21.12.11

farewell tropical sunshine

this post is being started on the airplane home from maui. we arrived at the airport in time to pick up some pizza to supplement the airplane food, although hawaiin airlines did come up with a pretty good turkey sandwich and brownie for dinner. i wanted a bloody mary, but while the tomato juice and tabasco sauce was free, they wanted $7.50 for a shot of vodka, so i opted for a virgin. to which historico/religious mary does the eponymous drink refer to? kylie is better equipped to answer that question.

a long flight affords me the opportunity to further elucidate details of our time in hawaii that have been previously glossed over, as well as occasionally and egregiously forgotten altogether.
first up, tyrn james. he was fantastic on this trip. he had a great plane ride over, and he is currently sleeping in his seat on the ride home. he is a pretty easy kid and a good traveller, and this trip has borne that out. aside from getting up at 5:30 every morning (we'll come back to that) he has been a pleasure to have along.
certainly beach vacations are different with a toddler, but the rewards come in new ways. instead of trekking all over the island looking for the best snorkelling and surfing sites, we have spent most of our beach time running up and down the shore getting swamped by waves or building sand piles (you couldn't call them castles).
for the second week of our time in hawaii, we moved north to lahaina where we had found a one bedroom cottage well outside of town.


ty's early start time produced a pleasant byproduct; every morning i would take him for a run or a hike to allow kylie to get back to sleep after her early shift. our place outside lahaina backed onto beautiful volcanic slopes cleaved with steep valleys. two mornings we ventured out before sunrise to experience dawn in the mountains.






some friends of julie and lowell's, named ryan and adele, were staying in lahaina as well, and we got together on a few occasions to play on the beach and use the hottub and kids pool. on the first day of our arrival, the resort was serving wine, baked brie with cashews, grapes and cream cheese and mushroom pastries in the lobby. we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and i ate a lot of brie.
ty really enjoyed both ryan and adele. despite the fact that we had never met them before, we were able to leave ty playing in the waves with them while kylie and i borrowed their snorkeling gear to check out the reef just off the hotel beach.
the pool was a great setup for kids, with a swimming pool, wading pool and hottub all juxtaposed, meaning everyone could be where they wanted to and remain within supervisory distance.


kylie celebrated her birthday while we were in hawaii. she had an excellent day, starting with breakfast on our front deck.
after that we went to the beach, then kylie left for the spa while ty napped. in the afternoon we returned to ryan and adele's hotel and poached their hottub, even though they had already checked out.

in the evening, we went out for a nice dinner in the harbour and took ty for gelato after. he much preferred kylie's coconut cream to my dark chocolate.
but alas, contrary to our previous experience, holidays like this cannot continue until we are sun sated. we are now back in chilliwack and i am back at work. it has been an easy transition though. today i went for a bike ride in the sunshine, and for our first two days back in BC, we played host to aaron and su, newly arrived from singapore. we enjoyed meeting su for the first time, and touring her around our corner of canada. more on that to come.

15.12.11

Maui Part Deux

The second half of our week here in Maui has been spent hanging out with Fraser and Ty in our place, drinking coffee that Julie and Lowell bought for us everyday (mmmm coconut lattes) and going to multiple beaches.




Thanks to Julie for forever capturing my very brief moments of paddleboarding! :)


We went back to Little Beach to catch some great boogie boarding waves and Ty participated in the 'spirit of the beach.'

Ty started off our week here being quite tentative in the water. He would go to the edge and get a bit wet but run out right away. Today he was throwing himself into the big waves so he could turn around and crawl out of them, only to be dragged back into the water laughing. He is definitely a water baby! Yesterday he spent close to 3 hours straight in the ocean or pool and would have kept going if it wasn't bed time. Crazy kid!!
Having two babies on a vacation creates A LOT of diapers! Smart Julie brought her diaper genie insert and here Marc is showing off our diaper tube.
On Saturday we said goodbye to Nana and newly christened Papa as well as Auntie thts and Uncle Lowell and cousin Fraser.

Ty has spent the remainder of the week asking for Nana, Papa and thts and where they went. He also constantly asks where the moon is.

We have shockingly spent a lot of time at the beach this week too!


Marc has a lot of jumping shots that have been on this blog previously. I am not sure I enjoy his new choice of what to jump over.

Ty has absolutely loved Hawaii and we have had such a great time with him here this year. He is a super fun kid and loves new adventures!! On to the next one . . .

5.12.11

maui wowie

priority number one: let me assure all of you vitamin D deficient canadians that ty is taking every precaution in limiting his exposure to tropical steep angle photons.

we are safely in maui and have collected our various relatives and hangers on. so far we have participated in swimming, boogie boarding, frisbee, running and eating lots of american priced cheese (US costco is bad for my arteries, but sooo good for my mouth).
i would like you all to note lowell's sweet dumb and dumber hairdo in this picture.

ty is loving the sand and the water, and after a few good poundings, has developed a healthy fear of large waves.
our evenings have been quite enjoyable as well. it is nice to have tante yulie around to entertain us all with her austin powers routines.
it is also fun to watch tyrn and fraser interact. except when ty throws his cars at fraser's little face. but look at those eyes... he didnt mean it. he couldnt have.


on sunday night the family ventured out to little beach to party at sunset. the sky was on fire, and pretty soon the beach was too.
every sunday night there's a party on little beach, featuring a drum circle, fire dancing, frolicking in the waves and general debauchery. we participated in the frolicking and drumming, but shied away from the fire and debauchery.
did i mention it was a clothing optional beach? don't worry... with a little darkening and some artfully placed retouching, this blog can remain family friendly.

20.11.11

Portraits from November

And Halloween:

Ty's candy haul this year was epic! One KitKat and a bag of salt and vinegar chips. Don't we all wish we were so lucky to be such a cute penguin who received SO much candy!! ;)


We made and decorated Pumpkin Cookies with Maddi and Adriel. Maddi ate only the icing off her cookie. ;) Check out Ty's ubercool track suit that used to be my brothers: (It even says Brad on the back)
Shots Marc took in Hope. One looks delicious! The other not so much . . .Diner Breakfast

Erythema Migrans = lyme disease

November walks:

I love this time of year!



Dining with cousins: And lastly. Pregnancy cravings finally got the better of me. ;)


A lovely month so far! Only two more weeks and we're off to bask in the warm waters and sunshine of Maui!!