Manual Labor

For some reason we decided our fence needed to be re-stained.  It obviously hadn't received any TLC since it had been put up and we decided it was about time it had some.

I had no idea how dirty of a job powerspraying a fence was.

The Big Guy Lowe loved it!  Take a look...

Nice legs!

I'm generally such a petite, delicate flower.  I just don't know what happened.

But that was one clean fence when I was through!

For the love of a sport

Have you picked up that The Big Guy Lowe is a HUGE Lacrosse fan?  He's an amazing athlete and loves the sport completely.  While he learned to play when his family was living out East, he played in College on the West Coast and has coached different teams when the opportunity has presented itself.

As parents, both The Big Guy Lowe and I have agreed that we won't ever push our boys to play specific sports; if they have an interst in something, we'll support it, but we won't push.

That being said, I know The Big Guy Lowe would absolutely *LOVE* to have his boys play Lacrosse. 

So he takes the opportunity to introduce the sport while their young...just in case they might show an interest that we could support.  :)

Our two youngest were interested today, and The Big Guy Lowe was very supportive of their interest.

Did you know when you dig a ball, you need to use both hands on your stick?  J knows.

Success!!

The Big Guy Lowe might say that there's nothing more beautiful than a boy and his Lacrosse Stick.  That is, until he met The Lowe Girl.  ;)

Big D was showing all sorts of interest too!

What cute boys natural athletes we have.

And what a great coach!

Cookies for Spring!

This spring has been horribly wet. 

I'm not kidding.  More consecutive rainy, cloudy days than I ever remember occuring in any past memory.

Rain. Mud. Cloudy. Dark. All this makes for unpleasant playing outside, because in addition to all the rain, it's been cold!  Argh!

So, when life gives a lot of rain, we try to picture the flowers that should already be here, but aren't because of the lack of SUN, and we make flower cookies.

These were yummy!

Bring on the rain!

(not really)

Toothy grin

How's this for a perfect smile?

We love it too...especially the boy who's wearing it!!

Home again!!

****WE LOVE OUR FAMILY****

It was so good to get back home to our boys that we love so very much!

Our flight back was very relaxing as the Big Guy Lowe and I enjoyed first class accomodations!  Thanks babe.  But the best part of the trip was arriving home about 45 minutes early which meant the boys would still be awake!!  YAHOO!!

We don't have any pictures of our arrival home, but we were so happy to hug and kiss our boys.  Thank you Mom for caring for, entertaining, doctoring and especially loving our boys while we were gone.  The most wonderful sound in the world was our boys surprised shouts of "Mommy!  Daddy!" when we walked through the door.  How blessed we are to be part of such a wonderful family.  We are so grateful!

We returned on Wednesday, June 19th and decided to keep our oldest son home from school on Thursday so we could all have fun together!  While we were happy to be home, it always amazing me how tired we come home from vacations!!

This is how we felt for the weeks following our return!!

It was fun to see how the boys and Grammy had decorated using many of the fun things included in their daily packages from us. 

We had a wonderful trip to Maui, but we are so happy to be home with our family.

Now we just have to wait until we go back to Ohau with the boys and grandparents too!  YAHOO!!

Ali'i Nui style

The goal of our trip to Hawaii was relaxing and enjoying our time together.  While there were many things we could sign up to do, there were just two things that the Big Guy Lowe and I actually scheduled before arriving in Maui.  We wanted to make sure we weren't being tied to a schedule.  Imagine that--life without a schedule!  We wanted to enjoy the beauty and freedom of a relaxing trip.  We were so wise in this regard!

During our time in Maui, we had the opportunity to snorkel from many beach sites.  Today was going to be different though--we were looking forward to sailing, snorkeling, and good food, all wrapped into one trip!  There were many companies to choose from, but I believe we chose the best!  We sailed the Ali'i Nui.  What a beautiful boat!

We were picked up in the morning and and enjoyed a short drive to the marina where our boat was docked.  We were told we wouldn't need to bring anything with us other than our sunglasses, as everything else that would be needed would be supplied on the boat.  It was kind of crazy leaving our room without our wallet or keys or anything else, but we found they were right.  They had everything for us--snorkeling gear, towels, sun screen, food, drinks.  Nice!   When we were planning this trip, we had a few different options for destination.  We didn't want to go to a location where lots of people and boats were going to be so we chose the sailing cruise that took us to a secluded reef that was a turtle cleaning station--meaning it was a natural stopping area for turtles as fish would swim and eat their shells clean.  Interesting!  Because the reef wasn't easily accessible from the beach, we were told it would be in beautiful condition. 

We were very excited!

First we enjoyed a leisurly sail out to our location.

We started in the front of the boat, but decided to head back to the rear of the boat where there were fewer people.  Look at this hottie I found!!  :)

The crew was great and kept us laughing throughout the trip.  Once we reached our 'destination reef ', we donned our snorkeling gear and headed in.  Just a side note, we had been doing so much snorkeling up to this point on our vacation that I had open sores on both feet where my rented fins had rubbed blisters raw.  I became very proficient at bandaging my feet to keep the sand out while providing some buffering.  Both the Big Guy Lowe and I were impressed with the quality of gear that was provided.  My feet were happy too!  And the snorkeling was great!

 

We enjoyed a wonderful day of snorkeling on a beautiful boat.  I would definitely recommend people taking a trip to a reef that is more protected.  Pristine coral, beautiful fish, the love of your life and good food make for an amazing day!

Our day on the Ali'i Nui came to a close, but we enjoyed a surprise treat that helped us remember the beauty of that day.  While driving down the coast heading to the airport, I noticed it was about the same time as our trip on the Ali'i Nui.  I was curious if we might see the boat.  We did!

We were so happy to see it that we decided to pull off the road at a scenic turn-off.

Ahhh, the memories...

Bird's eye view

After much reassurance, our oldest son reluctantly accepted that his parents were going to see Maui from way up high in the air.  It seems that he was very concerned about us falling out of the helicopter.  He had envisioned a helicopter without door/windows, seatbelts or any other type of protection.  I was touched when I saw the sincerity of his fear.  We talked about everything that would be done to make sure that we would be safe.  As I mentioned earlier, he reluctantly accepted that we were going on a helicopter before our trip, but was so excited to hear about it after we returned...I bet he would love trying it!  I bet all our boys would!!

Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Tours showed us views that everyone should see at least once in their lives. 
I snapped a quick shot of the monitor that just happened to be focused on The Big Guy Lowe and I!

The Lowe girl with pilot Jason in the background.

The Big Guy Lowe, sitting to my right.

You might not be able to tell from these calm, albeit happy pictures, but when we didn't think we were being recorded we had the biggest, toothy grins on our faces--we found that out when we watched the cd of the trip!  Haha!  We were just so excited to be on a real helicopter!  I'm smiling just thinking of it.  We were even able to sit in the front next to the pilot.  We were told it was because we were the lightest in the group.  NICE!!  I guess P90X really did it's job!  Yahoo!!

Here are a few shots from the sky.  For the full hour-long trip see the cd.

Views of Haleakala at over 10,000 feet.

East Maui

Northeast Shoreline

Central Maui coastline accented by fields of sugarcane.

Giddy riders after their trip.  Our Eco Star helicopter in the background.

What an awesome trip!  We loved every minute and still smile thinking about it.

To celebrate, we could only go to one place for lunch...Mama's Fish House in Paia.

Our food choices are as follows:

Drinks:

The house juice blend and mango-collatas--because we don't drink alcohol all our choices fall into the "virgin" category.  That being said, they were so good!

Appetizers: 

Hood Canal Clams, Kalua pork and Kimchee--this was truly one of the best dishes of the entire trip!

Entre:

Mahimahi caught by Shawn Boneza along the north shore of Maui Stuffed with lobster, crab, Maui onion and baked in a macadamia nut crust--another winner by far!

This isn't an inexpensive restaurant, but it was worth the price.  And then there was the view from our table...

Such a satisfying day.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.