Mini-golf at Rattlesnake Canyon

We're in Oliver this weekend and we were pleasantly surprised to find that Rattlesnake Canyon was open on weekends already. It's only open during the summer and previous years Easter has been too early. When Carter found out he was very excited. He really enjoys min-golf. I think he feels he's on a more even playing field with everyone else. He's pretty good on some holes but on others he seems to forget whether he's right-handed or left-handed. On those holes his foot becomes a more critical club.

For the adults I should mention that no good ever comes from a mini-golf game between spouses. When I lose I don't hear the end of it ever. When Kerry is losing I have to watch out I don't get hit in the head with a club or a ball. Today was not Kerry's day. She started off with a quick hole in one but I followed that up with several pars to her bogey's. It took a turn for the worse when she found the water on the 8th. She made up a few shots at the end of the round but fell by three strokes.

Easter 2014

This year we went back to Oliver for Easter. I didn't come last year because we had just come back from Maui and I had had enough family time but this year there were a few weeks in between so I made the trip. A good thing too since Barb and Reg are always right on the ball with some very well prepared and tasty meals. We weren't even going to come this year since Barb and Reg had just been down to visit with us but Callie and Carter insisted on coming so that we could do the annual Easter Egg hunt.

Things got off to a rough start when Callie discovered some weird goo in the bottom of her Easter basket but we got lucky because they decided to do the different age groups at different times which meant they could share the same basket. Carter went first and if I was a more competitive parent he would have found the sacred golden egg which results in a bigger prize. I gave him hints but didn't rush him. The egg was discovered at the next tree we were going to check.

I attempted to cheat with Callie by using my zoom lense on the camera to find the golden egg before the race to the hunting grounds started, however I couldn't quite find it and it wouldn't have mattered anyways since Callie was in the 8-12 group and a 12 year old ran ahead and found it in seconds.

I guess we're coming back for at least another 4 years so she can keep trying.

Grade Three Science World Field Trip

On Thursday Callie went on a field trip with her grade three class to Science World. Since Kerry is a teacher I get to be the field trip parent and Callie gets quite excited when I come. (She even hugged me when I got there.) The class took the bus and due to space constraints the parents had to meet them there. This works out fine for me since my office is right on the Skytrain line and I can come straight from work.

I went with her last year and I ran into a bit of trouble as a chaperon when I lost two kids. In my defense they kind of ran away. It was only for a few minutes as one of the other parents returned them to me. I was hoping for better luck this time however it started off a bit rough. When I got there Callie's teacher handed me a bag and asked me to hold it. I didn't know that she was handing me four kids at the same time. When we got inside the building Callie was quick to point out that I'd already lost two kids again.

The managed to find their way back and there were no more incidents other than one of my kids named Tommy who would randomly run around the entire floor. He always returned so I just had to trust that that trend would continue. We started the day up stairs in the music section before heading to the structures workshop. It was quite neat to see them build a model of Science World with triangles and pentagons. We finished up with some time in the Lego exhibit and I managed to return all four kids at the end of the day.

Maui 2014 - Our Final Day

We woke up pretty late on our last day. This was a bad sign for getting back to our routine back home as it meant we were now used to our new time zone. Callie and Kerry went down to the beach and when they got back we stopped by the Dukes to say goodbye. They had arrived earlier then us and were leaving a day earlier as well. Afterwards we went back to our room and got ready for our big drive. Most destinations are pretty close in Maui however today we were going to try the road to Hana. Hana is on the other side of the island and gets a lot more rain so it's much lusher.

I should probably say that our destination wasn't exactly Hana. Hana is about a 3 hour trip one way on a narrow highway with 60+ one way bridges. Our goal was actually Halfway to Hanna which is an actual destination. We downloaded an app to Kerry's phone that tracked our progress and gave us interesting bits of trivia as we drove. As we got going we saw just how narrow the road was. Many of the bridges had blind spots and you had to be quite aggressive or you would get caught waiting for ever. Our first destination was the 'Garden of Eden'. A very naturally looking tropical garden with lot's of animals.

We got to see waterfalls, bananas, many birds, a banyan tree, a koa tree and lot's of flowers. Carter's favorite part was meeting his friend duck. Duck was at the ice cream place and made panting sounds like a dog and even wagged his tail. He seemed to really like Carter though it was probably like the dogs at home. They knew he was the weakest link for stealing food. Once we had wandered around the gardens a bit and took in the view, we decided we had seen enough of the road to Hanna and turned back. I think we officially made it to half way to 'Half Way to Hanna'.

We got back after lunch and Kerry went to see her old principle John. His wife had won a trip through work and he was staying not far from us. We decided Kerry would just go but in hindsight we realized we all should have gone since the kids could have hung out around the resorts pool which was apparently quite amazing. John did come back to our place for drinks.

We finished off the evening with our last steak dinner and one final sunset. Another great trip.

Maui 2014 - Big Waves at Big Beach

I stopped off at the ABC store this morning to pick up some things for work. You can't go to Maui and not come back with a macadamia themed treat. After that we headed south to Ahihi bay. It's right beside a relatively recent lava field so there is very little vegetation but the snorkeling is great. We went there last year and it's where we got Callie to try snorkeling for the first time. The fish were there again this year and I got to see a parrot fish however the tide was in and the waves were big.

We only managed to do what we did last year. Hold on to her while she held her breath and checked out the fish. She still enjoyed it and saw a few schools of fish as well as a humu humu nuku nuku apu a'a fish.

On the way back we decided it was a good opportunity to stop at Big Beach since we weren't sure we would be back in this direction. It turned out to be an excellent idea.

Big beach is aptly named for the size of the beach but also for the size of the waves. Certainly not north shore big but for a sandy beach on this side of the island they are huge. They break right at the shoreline and Carter had an amazing time. He would let them break just in front of him and they fall down as the water rushed back into the sea. You had to keep an eye on him but he was pretty good about not going out too far.

A good thing too since the waves were big enough to knock all of us over at one point. The only bad thing about the day was that I think it will take us a few weeks to get the sand out of him.

Kerry, Carter, Kennedy, Brenda and Callie all went for shaved ice in the afternoon and we finished off the evening with a pineapple, chicken caesar salad and the Tigger movie.

Maui 2014 - Sunrise to Sunset

We got up very early so that we could see a sunrise and a volcano. Unfortunately we didn't see either. We were up at 5:30a and out the door so that we could get to the top of Haleakala, the highest point on Maui. With sunrise at 6:30a I wasn't really expecting to make it in time but I figured even if we were part way up the mountain we'd still get a good view. The weather however was not cooperating. It was raining quite heavily and the road up is very curvy so by 6:30a we were only part way up and no where near high enough to be above the clouds.

Even when we made it to the top the clouds were high enough that the sun was not going to peak through. The one good thing was that everyone who had made it up in time was on their way down by the time we got there. This meant we got to check out the park ranger hut on our own and the kids were able to become honorary park rangers. I'd also thought we'd be able to see the crater at the top, but it was completely fogged in. So in the end it was about 5 hours round trip to see fog. Not quite what we intended.

So far Kerry had been having pretty poor luck on outings. We went to Turtle Town and saw no turtles, we went to a volcano and didn't see a volcano so when she decided to go whale watching with the Duke's expectations were very low. It took a bit of time but by the time the trip was over she managed to see several whales. They didn't breach very often however one of them put on an excellent tale slapping display. We finished off the day with another trip to the pool, chicken for dinner and drinks with the Dukes. The sunset more than made up for missing the sunrise.

Maui 2014 - A Trip to the Ocean Center

We woke up to rain today, though Maui rain isn't like your typical rain. If you wore a bathing suit it's warm enough that you could still go to the beach. We had intended to go to the Maui Ocean Center so we figured a rainy day would be a good time to go. Unfortunately the center is a group of buildings and you have go outside between exhibits. It wasn't too bad though it did get a bit irritating getting wet every 15 minutes. I recommend that if you want to go, that you do it on a nice day.

The center itself was quite nice. Lot's of local fish. I imagine all they had to do to stock it was head out to the local reef with some nets. Some of the exhibits were outside including the tide pools. They weren't quite as exciting for Callie, I think because they just had larger creatures like starfish and sea slugs. She prefers some of the smaller creatures, especially the ones where you can touch them and they retreat back into themselves. It's much more fun trying to find them all and get them all hidden at the same time.

Kerry was our guide for the day. At one point I couldn't figure out why she knew so much about the exhibits. I had forgotten that she was carrying the speaking tour machine and was just repeating what she was hearing. Our favorite part was the shark feeding. A diver gets right into the tank and has a microphone so you can hear him as he feeds the manta rays. They look somewhat scary but are quite gentle as they eat right out his hand.

After the ocean center we came back to the condo and went on separate lizard hunts. The boys found 26 and the girls found 32. (I didn't know it was a contest otherwise we would have kept looking.) We ordered pizza for dinner and while we were waiting for it Carter and I went to play catch on the grass. Apparently we were irritating a grumpy lady who was mumbling something about ball playing being against the rules. (I checked and couldn't find that rule.) We have found that the 'owners' aren't too excited about kids wandering around but considering it's the renters that spend most of the time in most of the units each year you'd think they'd figure out we're helping pay for things around here. We finished off the evening watching Mulan on Netflix.