Back on the weekend of October 13th and 14th, we took a trip to Dallas to visit the Texas State Fair. Sean and I have lived in this crazy state for a double-digit number of years, and this is the first time we’ve gone. Having adventures with the kids is a good motivator.

Bigger in Texas, I guess

Our plan had been to drive up on Saturday, play all afternoon and evening at the fair (which is immense), stay the night in a hotel, and then drive back down to Austin Sunday. The fair runs for several weeks, but there was only one weekend that didn’t conflict with some other event in our schedules. We noticed there was rain in the forecast, but we figured we’d make the most of it rain or shine and bought the kids raincoats.

Alas, the weather had other plans. By the time we rolled into Dallas (after a stop off in West, Texas for kolaches), it was flat pouring. We could barely see to drive. Making the most of that day would involve not going to the fair. Luckily, the Perot Museum of Science and Nature was in the same general area as the fair and our hotel, so we just drove there instead.

They were zero interested in having their photo taken

Our kids were maybe a wee bit ornery after the long drive that ended in NOT going to the fair, but the museum was great. Dinosaur skeletons, interactive exhibits, an on-site restaurant, an area of smaller children to run out their energy on the basement floor were welcome features. It kept all of us occupied through the whole afternoon.

The rain had died down by the time we left, so the kids played outside in the water area for a little while and then we headed back to our hotel. Throughout the evening it sprinkled a bit and the sky always looked like it was on the verge of dumping more rain. Still, the thought of getting in the car again was off-putting to say the least. Instead we made use of our raincoats again and walked to the Twisted Trompo restaurant, which 75% of us loved. Maya will still not eat food cooked on fire and the trompos and the flames were right where we could ogle them as we ordered our tacos.

Maya and Ian, riding parent-less

The next morning, after hotel breakfast, we headed over to the Texas State Fair. The weather on Sunday was much more agreeable, maybe even borderline hot in the afternoon. We rode a some rides, including a few kiddie roller coasters, which was a first for Maya and Ian. They loved them. At the end of our visit, Maya and Ian even rode a motorcycle ride together but without any grown ups.

We watched pig races, petted some bunnies, took photos with Big Tex (who is honestly kind of creepy), ate some fried foods (including fried butter – no joke), and walked ourselves silly all over those giant fairgrounds. We even went home with a state fair cookbook. Of course, it was filled with last year’s recipes, so Sean says we’ll have to go back to get the recipe for the Hoppin’ John Cakes with Jackpot Sauce that he loved so much.

We can’t help ourselves

The kids had a great time. When we quizzed them about what they liked the best, they agreed that the rides were their favorite. They tell us they wish we had just ridden the rides the whole time. Sounds like an amusement park visit may be in our future. Maybe once they’re a little better at waiting in lines.

We had a good time at the fair, especially the kids, but as I write about it now, my heart’s just not in it. This past week, my very young cousin Katie died. She was 32. She’s survived by a husband and 5 year old son, a sister, her parents, our grandmother. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago and after a long, hard journey, it finally took her. I’ve been away from home a long time, and she was 10 years younger than me, so we weren’t close, but the sadness has been overwhelming. My heart aches for her, her parents, her sister, her husband and son. My love, no matter how far removed, no matter how “other,” goes out to all of them.

Initial photos are just of some random hijinks that have been fun but maybe not blog-worthy between first day of kindergarten and now. 

Maya has now made it through her first week of kindergarten. Our routine has gone through a mountain of change in a short time, but I think we’ve managed the transition well. Maya, in particular, is having a really positive experience so far, and I couldn’t be more relieved.

Obligatory first day of school shot.

The first full week in August, she went to “kinder camp” in the mornings at her elementary school. There she got to meet a few of the kindergarten teachers and some of her classmates, check out a couple of the classrooms, and eat snacks and make crafts. It started all of us getting used to an earlier schedule (class starts at 7:45) and let Maya get a feel for what her new school would be like.

Notice the resemblance to the above photo?

The Thursday before school started, Maya had two big events. First, we brought snacks and treats for her to share with her montessori class. She had been sent home with a “s’mores kit” her first day in kinder camp and this spawned two ideas. First, we made homemade marshmallows the next weekend, and second, we made our own s’mores kits to send home with her fellow preschool classmates. For 26 people, she stamped labels with an octopus, wrote her own name, and stuck the labels to baggies. We filled them each with a graham cracker, a little chocolate bar, and a couple homemade marshmallows.

S’mores kits for her preschool class

For snack time, we made mini-muffins and brought them to school along with a store-bought fruit plate. Maya had a lot of fun serving the muffins to her class during snack time. Ian was even able to join us as well.

Then after school, we went to the elementary school for an ice cream social and to meet Maya’s actual kindergarten teacher. The whole school has sort of an “under the sea” theme, but Ms. Krauss’s room in particular is so much fun for Maya. There’s an actual fish tank that features, among other things, Dory and Nemo fish. There’s a big stuffed octopus puppet. In fact, there’s a little puppet theater set up. Maya has pronounced it the coolest classroom ever. And Ms. Krauss has “pretty white hair,” which is a big plus in Maya’s book.

Ms. Krauss had sent each kid home with a really sweet “night before kindergarten” poem and some magic confetti to place under their pillows to help them sleep. Maya was so excited about her confetti. “It’s the first magic thing I ever had!” And it worked!

Maya artwork and writing work

On her first day, Maya insisted on wearing her striped octopus dress. We had ordered her a new backpack and lunchbox (though we were shipped the wrong lunchbox and Maya had to wait a week to get the right one) to celebrate her move to elementary school. She was in a happy fizz about her new school and her new backpack. Oddipuddy doesn’t get to go to kindergarten with her, and she dealt well with that also.

She was tired when I picked her up from school that first day, but told me all about the different things she’d learned. She learned that ducks don’t make good pets, how to identify the word “me,” and where the bathroom is. She colored a first day of school book and was able to bring it home. “Today we did something called PE,” she told me in the car on the way to fetch her brother. She really seemed to enjoy her PE class.

Ian artwork

Tuesday was a little harder and she was hesitant to let Sean go when he dropped her off. We managed to get her to bed a half hour earlier on Tuesday night though, and I think that made a difference. On Wednesday morning, she was ready to go, and when I picked her up she was smiling and happy about all the things they’d done in school that day. The rest of the week went without a hitch. We collectively figured out how cafeteria lunches would work (except I haven’t yet cracked the code on what food they offer each day because the posted menu and what Maya reports having eaten are not even remotely the same), where to pick her up from after school care, and where to go when Maya forgets her lunch box, water bottle, etc.

You could see signs of tiredness and stress earlier in the week. At one point Maya said that she had to behave all day long at school; she didn’t wanna have to do it any more once she got home. By the end of the week though, it just seemed to be part of the routine. She was grumpy on Saturday morning because she didn’t have kindergarten to go to.

I was worried that Maya would be really sad to leave her montessori school, but she has clearly moved on. She’s very proud to be a kindergartner, and while she’s happy to visit her old classroom when we pick Ian up in the afternoon, her new elementary school is where she belongs.

Ian loves his sister.

Where’s poor Ian in all this? There’s been a lot of hubbub around getting Maya ready for school and through her first week, and Ian has been dealing with his own set of big emotions. He’s sad that his sister is no longer going to the same school he is. “I just want Maya,” he’ll tell us. When we all went to drop Maya off for her first day, Ian’s eyes welled up and his lips got quivery when it was time for us to leave without her. We have a weird little Ian ritual after we pick him up from school where we say, “Hi Maya and Ian’s school. Bye Maya and Ian’s school.” This past week we dropped Maya’s name from the chant, and he was not impressed. More tears.

I have to admit that last week was stressful for me as well. I worry a lot about how Maya will adapt to things socially. Also, her sometimes lackadaisical (and often willful) nature makes me worry about her getting fed and to the right place at the right time. At least so far, she seems to be managing just fine. We’ll see how the year progresses, but right now she is loving school and rolling with the changes. I think a lot of parents feel a little sad to see their kids moving on and growing up. At least with this, I haven’t felt an iota of sadness. There’s nothing but pride and relief here over the way she’s transitioned from pre-school to kindergarten, and I’m excited to see what the year brings.

Thanks to Lolli and Pop driving to Texas to visit us this summer, our normal grandparent triangle was just an out and back to Missouri. On Friday, July 20th, we packed up the car right after work, fetched the kids directly from school, and drove to Texarkana. We overnighted there (big fun for the kids since they LOVE hotels), and then drove the rest of the way to Missouri the next day.

Big kids in a big bed

Here’s how it was supposed to work. We’d have dinner later than normal and then have the kids do a bathroom break before we left the restaurant. They would drift off to sleep an hour or so into the drive and then just snooze till we arrived around midnight. But Maya and Ian were really excited to see Grammy and Grandpa, and they were really excited about staying in a hotel, and they were really not interested in sleeping at all. They had barely slept by the time we pulled into the hotel parking lot. And then they were so excited to get to sleep in a big bed together that it took a bit for them to fall asleep once we finally got settled into our room.

The next morning Maya woke up at 7:00. And then she woke Ian. And then they both woke Sean, all before our alarm went off at 8:00. The hotel breakfast was solid and we were on the road by about 9:30. The drive was uneventful, and we made it into Friedheim before 5p, leaving plenty of time for the kids to run off their energy before bedtime.

Getting ready to ride in the mule

Grammy and Grandpa’s house is a kids’ paradise. They had water balloons, water guns, and bubble generating devices. They had play dough and kinetic sand and sun catchers for the kids to paint. There are toys tucked away all over the house. And there are two grandparents willing to spend time with them play, play, playing. And as if all that weren’t enough, their cousins Lily and Nathan were there to play with as well.

Feeding fish (and turtles)

In the evenings, we’d ride the mule (it’s like a little tractor … sort of …the internet calls it a utility vehicle, which seems kind of vague, but whatever) out to feed the fish and turtles in the pond. Maya loves it when Grandpa drives crazy in the mule. Ian was brave and rode along this time too and also seemed to really enjoy it.

Time-optimized water balloon filling

Their water balloon system is really neat. You screw a central ring onto the water spigot and it feeds water down to a number of balloons, filling them with water. When they’re heavy enough, the balloons drop down, already sealed and ready to go. Maya would have plowed through the whole package in one night … Grammy and Grandpa managed to dole them out over three nights.

Maya and Nathan

Sunday afternoon, we went to a park to play for a while. Maya rode on the zipline and loved it. Ian tried it out. He slipped off of it, but did a fantastic job of staying upright. Still, he was finished with it after that and needed some comforting before he was ready to go back to playing. Luckily, there was a sandbox with a sort of waterfall in the middle of it. Ian had all kinds of fun making cakes out of the wet sand. He also got Grammy and I to go down the big slide with him over and over again.

Ian and Lily, singing along to the Frozen soundtrack

After that, we drove over to Grayson’s Bar and Grill, the bar known as “Someplace Else” when I was a kid, and sat out of the deck and ate brats and burgers and chicken fingers and wings and listened to Lily and Ian sing songs from Frozen. The weather was so nice. It wasn’t a hundred degrees! It actually cooled off when the sun went down! Sitting outside was a pleasure instead of something to be endured.

Great Grandma!

Monday was a big day. In the morning, we went and saw Great Grandma Schmidt for a while. “We call her ‘great grandma’ because she’s great!” Maya explained. After visiting for a while and doling out hugs, we had a quick lunch at Pizza Hut and a little bit of play time around the house before gearing up for the next adventure: playing at the creek.

Maya, being Maya, was all in. We had barely gotten to the creek before she was waist-deep in water, collecting random leaves and shells and sticks she found. Ian didn’t want to put on his swim clothes, but we brought them along just in case. Sure enough, Maya wasn’t in the water long before Ian decided to change into his trunks and join her. And then, since Maya and Ian had both been so brave, even Lily made her way into the creek, which we hear is kind of a rare thing. Nathan wasn’t feeling well and actually curled up on a lawn chair and went to sleep, poor guy.

Playing at the creek

They saw some tadpoles. Maya and Lily made an Olaf-esque man out of wet sand and then despaired at his “melting.” Ian made a whole big bucketful of “chocolate” using only water and sand. Maya and Ian each collected up a handful of rocks and shells that they referred to as their “creek treasures.” I think playing in and around the creek was probably the highlight of their trip.

I wound up working part of the day on Monday and part of the day on Tuesday, so I didn’t see a whole lot of the goings on. There’s so much to do, I am sure the kids kept busy. Throughout the day on Tuesday, we worked toward gathering up our things and getting the car packed for the return trip. That afternoon, we saw my childhood friend Becky and her daughter Iris. Becky sent us on our way with fresh cucumbers from her garden and some homemade relish that Maya has decided she loves.

During this entire trip, Maya had been playing with a doll that she named Butterfly after the butterfly on its shirt. As we were packing, I heard her saying bye to Butterfly and letting her know that she’d see her again around Christmas time.

The last mule ride

After dinner with Grammy and Grandpa, we finished loading up the car and headed on our way back to Texas. On Tuesday night, our stopover way in Little Rock. This time, Sean’s and my plan worked flawlessly (a rarity for us). By around 8 o’clock, both kids were conked out and they didn’t really wake up till we got to the hotel around midnight. They walked themselves up to the room without complaint and then promptly crawled into bed and went back to sleep.

For reasons I will never understand, I woke up hard at 6:30 the next morning. I read for a while as Sean snored and the kids continued sleeping. After a while, I hear Maya’s quiet morning voice say to Ian, “It’s ok Ian. That noise is just Dad.”

After another respectable hotel breakfast, we loaded up and headed toward Texas. It was an uneventful drive home, and we arrived a little after 6 that evening. Everyone was tired, but we got the car unloaded and saw all the cats and everyone seemed to be doing ok. Nox has evidently learned how to close doors and had shut herself in Ian’s room. She must not have been there for long though because she left no messes and her chief concern on being freed was to make sure we all smelled ok.

I think breaking up the drive was probably better for all of us. Our days of powering through a 12-13 hour drive may be over till the kids are a bit older. One interesting thing about this car trip was how relatively little the kids relied on their ipads. So far, we’ve been making our way through long car trips with a mixture of snacks, activities, and unfettered ipad time. This time though, they really weren’t as interested in their ipads. At one point, Maya even told us she just wanted to look out the window. The drive is long, for sure, but I bet if we asked the kids if they wanted to make the long drive again to go see Grammy and Grandpa, we’d get an unqualified YES.

Our fourth of July celebrating went pretty smoothly this year. Last year, we messed up and missed the big fireworks show at the quarry, but not this time. We were johnny on the spot, securing the date in our memories and on our calendar, packing along things to do, etc. The kids loved it. The fireworks were “amazing” and “so beautiful.” True to form, about five minutes into the show we had waited more than an hour for, Ian asked, “is it time to go home now?”

Waiting for the fireworks at the quarry lake near our house

It’s true that Maya and Ian enjoyed the big fireworks show, and it’s also true that they had a fun fourth of July parade at their school, but the big event, the thing they had been waiting all week for happened on Wednesday the 4th: Lolli and Pop came into town. I thought the kids were going to maul them when they arrived that afternoon. Allllll morning they had been asking when they’d get here.

Zero scared of the sparklers.

Afternoon thunderstorms thwarted the plans we had made to hang out with our friends and deploy fireworks with their kids. Instead we hung out on our front porch and threw poppers and played with sparklers. Maya again was nervous about the sparklers and basically had to be helped with them till the very end.

That evening, Sean and Pop went and picked up pizza from Via 313 for dinner. I still haven’t actually been to the restaurant, but I have benefited from Sean’s lunchtime leftovers many times. This is Detroit-style pizza, and it is delicious.

Hanging out with Lolli and Pop

The next day, I didn’t see a whole lot of what went on because I wound up working. From the sound of things, there was a lot of hide-and-seek with Pop and a lot of playing a farming game on the computer with Lolli. They all went out and had Nashville hot chicken at T22 for lunch. I was gifted with lemon meringue pie for dessert.

Pop and Maya playing Nintendo

Sean and Pop went and bought groceries so I could cook dinner that night. Throughout the week, the kids had been running through various desserts they could make for Lolli and Pop. There was discussion of brownie cookies, bundt cake, and who knows what else. They eventually settled on baking them a heart-shaped chocolate cake, to which they applied pink icing and so many sprinkles.

For dinner, I grilled flap steak, which is served with a green onion (also grilled) walnut sauce. It’s a very solid recipe. Last year, Maya decided she wasn’t going to eat anything that “had fire on it,” and her tune has not changed since. She hates the smell of fire; birthday candles, fireworks, and barbecue joints all cause her to complain. She will not eat grilled food. Unbeknownst to me, earlier in the summer, Sean experimented by burying a single piece of grilled chicken amongst Maya’s non-grilled chicken as a test. Sure enough, she leaned into it, gave it a sniff, wrinkled her nose and announced that it smelled like fire and she wasn’t going to eat it.

While most of us were enjoying freshly grilled flap steak, Maya had T22 leftovers instead. We’ll keep working on her. Maybe she’ll eventually come around.

Cavern

On Friday, we had our big outing. We drove out to Natural Bridge Caverns. We weren’t sure how the weather was going to be (hot and sunny, as it turns out), and we could tour the caverns rain or shine, so we went for it. The kids loved it. The length of the tour was about 75 minutes, and I don’t remember ever getting the impression the kids were losing interest. They actually followed directions and kept their hands to themselves while in the cavern. Maya hiked the entire thing by herself, and Ian made it nearly to the end.

They brag about their 70 degree temp in the cave, but with nearly 100% humidity, we still felt a little gunky by the end. And then we walked out into the full sun. Nothing some nice lemonade couldn’t help fix though. Maya and Ian squished some pennies and picked up some interesting rocks for souvenirs. We had passed through Gruene on the way to Natural Bridge Caverns, so on the return trip, we swung into the Gristmill restaurant, a centerpiece of the town, and had a very late lunch / very early dinner that filled us up and kept us happy through the rest of the day.

Well, some of us are looking at the camera

Pop and Sean took Maya to her swim lesson in the morning on Saturday. Probably because Pop was along, Maya was on her best behavior and the lesson went really well! After playing at the house for a while, we took the kids to a friend’s birthday party in the afternoon. More playing with the grandparents while I grilled again – this time jerk chicken and mushrooms.

On Sunday, after some more hide-and-seek and lots of goodbyes, Lolli and Pop started their return trip to Alabama. The kids kind of moped their way through the afternoon, telling us they missed Lolli and Pop, and they’re already looking forward to visiting at Christmas time. I suspect the feeling is mutual.

Maya had been planning Father’s Day ever since we had Mother’s Day. She saved a box for Dad’s gift and decorated it with stickers. At every opportunity, she suggested we go to the craft store for supplies. Ian mostly wanted to know what kind of cake we would be making him.

This crazy bunch!

Before any of that though, we have to talk about Maya’s “graduation” from preschool. Sean and I thought we were dropping by the school to check out the older primary students’ science projects. Maya and her classmate Faustine did an experiment demonstrating buoyancy. They dropped raisins and pasta into soda and as the bubbles collected, sure enough, those items were buoyant. The other kids all had their experiments set up as well, complete with poster boards explaining them and guiding the grown-ups toward the sort of questions they could ask the kids to help them demonstrate their knowledge.

Budding scientist.

To our surprise, after the science fair wrapped up, they booted us all from the room so they could set up for graduation! Each kid who was moving on from preschool or private kindergarten was called up to receive a certificate and a medal and to have photos taken. Amazingly Maya was able to sit through the whole thing. I have to admit, Sean and I were nervous.

Earlier in the spring, the kids had had a fun visit to the Thinkery. One of their favorite things was building art projects out of scraps and trash that had been collected up and saved for that purpose. We now have a corrugated cardboard box into which the kids chuck the things they may want to repurpose later for some sculpture or mixed media masterpiece. They call it “the art box.” It has various containers, straws, lids, labels, etc for them to put together however their imagination directs them.

Art car!

Maybe a week or two before Father’s Day, Sean spent time with them making “art cars.” They built axles with straws and skewers, wheels out of old lids, and decorated them with bottle caps and craft supplies. They were brilliant, and the kids had so much fun putting them together. The comment at the end of the day (probably by me) was something like, “See, Dad can do art projects too!”

Taking Dad to fancy dinner

The day before Father’s Day, we took Sean to “fancy dinner” at the Second Bar + Kitchen restaurant at the Domain. Maya was all into it, wanting to dress up and have barrettes in her hair and the whole bit. Ian had received a new rainbow shirt from Lolli and Pop, and even though he’d worn it the day before, he insisted that it needed to be washed so he could wear it again to our fancy dinner. We did manage to talk him into pants, which honestly surprised me, but we couldn’t convince him to wear anything but his flip-flops, and it just wasn’t worth the fight to get real shoes on his feet. Plus we live in Austin. Flip-flops aren’t out of the norm.

Maya and Ian did ok. They were pretty antsy, like always, but at least Maya seemed to understand when I tried to explain that it was a special dinner for Dad and it would make him really happy if he could just relax and enjoy it. Sean and I enjoyed our food. Maya enjoyed her swanky mocktail. And the kids surprised us by leveling a spicy meatball appetizer.

They had tiramisu brownies for their dessert. As we ordered them, Ian started to look well and truly concerned, to the point of tears. We tried asking him what was wrong and he loudly insisted, he didn’t want any soup on his brownies!!! Dude, it’s tiramisu, not tirami-soup.

We eat really early so we annoy as few diners as possible.

The restaurant is within the Archer Hotel, and the space it occupies is big and bright and open. That big open space makes for a very natural extension of the hotel space, and from our table, we could see a big stone staircase kind of half-spiraling upward around a giant chandelier. What the kids wanted to do most of all through the better part of dinner was walk up the big staircase.

While Sean finished his dessert and settled the check, the kids and I meandered up the staircase. Ian is completely obsessed with stairs. Probably since he could walk, even if you were carrying him, he’d want to be put down so he could walk the stairs on his own. Today was no different, except that he and Maya wanted to count them. Maya’s pretty solid on counting to 100 at this point, but Ian’s approach is more … creative. One through twelve are pretty good, but thirteen and fourteen often get munged into one and there is no seventeen, only eleventeen. He’s pretty consistent with it, “fiwteen, fifteen, sixteen, eleventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty!” It drives Maya nuts, and she constantly tries to teach him the right way. Needless to say, she had to hurry ahead of us so he didn’t ruin her count.

Can’t take us anywhere

When we got to the top, we discovered we could look out over the restaurant and the kids had fun spotting Dad and trying to get his attention. He joined us in the sitting area at the top of the stairs for a few minutes, and Maya and Ian horsed around on the furniture. Dresses be damned, Maya was jumping off of stuff.

The next morning, on actual Father’s Day, we had a fun event to attend. Before that though, Maya and Ian wanted to give Dad his gifts. They had each gotten him a T-shirt and made him both beaded key chains and beaded necklaces. I tried to talk them into just the key chains, but they insisted that Dad needed pretty necklaces just like I had gotten. (Subtitle: the kids really like stringing beads.)

Kapow!

The Alamo Drafthouse, our favorite movie theater, often throws family parties for new release kid movies. We had taken Maya to see Finding Dory as part of a family party a couple summers ago. This day, we were seeing Incredibles 2. Beforehand, they had tables set up where you could decorate a superhero mask, construct your own superhero emblem, and create flip books and color Incredibles coloring sheets. The big draw was outside though. The fine folks at the Drafthouse had set up an entire obstacle course. They had two separate courses set up, so people could compete for time. Maya and Ian (with Dad’s help) competed. It turns out the Ian actually won. Maya cares a lot more about having fun than winning, so she took her time playing with some of the things along the way.

Dad and Ian at the movies!

Maya has gotten to the point where she can generally sit through a movie, but I was figuring Ian would get bored, and I’d wind up taking him to the bathroom half a dozen times. During the pre-show, kids got to go down to the front of the theater and exercise their superhero powers. Some of them froze the audience, some made them all simultaneously yawn. Maya’s superpower was to make everyone act like octopuses, tentacles a-wagging.

Octopus Maya

During the movie, Ian nestled into my lap and nibbled at his lunch. Maya giggled and shrieked through the whole thing. She especially loved Jack Jack. Had it been a whole movie full of Jack Jack, that would have been fine with her. The one thing Ian talks most about is the giant vacuum cleaner that sucked up Mr Incredible. The kids traded parents partway through, and Ian fell asleep in Sean’s lap. But, we all got to watch the movie, all the way through. We didn’t have to take a single bathroom break. I’d never have guessed it.

That afternoon, we made Dad a chocolate cake. When you have kids, of course, the cake is never really *your* cake. One third of it had no icing because Maya doesn’t like icing. Another third had purple icing and christmas-tree shaped sprinkles because those were Ian’s choices, and the last lone third was done up with orange icing, because that’s Dad’s favorite color, and even more sprinkles, because Maya loves sprinkles and they wouldn’t stick to her non-iced portion of the cake. They did help me get the cake baked, iced, and decorated, and they seemed to truly enjoy presenting it to Sean.

Sean isn’t known to be terrifically expressive, but I believe he enjoyed his weekend. The kids were pretty well-behaved, for them. The dinner was delicious, the movie was fun, the cake was moist and obviously well-decorated. And the kids got to think a little about taking care of their Dad for a change.

In the week leading up to Mother’s Day, Maya and Ian had their spring pictures taken at their preschool. We are so happy they worked in the extra picture taking because these crazy photographers manage to get real honest-to-goodness smiles out of our daughter, and they somehow get photos of the kids together where they’re both looking at the camera at the same time AND they both seem happy. We asked Maya later what they do to get her to smile. “Oh, they make me say funny words like ‘fart’,” she told us. Noted.

Maya – age 5, Ian – age 3

I had been wanting to take Ian, lover of rainbows, to the Ellsworth Kelly exhibit at the Blanton Museum of Art ever since it opened. Both the kids are prodigious creators of drawings, crafts, paintings, coloring sheets, etc, and I thought they’d be interested to see just how far the meaning of “art” could be stretched. But I’ll be honest, it’s also hard to *want* to take three- and five-year-olds to the art museum.

For Mother’s Day this year, we decided to go for it. We started our Saturday morning with brunch at a local joint called Holy Roller. I had assumed it wasn’t really going to be much of a kid-friendly restaurant, but they were great about it. They offered a few off-menu things that were a little more tailored to young palates, and they brought them each packages of Wiki Stixx to play with. I was armed with coloring sheets and crayons, but those were quickly abandoned. Those Wiki Stixx were the thing of the day as far as the kids were concerned. Sean and I were able to semi-quietly enjoy our delicious biscuit sandwiches, and in my case, my delicious breakfast cocktail, while the kids nibbled on bacon and eggs and made waxy sculptures with their Stixx.

Wikki Stix glasses

We had been prepping the kids for the art museum. “What’s the number one rule?” Ian: I don’t know. Maya: Don’t touch anything. The girl had it (and was also the least likely to comply). The kids were really into the contemporary art. Sean thought that the abstract shapes probably appealed to their imaginations. A very kind lady that Maya and I chatted with guessed that the kids liked those pieces best because they looked more like something they might make. There was even one exhibit in that part of the museum that the kids could touch. A huge vat of pennies filled a sunken spot in the floor. Bones dangling ominously above it, though I don’t think Maya and Ian noticed. It turns out, patrons are permitted to mess around with the pennies. Ian made a penny cake and then cut it into slices with another penny to serve it. I stopped him short of grabbing handfuls to give to people so they could eat his penny cake. When the guard started eyeing our slightly rowdy daughter, we decided to move on.

Art you can touch is the BEST art

Neither Ian nor Maya cared one whit about the European paintings. I think the only things through most of the rest of the museum to capture their interest were the sculptures and pottery … and the benches. They must have sat on every bench and couch in that place. There was even a wacky red couch that they pretended was eating their hands. When it started to become clear that they kids were just about all done, we walked out to the chapel that is “Austin,” the Ellsworth Kelly installation I was so wanting Ian to see.

“Austin” at the Blanton

While it was the end of their visit, the kids did both seem to find the idea of a building as art to be interesting. And they both seemed to enjoy the rainbow of colors in the stained glass. But honestly, they suffered a few photos, took a cursory look around, and then Ian asked if we could go to his house now. Maya did take a moment to snap a photo of the outside of the building with her little Polaroid camera.

When we asked each of them later what they liked best, Maya unsurprisingly said she liked the pennies because she could touch them. Ian though let us know that the “rainbow room” was his favorite. Sean estimated that all told we spent about 75 minutes wandering around. I think for a first museum visit for two busy preschoolers, that wasn’t too bad.

Good morning!

On Sunday, actual Mother’s Day, we laid low. I made everyone a late breakfast and did a few catch-up chores and some relaxing. Sean No-Minute-Like-the-Last-Minute Woods took the kids to buy supplies so they could make my gifts. We had had such a late breakfast that I figured they could go pick up their stuff and then Sean could grab lunch on the way home. I wasn’t prepared for them having to spend something like a full hour at the craft store. At one point, Sean had texted me nothing more than “OMG.” It told me what I needed to know. With the way things had gone, we decided the kids needed a sleep after lunch before Sean would be undertaking any kind of maker project with them.

By the time they woke up and relaxed a little in front of the TV, it was starting to get late, so Sean tried to get the kids to focus on making my gifts, which turned out to be bead necklaces. They had selected a good assortment of really interesting beads from the store, and they both seemed to really enjoy arranging them and stringing them. Ian, meticulous, dexterous little creature that he is even strung some teeny tiny little jewel beads that I could barely handle and could see even less. And that three year old boy had the focus to string probably 85% of the necklace himself before he got tired of it. It was impressive.

Ian and Maya each strung me a bead necklace.

I think Sean may be a little worse for wear, but I enjoyed my laid back day. And I enjoyed our outings with the kids the day before. We knew going into an art museum expedition that it wasn’t going to be easy, but I think it’s good for them (and us) in the long run. Heck, even visiting a restaurant can be a little bit of an event with those two lunatics. And Maya, for her part, is already planning Father’s Day gifts for Sean. I hope he likes beaded jewelry.

(Included in these photos are a picture of Maya’s elementary school [note the sea creature motif] as well as a few random spring pictures I liked.)

Maya’s favorite holiday is Easter. You may think that she only cares about it because it’s the thing on her mind right now, but nope, she’s been looking forward to Easter ever since *last* Easter finished up. She loves it all: the egg dyeing, the egg hunting, the Easter bunny. It’s her jam. She even loves it more than Christmas.

She was able to do it by herself this year!

It’s difficult to tell what Ian loves because he sort of gets caught in the wake of his big sister’s enthusiasm. As an example, she loves octopuses, so he loves octopuses (to the point that he insists, often loudly and with tears, that he’s an octopus and ONLY an octopus). He seemed to really enjoy the egg dyeing, and he really got into the hunting this year.

Ian is getting in on the action

The weekend before, we had friends over for a belated dinner of homemade corned beef and root veggies and Irish soda bread. Our friend brought a pub salad that included, among many other delicious things, hard boiled eggs. Now, I have tried the kids on boiled eggs in the past and no one really took to them. This time though, Maya would have removed every boiled egg chunk from that salad if we had let her. That’s been her go-to protein for school lunch ever since, though she carefully picks out the yolk most of the time. It remains to be seen whether this egg love will remain after Easter is well behind us. (Update: it has remained! She continues to request boiled eggs in her lunch.)

The lead-up to Easter was fun. The kids received packages in the mail from both sets of grandparents. They got neat new clothes from Lolli and Pop. Ian’s favorite is this purplish outer space shirt. Maya has a dress with cars around the hem and a cityscape along the skirt. And pockets, which she loves because she likes to collect things. They got a smattering of wacky gifts from Grammy and Grandpa. Ian’s favorite was his Silly Putty, by a landslide. Maya received a purse full of goodies, and she really seems to enjoy having it. There’s a little unicorn coin purse and an ice cream-shaped lip balm that she’s particularly enamored with.

They had a little egg hunt for school the Thursday before Easter for which we needed to help supply eggs. Maya had been grilling me about the rules all week. Six plastic eggs. At least six; it could be more. But definitely NO CANDY. Just toys or stickers or that sort of thing. Every day she would repeat these rules to me. Where they chanting them in her in classroom? It was weird.

Decorating with Dad

We decorated all the eggs on Saturday and left them for the Easter bunny to pick up and hide for us. Sean and the kids are always the ones who dye the eggs; it’s good for Dad to have some traditions with the kids too. Plus, he’s more patient than I am. Maya cracked one of hers a bit (she decided it looked like lightning), but for the most part, she got the hang of doing it by herself. Ian did pretty well, but still needed a bit of help. They upped the ante this year by decorating a number of eggs with a transparent glitter that gave the eggs an iridescent sheen.

Since Easter fell on April Fools day this year, we thought about doing something trixy, but I worried the kids might be too young to find the humor in it. (Though a friend of ours called it “Easter Fools Day,” which I loved.)

On Sunday, the kids woke up to baskets full of chocolate bunnies and other sweets. While they were eating breakfast, the Easter bunny (aka, Daddy who had “slept in”) sneaked out and hid the eggs throughout the front yard.

Egg hunting

Once they were finished eating, we cleaned the kids up and sent them out to hunt. We think maybe 30-45 minutes passed between hiding and hunting, but apparently it was enough time. Maya rushed out and grabbed an egg and almost immediately called out, “Something’s wrong with my egg!” There was a slug on it. Ian, the texture-averse kid, found an egg that had two or three slugs lazing about. Maya wanted to know what the snails had done with their shells. Ian was simply disgusted (Sean too).

SLUGS!!!!!!

Every single glittery egg had some number of slugs on it. And they had squirmed their way into a couple of the plastic eggs as well. Good mom that I occasionally am, I picked off all the slugs so the kids could still enjoy their eggs (and so Sean wouldn’t have to touch them).

Maya was just a blur running through the yard

The funniest part to me was Maya though. Last spring, she was having her intestinal issues and couldn’t have any candy. This time, there was candy galore. “That darn Easter bunny only brought us candy and no toys this year!” I guess the Easter bunny may be adapting his/her plan for next season.

Maya applying a tattoo to Grammy’s arm

A couple weekends after Easter, Grammy and Grandpa came to visit! Most of the time was spent playing, playing, playing, including a visit to our neighborhood park.

The kids getting beard tickles from Grandpa

The rest of the time was spent eating all the good food. We cooked “steak machine steak” on Friday night (steak cooked in a sous vide machine so it’s crazy tender and perfectly cooked all the way through). The kids took Grammy and Grandpa to probably their favorite restaurant, Freddy’s, for Saturday lunch. We had a slightly chilly dinner sitting outside at a hot chicken joint called T-22 on Saturday evening. It had been a great visit, and Maya and Ian were sad to see them head back to Missouri on Sunday.

Sean and I had decided to book our Hawaii trip the week before spring break. A bit of research revealed that we could pay for a babysitter the week of spring break when the kids were out of school and still come out way ahead, so that’s what we did. We secured our sitter just before Christmas time. She verified the week before spring break that we still needed her. And then literally three minutes before she was to arrive at our house on Monday after the overseas trip during which Sean and I failed to sleep, she canceled due to illness.

Our little Texans

I spent the better part of that day trying various contacts and agencies off and on to get another babysitter set up. It wasn’t till Tuesday afternoon that we managed to get someone, which means Sean and I split duties on Monday and the first half of Tuesday. He watched them during the morning and I watched them in the afternoon. It just so happened that I had to take a call Monday afternoon from someone who was onsite doing work that I had specifically requested of them. About ten minutes into the call, I see Ian at the doorway beaming with pride, telling me Maya had cut his hair.

I hastily finished up my call and went out to assess the damage. Nobody was bleeding, so I figured that was a win. Maya had administered her own haircut as well and hid the evidence deep in the recycling bin in our kitchen. Little girl went to town on their hair. They each had a section right on the tippy top of their heads that was cut very nearly down to the scalp. Maya’s hair is so full and wavy that you really didn’t see hers much unless you were looking for it. Ian didn’t get off so lightly. His would need to be dealt with, but in the meantime, we took to calling him Friar Ian.

Lovely Maya

On Thursday, I took him to our regular haircut lady to see what options we had. Not many, as it turns out. Poor Ian received a buzz cut. He was nearly in tears by the time we were done, telling her, “Put my hair back on!” She had removed it; surely she could install it again. He kept asking me to find him some hair, so when we came home, I let him try out Maya’s Te Fiti wig, but it was too big and cumbersome for him to play well.

He insisted on turning his hat that way. We couldn’t convince him otherwise.

He eventually got used to it, and in a few days, it was almost like it had never happened. The only problem was that it was time for our annual bluebonnet photos. The hillsides were coated and the weather was nice, so we had to take our opportunity. We had gotten Ian a hat to wear over his shaven head, but ultimately there are more photos of him without it than with it.

We had gotten the kids some aloha-wear in Hawaii and talked them into donning these clothes for the photos this year. As usual, Sean had to work hard to capture images of our kids when they were sitting relatively still and weren’t making goofy faces. In the end though, they turned out just fine.

Against all reason, we took the kids to Hawaii the first week in March. Bolstered by the fact that Ian had done so well on our long car trip over the summer as well as the last couple flights we had taken, we figured we’d go full bore and stick him on an eight hour flight over open water.

I’m not freaking out, YOU’RE freaking out

This largely sprung from Maya’s infatuation with Moana. I vaguely recall some conversation, probably over cocktails. Ha ha, wouldn’t it be great if we could take Maya to a tropical island and get her out on a boat like Moana? See if we could spot a dormant Te Fiti from afar? Do it before she’s old and cynical like us?

Little did I realize at the time, but Sean took what I considered an offhand notion and started looking into hotel costs and airfare. Oh, and he found a way for Maya to meet Moana. The Venn diagram in Sean’s brain has a big section where lifelong Disney love, the desire to make magic for his kids, and a long-nursed impulse to relocate to Hawaii overlap. This overlapping section is neatly colored in by the Aulani Disney resort on Oahu.

A view from a room …

It’s not a theme park. It is instead a sprawling resort along the beach that also has several pools, a lazy river, splash pads, lots of kid-friendly activities, and Disney character meet and greets. Once I realized our vacation was on, I tried negotiating. We could stay in the swank resort half the time and at an AirBNB the other half of the time, right? No, evidently we could not.

I kept at it too. All the planning that I did revolved around things *not* at the resort. We had half a mind that we might rent a car one day and drive up to north shore to tool around in “actual Hawaii.” Maybe on our last day there, we’d head over to Honolulu and be tourists. In the end, we spent very nearly our entire time on the property and were never at a shortage for ways to pleasantly fill our time.

As mentioned, once we decided we were willing to shell out for the vacation, the toughest hurdle to overcome was the flight. We left on a Saturday. The quick hop from Austin to Dallas was no problem, of course. The long flight from Dallas to Honolulu tested our mettle though. Things got off to a glorious start with a nearly hour-long delay, spent on the plane. I knew it was going to be rough when, before we had even taken off, Ian had already peed once and asked if we were at Hawaii yet a handful of times.

We have a standard configuration when we fly: Ian and I in a window and middle seat in one row and Maya and Sean in a window and middle seat directly behind us. This time, each of us had a sleeper in the aisle seat. Masks on, headphones in, conked out. Great, right? Not so much if your kid decides he needs to urinate every hour. Even Maya, who has a giant bladder, forced Sean to wake up the lady next to him a full four times. And it’s not like they were drinking much (I was actually worried about how little they were drinking). Also, neither of them really slept. Ian had a fitful hour of sleep maybe a couple hours before landing. Before that, he had been a squirmy pill. After that, he was a crying, squirmy pill.

As with most things, we eventually made it though. Usually, it takes us AGES to get out of an airport. This time, we were only about an hour from the time our plane pulled up to the gate to the time we were exiting our shuttle at our hotel, luggage in hand. It was amazing.

We told her we would swim the next day. It was literally less than 5 minutes before she was soaked.

Maya and Ian (especially Maya) were complete lunatics by the time we got in. The plan (the dream, anyway) was that the kids would sleep too much on the plane and that would be fine because it was four hours earlier in Hawaii than it was in Texas. Oh well. We managed a quick dinner and a walk down to the beach before giving up and calling it a night. I think we were all asleep before 8:30p local time.

On our first full day in Hawaii, we just let our internal clocks wake us. Ian managed to sleep till 7:30, if you can believe that. I was up just before 6 and Maya around 6:30. We had a harrowing period from 3:00 to maybe 4:00 where Maya had woken up and tossed and fidgeted, but she eventually went back to sleep.

After a quick breakfast at one of the on-site cafes, we went to sign the kids up for Aunty’s Beach House, the resort’s answer to child care. The basic stay and play was covered with our room rate. Some extra activities were also covered, and some required an extra fee. We signed the kids up for some of each. After that, at long last, we got the kids into the water. They had an absolute ball. Ian enjoyed floating along the lazy river with me. Maya fussed and fidgeted over her flotation, effectively un-lazying the river for her and Sean.

The kids both enjoyed swimming in the big pool, with its warmer water and zero entry. They goggled up, put on life vests, and motored around as they chose. Maya practiced jumping off the wall and swimming to us, again employing her level identifiers to signify varying styles and degrees of difficulty. Surprising us all, Ian ditched his life vest and free-swam for a few feet between Sean and I over and over again, barely pausing for breath between iterations.

MOANA!!!!!!

Eventually Ian was shivering and Sean was uncomfortable, so we ended our swimming and hurried to get dried off and dressed for a visit with Moana. It’s interesting the way these Disney folks have it set up. We could call a number each morning and find out where and when the kids could meet different characters, and if it was relevant, we could sort of plan our day with those things in mind.

Maya dressed for the occasion. When she met Moana, she told her all about her Te Fiti shirt and her Moana shoes and her little brother Ian. She chatted about how much she loved Te Fiti, and Moana of course agreed. We took lots of photos and the kids both received very nice hugs.

Later on that afternoon, we stopped by to see Moana again, just so Maya could snap a photo of her with her own little Polaroid camera, which Moana then graciously signed. Maya had also brought Moana a big leaf to use as a boat for Hei Hei the rooster. Basically, Maya was on cloud 9.

MINNIE!!!!!!

We chanced a visit with Mickey and Minnie Mouse because they were so close by. While not as committed as his sister, Ian does nurse a pretty big soft spot for Minnie. She had on a pretty dress and pretty shoes and was doling out some pretty sweet hugs, so Ian was happy. Mickey actually played with them a bit, hunting for leaves as pretty as the ones the kids had brought for him.

Later on, with exhausted, exhilarated, un-napped children, we took a crack at an ohana (family) hula. By that point, Ian really only wanted to be held and Maya just couldn’t resist adding her own flair to the dance. I think Sean may have been the only one who got to dance it properly.

At the kids’ repeated request, we went and had Mickey Mouse shaped shave ice. Ian got an ear, Sean got an ear, and Maya laid waste to his entire head. She was a red-fingered, sticky-faced, shivering mess, but she was a happy one.

We tried to then wander over to the fire pit to hear Uncle tell us some stories. Uncle was an engaging and dramatic story teller, and Sean and I could have kept watching for a while. Unfortunately, Ian was busy running through rows of chairs and trying to weave plant leaves through tabletops. Maya was busy fussing about being bored or not liking the smell of the fire. Lucky for us, Moana showed up toward the end to help Uncle tell his stories about Maui and that at least garnered some of Maya’s interest.

Beautiful sunset

After a rather long, drawn out dinner with an admittedly beautiful sunset, we took the kids to our room for a quick bath and a long sleep. Sean and I, after a bit of planning, were not far behind them.

On Monday morning, we had our first big-deal event planned: character breakfast at Makahiki, the buffet restaurant at the resort. It was easily the best meal we had eaten thus far. Sean had gotten the kids an autograph book and ink pen with the specific intention of collecting up the characters’ autographs, and this was their first chance to use it.

Mickey, at the character breakfast

The character breakfast started with a corral past Mickey Mouse to have photos taken with him. The kids’ buffet was right up front with Mickey waffles and what turned out to be Maya and Ian’s favorite: chocolate muffins. The kids also tried out and loved POG (passion-orange-guava juice). Minnie and Pluto stopped by their table and spent some time signing their book and taking photos. The kids were invited by Aunty to follow along in a sort of conga line through the restaurant. They donned fish puppets as they walked along and then played a coconut shell instrument along with Aunty and Minnie Mouse. We took our leisurely time, relaxing by the koi pond and nibbling on all manner of breakfast treats.

Character breakfast

Eventually, we moved our well-fed selves over to the open house at Aunty’s Beach House, so the kids could get a look at things before we left them there later in the week. As predicted, they didn’t want to leave. (We later found out though that this was because we were there with them.)

Ian decided he loved the water!

Afterward, we got swim-suited up and tried out the Menehune Bridge, which was sort of like the splash park part of the property. There were some really great slides there and lots of intricate and well-themed structures to climb and play on. The kids had a lot of fun, but it was cold with the breeze, so we pretty quickly relocated to the main pool. Even there, after an hour or so, Ian was all a-shiver, so we gave up and went inside.

We all loved Stitch

Everyone had had a pretty early morning and we were all still full from breakfast, so we actually headed back to the hotel room for a nap. Rested up and marginally less grumpy, we headed out to visit Stitch, Donald, and Daisy and collected more autographs and took a few more photos. Stitch in particular was very huggy and the kids adored him. Maya confirmed that yes, Stitch was still good, just like he was at the end of the Lilo and Stitch movie. We had to briefly visit Moana again so that Maya could give her a picture she had drawn for her.

Moana’s autograph featured a heart-of-Te-Fiti swirl

We went for ice cream and treats as an afternoon snack to tide us over till dinnertime. I discovered “Dole Whip” pineapple ice cream. Maya had a packaged ice cream bar and Ian had part of a cookie and some giant sprinkles. Sean enjoyed a pina colada doughnut.

The kids had been after us all day to go back to Aunty’s so they could play some more. Since we had an hour or so to kill before dinner time, we figured we’d let them give it a try.

With the kids safely tucked away, Sean and I took a walk to a nearby shopping center. We stopped by an ABC store and got some packaged cereal, milk, and POG for breakfast the next day, and some pineapple wine for us to try out. We tucked the cold items into the mini fridge in our hotel room, whose temperature setting turned out to be “arctic” and so it froze most of our stuff. We found out later on that evening that while it did not freeze like the other stuff, the pineapple wine was not really our thing.

We were just walking back to fetch our kids when the nice folks at Aunty’s called us to let us know that Ian was ready to see his family. Maya, predictably, cried when we had to leave.

After a too-long pizza dinner, we changed into jackets and pants and headed out to the big lawn area to spread out on woven mats and watch Toy Story under the stars. After a fun trivia game and a not so fun video hawking the Disney Vacation Club, the movie started and it turns out we got to see … Coco!

Sean and I were excited. I love the idea and aesthetic of Dia de los Muertos, and that particular holiday was central to the story. Maya, on the other hand, was disappointed. She has a difficult relationship with movies. She gets very caught up in the fates of the characters and worries and has cried through many of the movies we’ve tried to watch with her. Toy Story was something she had seen before and wasn’t nervous about, so she thought that would be fun. Instead, she got a movie she had NOT seen before and like all good stories, it wasn’t all sunshine and daisies. She cried through most of the movie. Then she cried some more at the end because the happy parts were over so quickly. Ian, for his part, had to pee once during the show and at the end was starting to get fidgety. But, the movie was great, and getting to watch it outside on a mild spring evening in Hawaii was not a terrible way to see it.

The next morning, we saved a ton of time, money, and frustration by simply having a breakfast picnic in our hotel room.

The whole family’s gone crazy. Ok, maybe just Maya.

Since we had had such action-packed days on Sunday and Monday, we decided to take it a little slower today. We took a long walk along the ocean-front path, peeking down at tide pools and big white waves and soaking up the sun and breeze. The kids were all excited about the infinity pool at the resort, so we got suited up to give it a try. Holy WOW was it cold. Probably, I’ve just gotten old and particular, but I couldn’t get out of that water fast enough. It took quite a while for us to coax Ian in, and once Sean carried him over to the edge to peek out at the ocean, it was no problem getting him back out again. Even Maya was ready to get out once we promised her we could go over to the warm pool the kids preferred to play in.

We all took another spin through the lazy river, because Ian couldn’t stop talking about how much he liked it. Maya again did her very best to un-lazy it. Ian on the other hand was braver this time through, actively seeking out opportunities to get splashed by waterfalls and fountains instead of avoiding them. From there, Sean and Maya went down some gigantic water slide in their tubes that Ian was too young for, and reportedly, Maya giggled the whole way down.

Science is serious business

After this, we dried off and ate a quick lunch. The kids had some iPad time as a means to rest and unwind a little since there wasn’t time for napping that day. After that, they were off to their afternoon outing at Aunty’s – Stitch’s Space Goo. On the way over, Moana happened to walk past us, and she called out, “Hi Maya!” Sean and I were stunned. We looked at Maya and said something along the lines of “Hey Maya, Moana knows your name!” To which she responds, “Of course. I told her my name.” Yeah, just like those long lines of other kids did. As Sean says, Maya is memorable, even to Moana.

Once the kids were dropped off, Sean and I sat at the beach bar and had an Ace Pineapple beer/cider thing. I didn’t care for the pineapple wine, but that cider was really good. During our remaining, post-cider down time, we wandered down to the beach to sign up for an ocean canoe ride the next day.

The kids both seemed happy when we came to pick them up after their event, and each of them had a plastic sack full of some kind of gack that they had created in a “lab” at Aunty’s. We were told that Stitch had come to visit them as well.

Pounding taro root to make poi

We quickly freshened up for the big event of that day, the luau. We had to wait for about 20 minutes to get in, and our un-napped, antsy children were all over the place bouncing around the other people in line and playing with the mulch, leaves, and dirt. On our way in, we received beverages and necklaces and were shown to our places at the big communal tables. We set down our things and made the rounds to participate in various activities. The kids pounded poi, and incredibly, they both tasted it! Un-incredibly, they did not like it. They did some traditional ink stamping on paper, and we all received “tattoos.”

I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but the buffet had some seriously delicious stuff. The Imu pork was incredible, the tuna and tako poke were both so fresh and flavorful, and the suckling pig was fantastic – doubly so once Sean found the crispy cracklin’ skins. Maya actually had me walk up with her at one point to get more of the pig skin, she liked it so much.

Just like in Lilo and Stitch!

The kids went to the bathroom several times each over the course of the evening, which was really great because each time, it required a walk to a not-so-nearby restaurant. Between bathroom breaks, they did manage to eat Moana cupcakes, participate in the keiki (kids) hula, and watch most of the show. Maya even managed to stay awake to see them twirling and throwing around fiery batons. She’d been looking forward to that part of the luau ever since she had made her peace with the Lilo and Stitch movie a few days before we left. Poor Ian missed the fire; he had fallen asleep by that point.

Since the breakfast cereal and POG picnic had worked so well the day before, that became our new standard for the rest of our vacation. The next day, after breakfast and a bit of play time, we took the kids down for their canoe ride. We boarded the boat and went “beyond the reef” and out into the open ocean. Ian nestled into Sean’s lap and largely refused to move, though later when asked, he told us he liked the boat ride. I had to keep a careful eye on Maya so that Ms Gung-ho didn’t dump herself into the ocean. It was a one-hour ride, perfect for the kids’ attention spans (the other option we had looked into would have put them on a boat for four hours). Maya even got to see “Te Fiti” sleeping off in the distance. She kept shushing us because she was worried we’d wake her, and we’ve all seen what she’s like when you piss her off (cough-Te Ka-cough).

That’s sleeping Te Fiti in the background

The guys working the boat filled our heads with Polynesian history, fun things to do in Hawaii, why we should own a boat, and (once they got wind of Sean’s desire to relocate) all of the wonderful schools available in the area.

Ian stuck close to Dad

We had already decided that today would be beach day, so once we were back on land, we borrowed a sack of sand toys and hunkered down to play. Earlier that morning, Sean had bought a waterproof cover for his phone, so he had fun taking photos of the kids (mostly Maya) playing in the ocean.

After a couple hours of sand and surf, we had lunch and headed to the room for a nap. After our nap, we all got cleaned up and went back to the beach to catch the sunset. Maya and Ian tried to draw pictures of it. Sean took a few photos, and the resort’s photo pass people tried to take photos of our whole family.

Family beach photo!

Then we ventured off property to have what turned out to be a really solid dinner at Monkeypod. Sean and I started our dinner with some incredibly welcome mai tais topped with this lilikoi foam that we’ve since sort of managed to recreate at home. Everyone’s food beautifully prepared, but a little difficult to settle in and enjoy with our wiggly kids. Afterward, we wandered over to an ice cream shop and let the kids have treats before a quiet walk back to the hotel.

The next morning after breakfast, we walked down to the pool to get photos and an autograph from the elusive Goofy. After that, of course, we went swimming again. Maya talked Sean into doing the big slide with her a couple more times while Ian and I played in the pool. Once Sean and Maya rejoined us, Ian again ditched the life jacket and swam, swam, swam between Sean and I for a long while. (He was a changed man when he got back to his swim lessons at Austin; they couldn’t believe how much more confident he was.)

Woohoo! Big slide!

Once the kids were good and cold, we put on dry clothes for lunch and then headed to the Haleiwa lawn to see the last characters that we hadn’t met yet. Maya used her little Polaroid camera to snap wonderful photos of Daisy Duck and of Chip and Dale. She is such a natural little photographer. It’s amazing to watch.

The characters posed for her and, when they had articulated fingers, autographed as well

We wandered back upstairs and let Ian have a nap. After that, we headed back to the beach so Maya could try out a boogie board and Ian could play with a giant connect four game that had caught his eye the day before. Maya managed to get up on all fours, and Sean drug her all around the bay. Ian decided the connect four game was pretty boring, so we borrowed more sand toys and played while Maya boogied.

Dad and Ian in the actual ocean!

We all zinged through the shower so that we weren’t quite so sandy for our Menehune Mischief dinner at the Makahiki restaurant. This time the kids were fitted with green paper crowns, and the corral took us past Donald Duck for photos before the dinner. Maya giggled and told him he was a quack-o-pus. Donald giggled too and waggled his tentacles for her.

Ian loved Chip and Dale (and no, I don’t know which is which)

At our table, we were visited by Stitch and by Chip and Dale. Chip and Dale in particular were a total crack-up, pestering the kids and being generally mischievous. The kids got to participate in the show a bit. Between kid-wrangling and getting food from the buffet, I didn’t really keep the thread of the story that Uncle was telling about the Menehune. Maya and Ian seemed to have a really good time though, and I ate some beautiful fresh seafood. Lots of ahi and tako poke. Lots of seafood on ice. Some slabs of pineapple with li hing powder sprinkled on them. It was a pretty swell dinner.

Aulani

Sean even managed to sneak out for a while once the kids were in bed so he could recapture his life as a childless photography enthusiast, quietly spending as much time as he liked composing shots and fiddling with settings on his camera. (It may shock you to know that Maya and Ian don’t have much patience for that.)

By Friday, we realized with some sadness that we would have to start picking and choosing which activities we could still squeeze into our last bits of time on the island. We didn’t really have time to fit much in between breakfast and the kids’ activity for the morning, so we let them play a while. The program they went to was called Fish are Friends, again at Aunty’s beach house. This was one of the ones we had to pay extra for. They learned about ocean creatures and then made food for the fish and went out to Rainbow Reef to feed the fish. After that, they had lunch.

Fish are friends (and food)

While all this was going on, Sean and I went souvenir shopping and had a quick bite to eat ourselves. No one called us about unhappy kids, and sure enough, when we picked them up, they were all smiles. They came out with Fish are Friends bags and blue ray discs and stories about what they spent their time doing that day.

Ian at Aunty’s

After that, Sean and Maya took a walk to the lobby to handle a few housekeeping chores while I coaxed Ian into a nap. After some rest and playing, we actually took them right back to Aunty’s so that Sean and I could enjoy a grown up dinner at Ama Ama, the fancier restaurant on the property. The food was really good. The fact that we were sitting outside and staring at the beachfront and water certainly didn’t hurt. The mai tais didn’t hurt either.

Toward the end of our dinner, the folks at Aunty’s called to let us know that Ian wanted to go home. We let our server know that our kids were wanting us, and bless her, she stepped up her pace from relaxed to zippy without even a change of expression. This allowed us to finish out our very pleasant meal, but still got us back to Ian in reasonable time, not that the folks at Aunty’s were rushing us.

What’s more colorful, Ian or Hawaii?

Saturday was a whirlwind of activity. We had done some of our packing the night before, but we spent a fair amount of the morning packing as well. We had sort of a “brunch” (read: we ate breakfast really late, so we made sure it was larger) to make sure the kids were fed early enough for their Kakamora Chaos program at Aunty’s.

Decorated her paddle with an octopus, of course.

This was the big one. Moana was there, and Maya was beside herself with excitement. When we picked the kids up afterward, they were each armed with a very sturdy paddle that they had personally decorated. Ian, naturally, immediately tried to hit stuff with it. A really neat souvenir, even if it’s a bit dangerous.

At my repeated request, we went and tried to take family ukulele lessons. Ian didn’t even want to hold a ukulele. Maya was wild and dangerous with hers. Sean, wonderful spouse that he is, wrangled the kids while I sat and played the ukulele.

Bye bye, Moana! I hope you visit us in Texas!

After our ukulele lesson, we snuck in one last ice cream and dole whip treat. Then we visited Moana one last time so Maya could say goodbye. We tried to take one last swim, but Ian almost immediately bailed on the idea because he was too cold, so it was mostly a Maya and Sean swim. After one final Hawaii dinner, we packed the last of our items up in a final bag shuffling frenzy and boarded our shuttle to the airport.

Bye bye, Hawaii!

Maya was in rare form by this point. She chatted up Jeff the shuttle bus driver, Eddie, the poor man behind is in line to check luggage, and several flight attendants.

Our flight was actually easier than the flight out had been, I think. Everyone had emptied their bladders pretty well before we left, so there weren’t many bathroom visits. We managed to get the kids a bit of fitful sleep, although it required us supporting them in such a way that neither of us actually slept at all.

Our connection was in Phoenix on the way back. We arrived early and had a reasonable layover, so we had time to at least try to eat breakfast. Ian was pretty all done with travel after the flight from Phoenix to Austin, but we made it through without incident.

As we drove our weary selves home from the airport, thoughts of Hawaii took on a glamour-shot haze in our sleep-deprived state. If we let our eyes de-focus a bit, we heard the ocean waves, smelled the mai tais, and saw Maya and Ian being carefree and playing, chattering excitedly to Moana and giggling at Chip and Dale’s antics. It had been a great vacation.

More Maya photos

I have my few personal quibbles with the way some of the things at the resort were handled, and it was maybe a little early in the year to be in the water as much as we wanted to be, but by and large, it was a very positive experience. The kids were so happy. They got to play in the water nearly every day. They met a pile of Disney characters while they were still young enough to believe in them. Vacation was pretty low-stress for us because there were just so many things to do, and they were all things we could walk to. And, even if we were in a somewhat manufactured vision of paradise, we were still firmly in paradise.

Our Christmas this past year was actually pretty tame by our standards. Not too many travel hijinks. No one vomited. All the gifts we bought for people made it more or less on time.

Merry Christmas!

But before that, we had a few “holiday” events. Early in December, we had a real snow. There wasn’t a lot of it, but instead of the icy sleet pellets we normally get, fluffy snow accumulated on the car and yard. I knew Ian wouldn’t be as crazy about it, but just in case it was gone by morning, we actually got Maya out of bed to come check it out. The next morning, they got to be a little late for school so they could have a few minutes tromping around the yard and making the tiniest snowballs.

Guys! I made a snow ball!

Maya and Ian had their Christmas recital at school and both of them performed admirably. Sean managed to take video of the performances so the grandparents could see their lunatic grandchildren in action. On the same day as the kids’ school recital, Maya had a piano recital. I was edgy about the stacked events, but it turned out great. Maya played her piece wonderfully and seemed to genuinely enjoy herself.

Ian rocking the school recital

We went to visit Santa at the swanky outdoor mall near us. The line was long and slow and the kids didn’t handle it well. But, once we finally got in to see the big man, Maya chattered his ear off. Ian takes a lot of cues from his big sister (good or bad), and decided that if she wasn’t terrified of this weirdo in the red suit who wanted to be sat on, then he wouldn’t be either. But he wasn’t going to talk to him.

Santa! I want an octopus! And an Audi!

Maya, who is intermittently interested in dance class at school, sort of participated in her dance recital later in the month. She was cute in her outfit, but it was clear her heart just wasn’t in it.

Our little travelers

Our travel plan this year to save cash was to book a round trip ticket between Austin and Memphis. From there, we’d drive three hours up to my family’s house in Missouri, six or seven hours from Missouri to Alabama and then the three hours from Sean’s family’s house back to Memphis when it was time to leave. All of the driving parts actually went pretty well given that small children were involved. Plus, Santa had brought the kids their very own suitcases, which they both loved wheeling through the airport.

The only travel hitch we encountered was on the airplane ride into Memphis. As with most flights, we had a layover in Houston. As I recall, we handled the plane change with no issues. Then we sat on our plane forever while flight crew and ground crew do-daddled. Then, to “fix” something, they had to shut down and restart the plane. Just like I “fix” my computer. When that didn’t work, they had us all exit the plane. We waited for a while in the boarding area. There was a candy store right by our gate, so we took turns letting each of the kids shop for some treats. We waited some more. Finally Sean gave up and went to forage for dinner. About the time he arrived back loaded down with our food, we were hastily reloaded onto the plane. We do our very best not to bring smelly fast food onto the tin can full of recycled air, but that day, we had no choice. All told, our flight arrived about two hours late.

Maya and Ian handled the weird delay … okay. I thought they were kinda antsy and were starting to get a little vocal about when the eff this plane was going to leave already because they were going to their grandparents’ house, but multiple flight attendants complimented them on their patience once we got to Memphis. Surprise kids! Now we have a three hour car ride!

We thought they’d have a little nap on the drive, and that would be okay because then they’d have energy to play with all of Grammy and Grandpa’s toys for a while before bed. Surprise parents! Your kids will stay awake the ENTIRE TIME and will be a leeetle bit sleep deprived and off kilter when you arrive at your destination!

Maya and Grandpa on the Mule

The kids generally love Grammy and Grandpa’s house. There are so many toys to play with and a big yard to run around in. Maya’s new infatuation though was Grandpa’s mule. It’s some kind of tractor like thing, and despite the cold weather, she wanted to ride it again and again. Ian did not seem too interested.

Ian and Grammy staying inside where it was warm

We have a big family, so there’s always a lot of celebrating. Honest to goodness, I had to write it down to keep track of where we were going to be on any given day. Christmas eve saw us having a smaller celebration with just Dad and Carol, my brother and sister and their spouses and kids. They had a lot of fun opening literal mountains of gifts.

This is a lot of people to get organized

Later that evening, we celebrated with Great Grandma Schmidt and all my aunts, uncles, cousins and their various progeny on the Schmidt side.

We celebrated with the aunts, uncles, cousins and their various progeny on the Stueve side at Aunt Sharon and Uncle Doug’s house on Christmas day. We let Maya take her iPad in case she got fidgety and it turns out that was a big draw for some of the cousins. Someone “accidentally” placed candy dispensers right at preschooler height, so Ian and his cousin Nathan had a fine time availing themselves of the sweets. Uncle Doug and cousin Dakota brought out fiddle and guitar later on, and Maya and Grandpa had fun dancing.

Is it gonna cuckoo soon?

We visited Great Grandma Schmidt for a while the day after Christmas and Maya learned all about the cuckoo clock. After it popped out once, she was riveted, waiting not-so-patiently for it to pop out again. We saw friends of mine from grade school that afternoon while Maya and Ian monopolized Grammy and Grandpa’s time.

On the 27th, we drove to Alabama. As mentioned, it was an uneventful drive and the kids were very happy to see Lolli and Pop and all their kitties at the end of it. Sean’s Aunt Sharon was spending the holidays there as well, and Maya in particular became very attached to her over the course of the visit. Aunt Darci and her kids were also in town, and AP (who is 8) was really nice about playing with kids so much younger than her.

Lolli and Pop!

The morning of the 28th saw full stockings and terribly excited kids. It was utter mayhem at stocking time. I tried to keep track of which goodies and gifts belonged to which kid, but it was hopeless. By the time they were done, there was nothing left but flattened stockings, a pile of loot, and four exhilarated children.

Maya telling Lolli all about the iPad

Later that day, we all went to the McWayne center to have some good run-around time and maybe some accidental learning. Ian rode the train with Lolli. Maya was mistaken for a seven year old while waiting in line to ride the zip line.

Ian and AP helping Pop test out his Rudolph nose

The next day was mostly about relaxing and playing together. The kids had tons of toys to dig into. The cousins played together some. We went out for pizza and ice cream. We’re nearly certain this evening was when Sean cooked his traditional shrimp scampi dinner.

We regularly found Maya glued to Sharon during this visit :-)

On our last full day in Homewood, we saw Darci and the kids as well as Aunt Sharon undertake their travels back to their respective homes in Northern Virginia and Knoxville, TN. Sean and Pop took the kids to some kind of bouncy trampoline type place so they could burn off some energy. We boxed up as many of the gifts as we could and shipped them back home.

New Year’s Eve had us driving to Memphis and flying back home. Other than me forgetting Ian’s sunglasses in the rental car, everything went as expected. That evening, I don’t remember the kids giving us too much trouble at bedtime. Sean and I did manage to stay up and split a bottle of really delicious champagne to ring in 2018.