Piilani Highway

On our second last day, Ashley, Tom and I packed ourselves into the car and drove the scenic southern portion of the Piilani Highway. We had very good weather for this trip, so we saw a lot of blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

Cinder cones.

The weather was lovely, but it WAS a bit windy...

Wiiiiindy!

This particular highway runs along the southeastern side of the volcano, and had some sweeping views of volcanic rock canyons.

Not to mention, some columnar basalt! Columns form in basalt depending on the rate that it cools at. The columns form because as the basalt cools it can shrink in the vertical direction without fracturing, but will fracture in the horizontal direction. If the lava cools rapidly, it will form very small columns. If it cools relatively slowly, larger, longer columns will form.

There was also a goat farm on one of the hills, with a particularly large goat tromping about.

We saw some Hawaiian-style Inukshuks along the coast. Both Tom and Ashley went to work building their own rock towers. It was quite windy along this portion of the coast, so you could test the solidarity of your structure by watching it wave in the wind.

We are home now, and I am getting ready to go back to work tomorrow. I don't want to go! Why can't we live in the tropics all-year round?

*Whine*

Paia and the West Highway

The torrential rain on our first full day in Maui did not leave us with a ton of activities, so we piled into the car and headed to the small down of Paia. Paia is a tourist town with plenty of shopping, local artists and white sand beaches. We wandered shop to shop... And even identified a few giant spiders-- which Ashley literally poked. It would not be a holiday without Ashley harassing wildlife.

Ashley pointing at a giant spider.

 

On the recommendation of a coworker, we started our next morning at the Kihei Caffe. Banana macadamia nut pancakes and french toast... A half papaya filled with yogurt and granola... And even pork fried rice with an egg on top. Food this good deserves to be Instagrammed.

 

Banana Macadamia Nut pancakes.

 

Our second day was grey and overcast as well, so we piled into the car again, and drove the west highway on the island from Wailuku to Kapalau. This highway is much like the famous Road to Hana-- winding and twisting with many blind corners and single-vehicle bridges. Julie and I loaded up on ginger pills to keep the motion-sickness at bay. We encountered this burnt-out, abandoned car on one of the turnouts. The colours are so strange, it doesn't even look like a real photo (but I assure you, it is!).

 

Burnt out car on west highway.

 

At this point, we had been on the island for two days, and hadn't actually been to the beach, so we took a walk down to the beach to watch the sun set. And what a sun set it was! Complete with whales breaching in the distance.

Sunset in Kihei.

Tom and I on the beach.

Pretty!

 

We finished off our night with poke fish tacos, and bulldog margaritas. And Jeff turned our coconut into a narwhal. A narwhal in looooove.

 

A bulldog-fueled artist at work.

Looking forward to more snorkeling! Cross your fingers that the water isn't too choppy.

Aloha 3.0

According to the clock, it's 6:46am in Maui, Hawaii. Of course, it's 9:46am back home, and I am wide awake. It is raining torrentially outside, but I'm sure that will clear  up just as soon as the sun rises. Is there anything better than a Hawaii vacation? The answer is simple. No!

This is our third time in Maui. We are once again staying at Ashley's parent's place in Kihei.

I'm not worried. The forecast is for clear skies and sunshine for the rest of our stay.

Little M Turns Big 3

 

On February 8th, my little niece, Madelynn turned THREE years old! She really liked blowing out candles, so she blew them out, and had them re-lit, three times. And then we re-lit them one more time so Dylan could blow them out too.

Forget the toys, clothes or craft supplies-- the best birthday present of the year was a Dora the Explorer umbrella. Madelynn was tickled pink by her umbrella. I'm sure it won't make it until the spring before it is horribly, horribly broken.

Madelynn made sure to protect grandpa from the rain-- repeatedly. It rained a lot in the house.

In fact, it rains so much that Auntie Lisa had to break out Dylan's Spiderman umbrella in order to keep dry as well.

Happy Birthday, Madelynn!

Butterflies and Nieces

Madelynn and Dylan, 2013

My niece, Madelynn, is turning 3 in February. During the Christmas break, I was finally able to set aside some time and make a painting for her bedroom. I based it off of a pattern I saw here, and modified it to fit my purposes. She is a big fan of butterflies, so I decided to incorporate a few into the painting.

 

I am quite pleased with the results!

2014 Starts in a Blur

Has anyone been wondering what happened to me? Three weeks, and not a peep! That's not like me.

All I can say is, work happened to me.

I started working for a new team, effective January 1st. And for the last three weeks, I have worked. And worked, and worked. There's a pretty big learning curve, not to mention a backlog of work that needed to be dealt with. There have not been enough hours in the regular work week to get it all done.

This weekend I was introduced to the wonderful world of being on-call. Having never worked at a job that required it before, my general impression is that being on call must really suck.

I can now tell you first-hand-- being on call sucks. Nothing like a phone call from the field at 4:05am on Sunday morning to start your day right.

I complain, but hey-- it's not all bad. I'm learning new things, I'm being challenged-- and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. It was time for a change for me, and this is exactly what I was hoping for.

In the meantime, here are a few things that have kept me going.

Is there anything more delightful than elephants on a shirt?

Elephant shirt!

The news that Tom and I are apparently the face of Sirocco Golf Club on their event planning brochure. Check it out! That's us-- and that's our cake.

Sirocco Golf Club.

Breaking Bad. Tom and I burned through this TV series in December. During Christmas break, we were watching 2-5 episodes a day. The last time I was so sad to see a series end was Battlestar Galactica back in 2009. And let's face it-- Breaking Bad came to an infinitely more satisfying conclusion than Battlestar did. So long, Walt and Jessie!

Watching bad TV with friends. In this photo, they are watching Steven Seagal: Lawman. The show is terrible. It makes me die a little inside.  But my favourite part of this shot is that Nico (the orange cat featured below) has parked himself on Steve's lap. Steve is pretty much allergic to everything-- cats included. It's like these cats know, and hone in on him. Heh heh heh.

2014 has taken off in a blur. Happy New Year!

Good 'Ol Fashioned Crab Bake

My mother-in-law, Barb, celebrated a milestone birthday this year, but her birthday plans were derailed by circumstances beyond her control. Usually we hit up Red Lobster for her annual birthday dinner, but this year we decided to bring the Red Lobster to her.

First, we stocked up on supplies at Sunterra. I love that place. It has some of the highest quality, seafood in the city. We picked up lobster tails, king crab legs, shrimp, chorizo sausage, potatoes and broccoli. We based our meal plan off a restaurant in Seattle called the Crab Pot.

After stuffing our lobster tails with butter, garlic and cajun seasoning, we baked them in the oven.

Lobster tails.

Then we steamed some broccoli, boiled some potatoes, and chopped the sausage into bite sized pieces.

Prepared fixin's.

Next came the crab legs. Oh... The giant, giant crab legs. We had to break them down into more manageable pieces so we could fit them in the pot.

King crab legs.

Then we piled everything into the biggest pot I have ever seen and cooked it all up. Here is Ashley and I tag-teaming the world's largest pot.

The crab bake pot.

 But more importantly, here is what the results looked like:

Crab mix.

Dinner.

Oh, but it doesn't end there. We washed it all down with some Fentiman's Curiosity Cola. And that was before we hit dessert! And let me just add, I love Fentiman's. The Ginger Beer is my favourite, but the cola's are tasty as well.

Fentiman's Curiosity Cola.

For dessert, we tried out some chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. I used my new stand mixer for the first time! It's so pretty! And purple and girly! Let the number of exclamation marks express my happiness!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kitchen Aid stand-mixer.

I've never made peanut butter buttercream before, but I'm now convinced that my buttercream recipe is infallible and can pretty much be modified for any flavour. I topped them off with some chopped homemade peanut butter cups that Ashley made. Let me just type that again. Homemade. Peanut butter. Cups. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Chocolate peanut butter buttercream cupcakes.

I don't think it was exactly the birthday my mother-in-law envisioned, but it really turned out for the best.

Happy Birthday, Barb!