Te Fiti’s heart restored and watching the goddess burst into greenery and flowers is her favorite part of that movie. Te Fiti is who Maya decided she wanted to be for Halloween. You know what they don’t sell on Amazon? A Te Fiti costume.

Te Fiti!

I have punked out on making the kids’ costumes year after year because with everything else going on, it was just easier to outsource that shit. But this year, Maya’s heart was set on being the big green Te Fiti goddess. Luckily Ian, when quizzed repeatedly about his preferences, told me pretty much every single time that what he really wanted to be was a jack-o-lantern. That I could get off the shelf.

Jack-o-lantern!

I spent several weeks buying little bits and pieces of Maya’s costume here and there. A wig and face paint from Amazon. A green t-shirt and pants from primary.com. I poked around on Etsy looking for a flower crown, but in the end, I just bought supplies and made one. And then because I’m not an idiot, I made a second crown for Ian to be his pumpkin vines.

Maya’s is the white one. Ian’s is the “rainbow” one.

While all these supplies were collected, preparations were made for Halloween. The kids painted little pumpkins at school. We bought a few decorations from one of those pop-up Halloween stores as a reward for good behavior. Our home jack-o-lanterns were done in our traditional way where each kid chooses what they want on their pumpkin, Anna draws the design, I gut and carve, and Sean heroically lights the candle. Maya, oddly, chose the littler pumpkin and wanted just a straight up jack o lantern face like she had seen on the cover of one of her books. Ian wanted Dingle Tiger. Don’t know who Dingle Tiger is? To the rest of us, he’s Daniel Tiger, and he’s something of an offshoot of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood show we all probably watched when we were kids.

Dingle tiger and the old skool jack-o-lantern

We first got to debut the Te Fiti and jack-o-lantern costumes for the carnival at the kids’ school the Friday before Halloween. It was a cold evening for Texas, so we wound up putting a sweater over Te Fiti’s costume – it was pure luck that we had one that was kind of green. Ian, who loves to be pretty, had recently discovered Maya’s old orange tutu (seen here), and he insisted on wearing that to the carnival. I actually thought it worked really well, but in typical Ian fashion, he refused to wear it again.

Ready for the school carnival!

The kids walked around with a green tinge to their faces for a few days, and it was just wearing off when the big day arrived: trick or treat time! We got all dolled up and let Sean take some nice semi-controlled photos against a backdrop before heading out. Maya enacted several of Te Fiti’s best moments from the movie: gazing lovingly at a little Moana doll, throwing shade at a little Maui doll (he stole her heart, you know), folding herself up and turning into an island. Ian just pranced around hammed it up for the camera.

You mean, we just go to the door, and they give us candy? We’re in!

Maya and Ian had soooo much fun trick or treating. They took turns being the one who rang the doorbell. They said their trick-or-treats and thank yous with smiles and clear voices. Maya even left with a closing “see you next Halloween!” just to reinforce the fact that we are antisocial people who don’t see our neighbors but once a year. We closed out our evening with a visit to Anna’s to trick or treat there and let her see the kids’ costumes.

At the end of the day, the kids were left tired, sugared up, and with a faint green hue about their faces, but I think they’ll both tell you that they had a really good time and are already looking forward to next Halloween.

This past July, we arranged a family trip to Missouri and Alabama. Usually, we try and line up with a holiday to maximize our vacation. This time though, we aligned our trip with Sean’s high school reunion. I guess I need to go to extra Sean reunions since I’ve never gone to mine (if we even have one – I’m not sure I’ve ever been invited to one).

Are we there yet?

To save some money, we decided to drive this year. And since we had avoided so much expense on plane tickets and rental cars, we reasoned that the purchase of a second iPad so both kids could be entertained during something like 35 hours of car travel was well within budget. (Spoiler – the iPads were worth their weight on goooooold.)

I don’t recall anything eventful about our drive to Missouri. We arrived late with kids that were wired for sound and ready to play after their lengthy travel confinement. Grammy and Grandpa’s house has a whole room full of toys and a basement full of toys to boot, so the kids were able to run amok for a little while.

Collecting “sea shells”

The next day the kids’ cousins, aunts, and uncles all came over. We traveled by tractor-drawn wagon to a nearby creek to play for a while. The kids loved it! Maya in particular was all in once she discovered there were shells to collect. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen shells this large in a Missouri creek before, or even along the Mississippi. Maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough.

Maya and Grandpa practicing their surprised faces

My parents had an adventure planned for us the next day. We all drove out toward Carbondale to see the Dungeons and Dragons Park. Maya and Ian weren’t super excited for another long car ride, but they loved the park. The grounds were well kept and there were sculptures all over the place. There was a giant dragon to climb on and a really great maze-like castle to get lost in. The kids ran and rand and ran. The adults sweated and sweated and sweated.

Sitting with Grammy

After that, we all drove over to Giant City State Park, and after a quick lunch, enjoyed a genuine hike in the wilderness. As I recall, Ian was wearing out by this point and needed a lot of carrying and piggy-backing. At the end of our hike, the kids played on a little playground for a while and the grown ups had a little rest before the long drive home.

Maya and Ian with Great Grandma. And no, they weren’t at their most cooperative.

Our last day in Missouri was for relaxing and visiting. We stopped in and saw Great Grandma Schmidt for a while in the morning. We saw a friend of mine from grade school and her daughter for a while in the afternoon. But mostly, we lolled around the house and the kids played.

The next day, we drove to Alabama. Before we left though, we had to deal with pants. Ian made it clear that he was particularly fond of a very cute pair of pajama pants he had found in the toy room closet a day or two before. They were purple with pink bows on them and the material was very soft. He called them his fancy pants. He had worn them most of the day before, to sleep that night, and did NOT want to return them the next day. Luckily, Grammy let him keep them. I can probably count on one hand the number of times he HASN’T slept in those pants since we left Missouri, and it’s been months now. He loves, loves, loves them.

Sliding with Pop (note the fanciness of Ian’s pants)

After what felt like a very short drive (7-8 hours instead of 13-14 for the trip from TX to MO), we arrived in Alabama with two kids ready to rock and roll. Lolli and Pop were prepared for that though and had already made plans to take us to Homewood Park and let Maya and Ian run out some energy. After a good run through the park, we went over to Magic City Sweet Ice for gelato.

Maya swinging with Lolli

A while back, Pop had mentioned to Maya that we might be able to take a canoe out on the lake during our visit. Little did he know that Maya, with her Moana fetish would latch onto that and keep it in mind no matter how hot it got. When we talked about our trip to see Lolli and Pop, Maya would immediately grin and remind us that they were taking her out in a canoe. Of course, they delivered. And that is how we found ourselves on a blistering hot day out at Oak Mountain State Park sitting like sweaty ducks out on the lake.

They are READY

Maya had a fine old time padding her canoe with Sean and Pop’s help. Lolli and Ian and I stuck with a more stable paddle boat. Ian kept hanging onto Lolli and I to keep us from falling out – ha! I think he enjoyed it, but it really was very hot, and bless him, he’s just a little more hesitant about things than his sister.

Making music with Lolli

The next day, we took Maya and Ian to the McWane Center. This was not their first time, but they do love it there. It’s a children’s museum / science center, and I’m not sure we’ve seen half of it. This time, one of the big draws was a giant piano they got to play on. Maya spent quite a while with Pop working on an animation project.

Maya and Pop

Sean and I can no longer remember which evening it happened, but we also went to the wonderful Homewood Pool and played for a while. Maya and Ian both love the pool and Lolli and Pop seem to love taking them. The kids hung out with their grandparents a lot at the pool, so Sean and I often found ourselves wandering around just to check in on them now and then. At one point, I walked over to the kid pool / splash pad area to see Maya midway through her run around-climb-slide circuit. I asked her how she was doing, and in a breathless voice she said, “Level 5 is hard!” and continued on her way. Perplexed, I watched for a while. Sure enough, Maya had devised a variety of ways to go down the slide, and each time she achieved one, she’d have to level up and do sometime different. I don’t remember any more what level 5 entailed, but apparently, it was tricky.

On our last full day in Alabama, we again mostly relaxed and got things ready for the looooong drive home. Sean and I went out to his reunion and Maya and Ian hung out with Lolli and Pop.

The drive home was again very long. I have to say though, having an iPad for each kid and a handful of activities made our drive more tolerable. The kids actually dealt with it really well. One thing we did learn is that they’re still really too little to eat in the car. Stopping to eat adds SOOOO much time to our trip, but it’s still imperative for now. All in all, the driving was ok, though we really (REALLY) don’t feel like repeating it any time soon. That said, I feel like this has opened the door for some longer road trips, so maybe we can work some of that in over the next year.

By now I should know that making vacation plans is a bit of a fool’s errand for us, but I do it anyway. We decided to take a weeklong Seattle vacation in late May and early June to coincide with this gaming competition Sean wanted to go to. I worked on setting up a trip that was fun for both grown ups and kids, lumping our activities geographically, and I was even starting to think through meals that might go with each of those locations. And then the next viral invasion hit our house.

Dis mah butt, Seattle!

Maybe a week before we were to leave, Maya got some kind of nasty congestion and coughing illness. She had started complaining about her ears, so we took her to the doctor. He sent us off with a prescription for antibiotics, and we thought we might have her feeling better before vacation. Then Sean got sick too, and he felt even more miserable than she seemed to.

The day we were to fly out to Seattle, Ian started sniffling and coughing. While he had more or less decided air travel was ok, he changed his mind when he spent most of the flight coughing and runny-nosed.

We arrived at a reasonable hour at our AirBNB house in Bothell. It was big enough that each kid had their own room, which was good since they spent our whole trip in various stages of illness. Ian’s favorite part of the house though was that the light switches were down where he could reach them. He went bonkers flipping lights on and off and on again. It finally drove me crazy enough that I asked him to stop. Apparently he slinkered back to the bedroom where Sean, unbeknownst to Ian, was resting. Sean tells me he muttered something like, “I’m gonna turn the light on. I’m not caring, Mommy’s caring.” Little turd.

Sick Dad went out and got us Burgermaster for our dinner. Sick everyone but me went to bed, and after a remarkably long day, I hauled my un-sick self over to the grocery store to stock up the fridge with breakfasts, snacks, and drinks.

Obligatory doughnut face shot.

The next day, even though 75% of us were sick, we managed to get up really early thanks to the time zone difference. We took our time getting out of the house, deciding that with two sick kids, we’d try to keep our outings small, but still try to make a vacation of it. Even though we had had breakfast, by 10 we were ravenous, so we had a “snack” at a local doughnut shop called Top Pot Doughnuts. I’d call it solid, but not out of this world. My favorite was the lemon iced old-fashioned doughnut. Maya seemed to like her chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. Ian, still not a fan of doughnuts, will actually only eat sprinkles.

Shortly before our vacation, Maya had watched the Moana movie and fell head over heels in love with it. It ousted long-running favorite Finding Dory, she loved it so much. Sean blew Maya’s mind when he bought the soundtrack for the movie so she could listen to the music whenever she wanted, even if she wasn’t able to watch it. Needless to say, Moana provided the soundtrack for our entire trip. By the end, even I could sing along with parts of it, and at that time, I hadn’t even managed to watch the whole movie.

It’s not hot here!

We spent a couple hours wandering around Volunteer Park gawking at ferns and towering evergreens and so many flowers in full bloom. We decided to climb up the stairs in the water tower, Ian even insisting on doing it himself. He made it probably 2/3 of the way up before I asked him if I could carry him since he was sick. No, he insisted he’d make it on his own. Maybe six or eight steps later, he said, “Mom, can you carry me? I’m sick.” Sure, buddy.

The view from the water tower was nice. The day was even clear enough that we got a nice look at Mt Rainier. We capped off our visit with some time on the playground, where Maya nearly made herself vomit on some kind of spinning ride.

We stopped at a gyro joint for a late lunch. I remember the food being good, but more than that, what sticks with me is how kind the people were with our restless and somewhat irritable children.

We met up with friends of ours from college that evening for dinner. Missy and Larry and their son Anthony braved illness and small children to hang out with us several times on our trip, and it was so much fun to catch up with them.

Again, with most of the family sick, we adopted an easy pace for our day. We got a late start and began our outing with lunch at Ivar’s. When Sean and I started thinking about this Seattle trip, that was his only real request. It’s fast food seafood, and it is delicious. Maya is oddly crazy about clams; however, while she plowed through some fried shrimp, she couldn’t have cared less about the fried clams we offered her.

All in the name of chocolate.

Our one scheduled outing for this day took place at Theo Chocolate. We could have done a straight up factory tour, but that wasn’t really an option with two small children. For kids in our age group, Theo offers a “chocolate story time.” They did their story time, complete with chocolate samples, and then we got a very succinct tour of the factor. All this was capped off with a wander through their store where there were mountains of samples to try. Sean and I enjoyed the whole thing. The kids enjoyed the chocolate and tolerated the tour. They kind of got a kick out of the hairnets, though.

Freemont troll

We squeezed in a quick visit to the Freemont Troll before heading home to crash. Maya seemed to have fun clambering over troll fingers and arms. Ian mostly just wanted to be held.

The next day, I was finally starting to get sick as well. I never managed to feel as bad as the rest of the family, but I certainly didn’t feel good.

We had decided to try something different with the kids during this trip. In poking around for interesting activities, I discovered that the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall offered a children’s symphony. It was great! Before the concert, the kids got to wander around and play with different musical instruments. The show itself, billed as a Playdate with Brahms, was of manageable length and highly interactive. Maya seemed to really enjoy herself. Ian mostly just felt terrible.

We were planning to go ride the ferris wheel along the waterfront after that, but Ian wasn’t doing too well. Instead we decided to eat lunch and head back to the house. Lunch was at Ivar’s Acres of Clams restaurant, situated right along the water. We initially tried to eat outside since the weather was so incredible. It was sunny but not hot; we had forgotten that could happen. Maya was all for it, of course, but sad Ian just curled in on himself and tried to hide. To her credit, Maya didn’t pitch a fit about moving inside though. Instead she steadily inhaled an entire appetizer order of steamed clams in a light, coconut broth. Then she ate some of Ian’s chicken fingers to boot.

We gave up on this day, went back to the house, and let Ian have a good long nap. Once he got up, we took him to the nicest urgent care clinic I’ve ever been too. I’m not kidding. It was actually a borderline pleasant experience. The person who checked us in was also our nurse. The doctor was actually nice to Ian. They called us to follow up after the fact. Unfortunately, poor Ian had an infection in both ears. It’s no wonder he was having such a miserable day.

The next day was Sean’s gaming tournament, so the kids and I drove him down into the city and dropped him off. Ian, as if on a mission, slept the whole way there and the whole way back. By mid-morning though, both kids were in the back yard swinging on swings and collecting rocks and pine cones in colorful buckets.

On top of the lighthouse – Maya and Larry

We went up to meet Missy, Larry, and Anthony for lunch at a burger joint called Nick’s Jr. The burgers were solid; mine had gyro meat on it. Afterward, to allow Maya a bit of fun since she was feeling so much better than her brother, we went to Mukilteo Lighthouse Park. Maya bonded with Missy over sea creatures, rocks, and the beach. Ian clung to me like a tired little monkey. Both the kids climbed the little lighthouse, Ian flatly insisting on doing it himself.

We drove home after that to let Ian have a nap. You know how some kids, after a nap, wake up feeling refreshed and relaxed, a sleepy smile on their puffy faces? That was not Ian on this day. He woke up pissed off, and he let me hear about it the entire time we were getting ready, the entire time we were loading up, and the whole way into downtown. Luckily, he was so happy to see Sean that his mood did a near-perfect 180.

After a quick dinner, Missy, Larry, and Anthony came over to our Bothell house for a while to hang out. I was tired, but it was pleasant to just talk to other grown ups for a while after kid wrangling all day.

The next morning, Sean and Maya went out to fetch us Top Pot again. We tried to squeeze in a quick lunch before heading into the city at an Indian buffet. Normally the kids are into that sort of thing, but not today.

In the ferris wheel!

Our day picked up when we boarded the Seattle Great Wheel at Pier 57. The kids were of course fidgety while waiting in line, but once they were loaded into our capsule, they seemed to sincerely enjoy themselves, especially once they saw the seagulls and their poop atop the buildings we were towering over.

Switch, the giant pacific octopus

Seattle Aquarium was our next stop. It is meant to largely represent local habitats, and it was beautiful. The kids were able to touch sea urchins and anemones. You could even feel the anemones react to you and kind of brush their tentacles against your fingers, trying to figure out what they had gotten ahold of. We saw all manner of gorgeously presented sea life. Best of all, we saw two Giant Pacific octopuses named Switch and Tako. These two meandered around a two-column tank with a tunnel connecting the tunnels crossways. Switch, the female, was very active, her tentacles oozing around corners, suckers dominating the tank walls. She would occasionally propel herself across the tank, skin smoothed and tentacles extending behind her, landing in a bunched up heap amongst the rocks below or suctioning herself to the side of the tank. The male, Tako, mostly stayed huddled up in his particular corner of the tank, though we did get to see him unfurl and change color at feeding time.

That evening, we wandered up to Everett to see Missy, Larry, and Anthony again, and they fed us dinner! Maya and Missy toured their garden. Maya drove Anthony nuts with her endless talking while he was watching TV. Ian, much to his delight, got to clean off the countertop. All in all, it was a nice evening.

On our last full day in Seattle, we said eff it and went into full tourist mode. We pretty much just parked the car and spent the day at the Seattle Center. We started by taking the kids to the Pacific Science Center to let them run off some steam. They had a lot of fun making music and building large-scale carbon nanotubes, and trying to make giant bubbles.

Budding photographer

After a quick lunch and some dessert fudge at the Armory, we headed to the International Fountain. Maya and Ian LOVED IT. The weather was warm, but not blistering. They could run around and play in the water a bit. Maya (and most of the kids there) had a game where they’d run up and smack the fountain when it wasn’t squirting water and try to get away before it started back up again. Again and again, Maya did this. Bolstered by her success and because he wants to do anything his big sister does (she has the *best* ideas), Ian gave it a go. He crept up and touched the fountain. You all know where this is going – about the time he was ready to turn and run away, the water started back up, and he got soaked through and through. Now Maya would have laughed it off and used that as an excuse to give up on avoiding being splattered. Ian, however, was upset. Luckily, we had brought spare clothes (I figured they’d get wet on purpose), so we could make him comfortable again.

Did not make it out in time

Before our trip to Seattle, we had tried to prepare the kids a little bit for the different things we might get to see. It’s fun to see them get interested in what they might get to do. The thing that Maya really seemed to fixate on was the Space Needle. Every time she saw it as we were wandering around town, she pointed it out. You can imagine her excitement once we were actually able to go up in it. And then we got way, way up to the top. And about 30 seconds later, she was ready to go back down. We walked around and showed the kids Mount Rainier. We watched sea planes flying through the air. We saw giant buildings at eye level. Maybe they’re still a little too young to appreciate it. We did spend a long time in the gift shop in at the bottom, trying to let the kids select a souvenir. Ian left with a straw cup which, to this day, he refers to as his “skedaddle cup.”

On the way back to the car, we played for a while outside the Pacific Science Center again, mostly shooting things with water. The kids had a car nap on the way up north, and we met Missy, Larry, and Anthony for one last dinner.

Our travel back the next day was largely uneventful once we finally made onto our airplane. Thanks to unfavorable traffic and a small GPS whoopsie on my part, we were cutting it pretty close on getting the whole rental car, bag check, security line shuffle completed before our plane took off. But alas, we made home, back to the sweltering Texas heat.

Group selfie!

This vacation was hard but also great. Traveling with little kids is always a bit tough, but it was the illnesses that really made it grueling for us. Seattle was beautiful. We weren’t sure what to expect since it was early summer, but we had almost no rain while we were there, and compared to blistering Texas, the Seattle version of “hot” was just fine with us. We probably didn’t get to do half of what we wanted to do, and we certainly didn’t get to do any kind of deep dive on the local food scene. But, we meandered around at kid pace, and because we weren’t busy being tourists, we were able to spend lots of time visiting our friends. I think I’m going to call it a win.

Easter 2017 was a little rough for us. Maya had had a virus earlier in the year that had wreaked havoc on her intestinal tract (her doctor called it a “gastric insult”), and in an effort to help her damaged gut recover, we were avoiding sugar and dairy. The Easter bunny wasn’t allowed to bring any candy to our house.

We don’t wind up taking too many family photos.

Luckily, there were all sorts of things that stood in. Sean assembled Easter baskets full of non-edible goodies. Sean and the kids dyed eggs and left them out for the Easter bunny to hide. These were augmented with sea creature shaped plastic eggs filled with temporary tattoos from Lolli and Pop.

Cracking the cascarones on Daddy’s head!

And we also had cascarones. Sean picked a dozen pre-made ones up from HEB, our local grocery store. They are painted up all pretty like our hard-boiled ones, but the eggs themselves have been drained out, the shells dried, and then the remaining shells loaded with confetti. The kids LOVED them. They had a lot of fun whacking them over our heads, throwing the confetti around, making a mess of mom and dad. If memory serves (and honestly, who knows if it really does), this was Maya and Ian’s favorite part of the front yard egg hunt.

Maya could barely hang on to her kite!

We had one really great weekend where we took the kids kite flying at Zilker Park. Weather wise, and kite flying wise, things couldn’t have been more perfect. Maya in particular had a lot of fun flying her swank new Finding Dory kite. We ran into trouble on the potty front. Ian let me know that he needed to go, so I hauled him over to the porta-potties. He took one look at what he’d have to sit on (and more importantly, what lurked beneath) and promptly let me know that he didn’t have to go after all. So instead, I hoofed him all the way back to our parked car, where we were still smart enough to have the little potty seat. One time would have been fine, but he was still finding his footing on the toilet training front at the time, so I don’t know how many trips I made to take him to the bathroom in the back of the Prius. I missed most of the kite flying.

Mother’s Day!

I don’t recall us marking mother’s day or father’s day with much fanfare, but I do remember haranguing Sean into taking a photo with me and the kids. For both events, the kids had little breakfasts for us at their school where we were presented with little gifts from them. For mother’s day, they both brought home sprouted seeds, which we of course added to our backyard garden.

Guys, I’m on stage!!!

Maya had decided to try out dance class at her school starting in January. The focus of the company is on ballet and tap, and they come to the kids’ school to provide the lessons. In May they had a recital. If you had told me when I first got pregnant that my daughter would one day be wearing a pink leotard and tutu, I wouldn’t have believed you. But, over the course of parenthood, I’ve developed the habit of trying my best to let them be whoever they want to be. If that means a pink tutu, so be it.

While Maya seemed to enjoy her class and recital, she decided to try gymnastics instead this fall. About a month in, she said she wanted to go back to dance, so who knows. Four year olds are fickle.