Endings

With the end of August came the winding down of Tom’s ten-week sabbatical from work. As an indirect beneficiary of this wonderful perk, I must give thanks to Intel for implementing and continuing such a great employee bonus – let’s hope it’s still around in another seven years! Although he qualified to take his time off in March, Tom wanted to be able to enjoy a full summer work-free, so he took off all of July and August, plus a little extra in June.  And enjoy, he did, as evidenced by this photo from the end of July. Nice life!

Besides kicking back with the occasional brew, Tom actually spent quite a bit of time in his woodshop, working hard on another beautiful creation for the house. It will be featured in a future post, but here is a small, very magnified preview. It was great for Tom to have large chunks of time in the shop, which is most definitely NOT normally the case.  

The other big event that came and went this summer was our BIG trip to Hawaii. We decided to spend three weeks on the island of Maui (a first for all of us), not knowing if this would turn out to be the best decision or the biggest mistake. This was the longest vacation we have ever taken, and given the fact that we would be based in one place the whole time, we just weren’t sure how we would fill it all up. Fortunately, we knew my mom would be arriving to join us for the last week, so we figured that her arrival would break things up a bit.

As it turns out, there is actually a quite a bit to see on Maui, and there’s a phrase  “Maui no ka oi” (Maui is the best). I know that each Hawaiian island has its own unmatched beauty and uniqueness, but as a family with a toddler, we were pleasantly surprised with the amount of variety on the island to keep us all enriched and entertained. Ironically, we really only spent a few of the entire 21 days lounging on the beach: first, because when you have a toddler, you don’t actually get to lounge on the beach and second, because we were often out and about on day trips exploring the different sights in and around Maui. It was nice to have the luxury to really get to know the island, without feeling pressured to see everything at once. Certainly, we did have some lazy, relaxing days – especially when Liana napped – but we also enjoyed leaving our home-base town of Kihei and setting out on daily adventures.

Suffice it to say, there were a lot of memories and funny stories to be had on our trip. We especially enjoyed walking around the moon-like surface of the 10,000 ft. Haleakala crater summit - one time in the middle of the day...

and once right at sunrise, requiring a 2:30am wake up time and lots of warm clothes - fun!); 

 

meeting a cyclist who had just ridden six hours all the way up to the crater summit from sea level - and she wasn't even sweating!

driving the UNBELIEVABLY curvy, often one-lane road along the northeastern coastal edge of the island toward the town of Hana and the beautiful “Seven Sacred Pools” in Haleakala National Park

enjoying the cool, foggy rainforest of the Iao Valley

walking through the local aquarium to see the thousands of colorful fish and other cool sea creatures, all of which Liana calls Memo (her version of Nemo)

taking in a Hawaiian luau

and going out for a date night dinner (c/o babysitter Babi) at one of the luxurious fancy resort restaurants whose name was “Humuhumunukunukuapua’a” – a fun word to pronounce!
 

All in all, the trip definitely exceeded our expectations. Having my mom there for the last week was really nice, and our 3-bedroom, 2-bath condo rental was plenty big for all of us. We enjoyed our condo complex – especially its central beach location, pool and cool rooftop BBQ area. It was certainly not a 5-star resort, but had everything we needed to make it feel like a home away from home, and Liana adjusted immediately to her new space. She probably thought we had moved there permanently, because when we finally arrived back to Portland, she excitedly reunited with her toys as if they had been long-lost friends, never to be seen again. By the end of three weeks we were all okay with heading home, but were glad to have as much time as we did.

In case you are actually interested in seeing the nearly 500 photos from our trip, here is the link. The galleries are broken up by week to make it less intimidating!

http://picasaweb.google.com/nataliemaciukenas

I'll end with my favorite photo of Liana from our trip - her face says it all.