But, alas, the end is near. We will spend the first half of the week indulging in a few more bike rides, one more beach day, and then begin packing our million point five items (we thought we would have so much space going home, as we brought so many items to give to Lucy, but it appears we might be heading back with MORE) into, on top of, and behind the van. We’ll head out on Friday night, make a stop in St. Louis so the girls can go in the Arch for the first time (we didn’t have time over the past weekend), and drive all night while they sleep. Then we will have just ten days to rest and recover, to rediscover our friends and our home, before reality hits. Reality being, school starts! This may seem overwhelming for most families, but for a teacher it’s double duty. Every year I feel like I’m beginning a new job all over again, and this year I kind of am. I am working with different teams and doubling up on my ESL class and teaching a computer class for the first time! It’s going to be a stressful but exciting new school year, especially since it is Riona’s first (and only) year of preschool and Mythili is entering kindergarten! Oh how the time flies… Seems like we were just pulling up, and now we will be heading out… but life is cyclical, so I’m sure we’ll be back before we know it, on two wheels or four. For now, here are my poems for the girls this July.

We are renting our house for all of June and part of July while we are gone. Karen put the ad up on Craigs List and it only took a few weeks for us to find the perfect couple who needed a temporary place to stay. It was a lot of work cleaning out the house and getting everything ready for them, but it will be well worth it since the extra money will help pay for our trip. It was also helpful to go through all the junk and get rid of what we didn’t need anymore.

We just left Karen’s parents house and before we were 20 minutes down the road we hit a hail storm slamming marble size hail onto our windshield. Of course it wasn’t that bad since we were able to pull over and sit for a few minutes while it passed. With any luck, that will be the worse of the weather we experience while driving.

Hopefully I will have time to write here some more as we go, though I don’t think there will be anything exciting to write about since the drive is pretty boring. At least I can say we will be able to since we now have a brand new iPad with an unlimited data connection! Woohoo! I will write about that later.

In addition to hiking, Isabella and I have been super busy with various Girl Scout activities. In addition to our usual biweekly meetings, we hosted our first bridging ceremony at Isabella’s school. This ceremony celebrates the girls moving from one level of Girl Scouts (Daisies) to the next (Brownies). Our troop learned a bridging song sung to the tune of “Frere Jacque” and they each received a certificate, a patch, and got to put on their new Brownie vests after they crossed our homemade bridge. It was a great ceremony, and we celebrated with homemade brownies, of course! We also went to a recruitment celebration where Isabella learned all about different types of animals such as service dogs, Great Danes, and even a horse. Last week, I took all three girls to another GS event–a mother/daughter event. They had different tables set up where the girls could make a potpourri gift for their moms while we made bracelets for them, they got to wear high heels, and then we took quizzes about each other. Now, we are in the midst of planning for our troop camp at the end of August, which, as with everything else with GS, requires a lot of paperwork and training. We’re also going to be doing early bird registration for our troop (another pile of paperwork), so needless to say, I have been very busy!

Besides the Girl Scout activities, Isabella has attended a couple of birthday parties, participated in a dance night at her school, and is getting ready for an end-of-the-year field trip to the zoo. Mythili has been busy practicing her songs and dances for her preschool graduation, took a field trip herself to the Plains Conservation Center, and just got picked by her teachers as Best Kinder Kid!

We celebrated my 32nd birthday with a prime rib dinner at my parents’ house followed by a hike. Bruce got me one of the best gifts ever–a homemade quilt, made by our good friend Heather. It’s a “sister’s choice” pattern in various shades of green to match our bedroom. The work that went into it is incredible, and I will always remember this as one of my most cherished gifts.

Meanwhile, I have been “training” for my half marathon, coming up this Sunday, via the bike. I’ve had a problem with tendonitis and have been unable to run, so I’ve been riding the bike like mad to keep up some form of cardio regime. I know it’s not the same, but at least I will be able to walk/jog the marathon on Sunday morning.

I have also started “teaching” another University of Phoenix course which will carry over into the summer a bit. And we’ve been super busy getting our house all prepped because we found renters–two doctors and their three-year-old-twins–to rent it for the summer while we’re in KY! Just goes to show–if you do good deeds, good things happen. Seems like that’s been happening a lot lately. I mean, I still have a job next year at my school despite the horrid economy, the massive budget cuts in our school district, and having so few students. Hmmm… it must be the weekly brownies and cakes I bake for everyone! (I know it’s not a direct correlation, but those good deeds bounce back, I swear!)

And yes, we are still spending the summer in KY. Baby Lucy is awaiting our arrival, and we’re almost all set to go. We leave the night of May 28, returning July 31. Exciting! If I don’t keep up with this blog, you can check out my other blog–my resolution for 2010 is to write every day: Step Write Up.

It started with Riona getting bit by Elizabeth’s dog and having to rush her to the emergency room in Aspen while we were visiting Glenwood Springs for the weekend with my family. It’s amazing how quickly a happy, relaxed weekend, filled with bike rides along the Colorado River and Glenwood Canyon, dips in the one-of-a-kind hot springs pool that is a block long, and hikes where the girls never complained and climbed rocks to their hearts’ delight, can turn sour and stressful. A shadow will always hang over that trip in my mind, darkening the happy memories, as Riona and I both couldn’t stop our sobbing when we wrapped her up in the blanket, held her down, and had four stitches tied into her lip. It’s not just the pain that she felt that hurt me so much, but the awkwardness of knowing my sister’s dog had done this to her, the worry that Riona would forever be afraid of dogs, and the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that somehow I had brought this on. And as if all of that mess wasn’t painful enough, as I was standing there with tears pouring out of my eyes and snot running out of my nose, the nurse practitioner turned to me and said, “When is your baby due?” Ouch. Times ten.

When it rains, it pours. For more than three years now, we have been receiving strange bills from the hospital where Riona was born, and have been calling the hospital and the insurance companies to try to figure out what went askew. It began with incorrectly billing us, then led to them sending the claim to two incorrect insurance companies, to the latest event of, despite the multiple calls I’ve made and the many attempts to resolve the issue, the hospital sending the bill to a collection agency. Now, some people might not think it’s a big deal and just move on with their lives. But to people like Bruce and I, who are so careful with our credit that we rarely have any debt, always pay every bill on time, and are 45 points below having a perfect credit score, this is a real blow. Especially when, apparently, Riona was supposed to be covered by an insurance company that we didn’t even know about, and the last hospital billing specialist who I spoke to had to make rude remarks to me like, “Well I just had a baby, don’t you know how it works? You have to call your insurance company to let them know you’re having a baby.” Could she add more insult to my injury?

In the midst of this, my car broke down. I should have started this paragraph with, I love my car. I’ve had it for nine years, it’s twelve years old, and other than regular maintenance and gas, I have spent exactly $350 fixing it. It’s one of the cheapest cars money can by, it has a million dents, the bumper is held on by zip ties, the front headlight is  attached with packaging tape, and the internal lights don’t work, but damnit, that car gets me where I need to go. So when it first began having issues starting up, and then just died on the road one day, I was only a little miffed at it. And since I’m already trying to ride 400 miles on my bike this month anyway, I just rode to work every day instead of four days a week. But inevitably we had to take it to the shop, where it sat for two days mystifying the mechanics who could find nothing wrong with it. After a week of wind and constant rain, and one 12-hour day of sitting through school, then parent-teacher conferences, then riding home in the dark and rain, I decided to try driving it again. It promptly died on the street right in front of my school. Needless to say, after a stunted attempt that evening, we eventually made it to the shop, and they were able to figure it out this time.

But three things just aren’t enough. Now my poor bike needs a tune-up. Will probably cost more than $100. But I can’t just garage it for the winter, it’s not even October yet! So I have to suck it up.

It’s not the money that stresses me out. It’s what I wanted to use the money for. I taught a University of Phoenix class over the summer–my first–and am in the midst of teaching two more right in a row. I already ordered about twenty books from the library to plan what I hoped would be a Disney vacation for spring break… and, stupidly, already told the girls about it. And when everything happens in a row like this, I think about those scenes from that movie Up, where they have a giant jar of money saved up for their dream trip to South America, and then the tire goes flat, a tree crashes down… one thing after another. I know it’s not the end of the world, that things could be a million times worse… but it still hurts. It’s still a reminder of how hard it is to get ahead, no matter how careful we are.

So even though this blog is a celebration of our family life, I think challenges still fit in. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? And we will get through this, we will still have beautiful pictures to post, beautiful stories to tell, and in so, so many ways, we still have the perfect family.

The tubing day down the Current River was a blast. Isabella is a fish and had to be dragged out after five and a half hours of submersion! Even Luna liked sitting on the edge of the six-person raft. Poor Zak had the girls climbing all over him in his tube all day. And seeing the Big Spring, the largest natural spring in the world, pour out of the mountainside with a never-ending gush of water, was amazing.

In Tennessee, we had a nice time visiting with Bruce’s parents, siblings, and nieces and nephew. We had a long drive through Sweetwater on Route 11 and discovered a dairy that made its own cheese. Now that’s my kind of place! Aunt Donna watched the girls that night so Bruce and I could have a date in Knoxville at one of the local restaurants in the Old City. We of course had to visit Mr. Gatti’s, my favorite pasta and pizza buffet. Bruce’s parents also bought the girls some beautiful “spinny” dresses while we were there. The girls loved playing on Nanny and Pappy’s swing and seesaw, as well as feeding the horses in the pasture next door. And Nanny and Pappy’s cat, Tiger, just rubbed up against their legs all week, happy for the new attention!

When we returned to Kentucky at the end of the week, we drove up to Illinois for a day and took a hike through a cypress swamp. All of the duckweed made the water seem surreal, and the girls loved the idea of “trees with knees,” as the cypress roots grow up out of the swamp. They even caught two frogs! On the way home we stopped in Metropolis to see the Superman statue. I always loved watching the Superman movies growing up, so much so that I believed he actually existed!

After that road trip, we had a few days to rest and weed our garden. We packed up a multitude of green beans from the garden into the Food Saver bags–another gift from Nanny–and picked the rest of the red leaf lettuce and plenty of squash and zucchini! Then we were at it again, packing up our car for a weekend camping trip with our friends the Mentzers. Isabella and Reuben became friends in preschool, and soon we were all friends, especially with the convenience of them having three boys who are the same ages as our three girls! Though we probably didn’t plan the trip as well as we could have, we still had a nice, though somewhat cool, weekend camping in a KOA near Cripple Creek. The kids love running through the woods, playing “hunting cats,” roasting hot dogs for dinner and marshmallows for s’mores, and telling scary stories around the fire before running around with flashlights chasing each other. We took them on a hike to the not-so-impressive Florissant fossil beds, and watched as they went a bit wild in the game room that had no games during the afternoon thunderstorm! On Saturday evening, the adults took turns watching the kids and taking a nice break in the hot tub. We were lucky in picking our tent mates, as Dana is a chef and prepared a couple of gllorious meals for us all despite the somewhat catty weather!

Now the two older  girls and  Mentzer boys are in Construction Camp this week, where they build various types of projects each day. During the two hours that they’re there, I’ve been squeezing in some nice bike rides, trying to get in training for riding to work more this year. Other than that, we are planning one trip to Lakeside Amusement Park with our library coupons, at least one more trip to the zoo, another free movie for kids, and at least one more swimming event, if the weather cooperates. And that… ties up our summer. I wish I could stop time, drag it out, make these moments last longer, because they’re growing up too fast. But I can’t. I just have to count my blessings and accept the fact that summer is over, and change the ticker on my computer to count down to fall break… A teacher’s life is so hard…

Despite the plane hassles, we had a good trip. We arrived just a bit late to my cousin Hallie’s high school graduation party on Saturday night. Isabella made immediate friends with my cousin Jesse’s little girl, Willa, and they ran all over Aunt Willow’s 5 acre lot. We had delicious shrimp cocktail and enchiladas for that affair, then settled the kids and ourselves down for the night on the creaking floors of their 200-year-old New England home.

The next morning, we got everything ready for Grandma’s surprise 80th birthday party. We set up the tables and champagne glasses under the tent, made the antipasto trays, and put the lasagnas, eggplant Parmesan, and chicken Parmesan into the oven. Willow made all of these things in advance! Pretty soon, Grandma’s friends from Connecticut arrived. When my parents brough Grandma and she saw what was going on, she immediately burst into tears. It was a great party, filled with memories, especially in the memory book that we put together. Everyone brought 1-2 pages of pictures, stories, and poems. Grandma spent most of the afternoon carefully reading each page.

The next morning, we took Elizabeth and Zak to the airport in Boston, leaving Isabella with my parents to spend the day in Newport. After the early morning airport dropoff, we took the girls to the New England Aquarium. They were feeding the loud and rowdy penguins just as we arrived. We made our way up the ramps and looked at all the smaller fish tanks, making our way to the top of the four-story tank where they were sending in divers to feed the fish. The girls loved it, at least until the end when Riona adamantly shouted out, upon coming to each new tank, “I don’t want to see this one right now!” We then walked over to Quincy Market, a huge stone hall that’s about the largest food court I’ve ever seen, and shared clam chowder in a bread bowl and a turkey wrap. We meandered around the Faneuil Hall area, watching a few street performers, then walked towards the harbor. The girls rode on a carousel, and we did the harbor walk, spying the grand hotels, ferry boats, and jellyfish in the water.

On Tuesday, it wasn’t pouring rain anymore as it had been early on Monday, so we headed over to South Shore Beach in Little Compton, the next town over from Willow’s house. We spent the day splashing in the waves, discovering the creatures in the small ponds, and boogie boarding, which I did mostly with Elias, but even Isabella tried it out a few times.

Wednesday, the rain returned, so we took the girls to the children’s museum in Providence with Willow’s $2 library coupons. They had a great time exploring, playing in the water works exhibit, with the blocks, and with a construction set. We then went home and watched Marley and Me, and had my parents and grandma over for our delicious dinner of fried flounder and steamers.

Thursday, the rain returned, so we decided to take grandma grocery shopping and to her favorite store, Savers. Grandma has Alzheimer’s and is very forgetful, so she had to argue with me over every item on the list, saying she had ten of them at home, but I finally coaxed her into shopping. We went out to lunch at Papa Gino’s Pizza, bought Isabella a “new” raincoat at Savers, and headed home. Grandma took a nap while I went to the fish market to pick up some scallops, halibut, and more steamers. I always like to eat as much seafood as I can when I visit Rhode Island! So that night we had a delicious meal of scallops, vegetables, and couscous.

On Friday, the sun came out, so we headed to Tiverton’s bay beach, full of rocks, periwinkle snails, hermit crabs, and even a couple of horseshoe crabs! The girls had a blast collecting all the little critters and putting them in the bucket while Willow and I had our usual child-rearing discussions under her flamboyant beach umbrella. Grandma loves the water, so everyone had a great day, topped off by our beer-battered halibut and (slightly overdone) steamers. Bruce and I even rode down the coast for an ice cream treat on the bikes that Dad keeps at Grandma’s.

Saturday was of course the only day of the week that started out with pure blue skies, and we were leaving! Dad and I squeezed in one last bike ride around the bay, and then we all walked down to the Coastal Roasters coffee shop by the water and enjoyed one last cup of joe before heading to the airport. And what a surprise! When we got there, they didn’t have an itinerary for us. But it all worked out in the end, and we arrived home too exhausted, save Mythili and Bruce, to even go look at the fireworks show.

Now we’re taking a few days off before partaking on another journey: a road trip to Tennessee and Kentucky on Thursday night. Finally, we can control our travels and are heading to someplace where, even if it rains, it’ll be hot!

Bruce and I started out the summer with a Rockies game sponsored by the school district where I work. We were able to get great seats behind third base. First, we went out to eat at LoDo Bar and Grill, then headed over to the game, had some cotton candy and Blue Moon beers, and watched the Rockies come back in the bottom of the ninth inning from a 7-6 score to winning the game 8-7! I must say, that was the most exciting baseball game I’ve ever been too! Bruce and I went to a bar and listened to some live music afterward, and then topped off our evening with some highly overpriced coffee and dessert at the Cheesecake Factory. It was the perfect way to begin our summer. We picked up the girls from Grandma and Grandpa’s house the next day and celebrated Grandma’s birthday.

In addition to swim lessons, we have made one visit (on the ONE nice day) to Cherry Creek Reservoir. Riona enjoyed this more than anyone. She is thrilled to just rn out of the water, pile up the sand, roll around and for two hours repeat, “Look at me, Mama!” Isabella and Mythili love to run back and forth between the “beach” and the playground with its ginormous mound of sand that they climb up and down like monkeys.

Last weekend, we rode the bike over to the library while Bruce visited his friend Kasey. The library does a summer reading program every year, and this year we decided to go to the opening celebration. The girls bounced in the bounce house, toured the Arapahoe Sheriff’s mobile unit, and watched a puppet show about safety. They had a blast, and at the end we enjoyed a nice hot dog lunch at their adjacent cafe.  On Sunday, just after a tornado touched down not too far from our house, we enjoyed our first kid birthday party of the summer. My friend Kristen’s little boy, Kylen, turned one, and amidst the trapped-indoor house, parents and kids alike had a great time hanging out.

We have also made one trip to the zoo, watching the streams of lilting cotton from the cotonwood trees fall around us and gather on the ground like snow, watching Riona squeal with delight each time she sees another animal, and never hearing a single complaint about legs hurting as we meander through the huge, beautiful, one-hundred-year-old trees. On this trip, we visited the lorikeet enclosure, where the girls happily fed the brightly colored lorikeets nectar out of a tiny cup.

Yesterday, we had a Girl Scout meeting to practice our flag ceremony and plan who’s bringing what food to our unit camp at the end of August. I think it will be a fun but overwhelming two days in camp with more than a hundred Girl Scouts, but hopefully Isabella will enjoy the experience! And last night we had the Mentzers over for dinner–they have three boys who are the same age as our three girls! The adults had a great time talking while the kids ran in and out of the house chasing each other with pop guns and spreading Legos everywhere.

We have another two weeks of swim lessons before our trip to Rhode Island, and when we return we are tentatively going camping with the Mentzers and then the two older girls will be in a Construction Camp with the two older Mentzer boys at the end of July. We’ll see what we can squeeze in during the meantime…

Even though I missed Bruce and the girls terribly, calling them every morning via Skype, I spent the week enjoying Hannah and Jake’s company and hospitality. We started out visiting Sansei, a sushi restaurant in the town of Kihei. Though I was apprehensive at first, as I’ve had sushi before and haven’t had much of a taste for it, this was by far the freshest, most delicious sushi I’d ever tasted. I had a side of vegetables grown on the island’s upcountry, and on the way home saw the “Sugar in the Raw” factory. Maui has relentless sugar cane fields, and I learned on this trip that it takes 1 ton of water to produce 1 cup of sugar, water that they irrigate from the rainforest on down.

On Monday, I went with Hannah’s friend Allison to Ka’anapali Beach near Lahaina town. We stopped along the way to see the world’s largest banyan tree, whose branches reach out to form roots that are as thick as trees themselves. We spent the day relaxing on  the beach and saw three humpback whales swimming by… then Hannah got off work early and met us at the Hula Grill for lunch. I was more than pleased to see that they served only locally grown and caught food, including the pineapple and guava juices for our mai tais and the ahi fish for my taco. Delicious!

Tuesday was my first day on my own. After taking Hannah to work, I navigated my way to the olivine pools along the northeastern part of Maui’s “head”, thanks to the maps and recommendations of the book Maui Revealed. It was a one-lane road along a sea cliff with outstanding views and a few scary encounters. I stopped at a food stand and bought the most delicious fresh pineapple and banana I have ever put in my mouth! The hike down to the pools along the black lava rocks was a bit intimidating in my crocs, but I made it and was amazed at the contrasting images of the calm pool and the waves crashing violently on three sides. On the way back, I picked up some homemade banana bread from another stand and made a stop at Iao Needle State Park, took a short hike, then took a quick stint at a beach on the side of the road near Kihei. Then Hannah and I went to her Bikram yoga class, 90 minutes at 105 degrees. It was pretty intense, but we both felt great afterward.

On Wednesday, I spent the morning at another nice beach in Kihei and then went to the mall to, for one day only, do some shopping. I just couldn’t go to Maui and not buy some Hawaiin clothes to bring home to Bruce and the girls. I also bought Bruce some Maui-grown coffee, a Hawaii beach towel, and some chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Yum!

Hannah had Thursday off, Prince Kahukio or some Hawaiian’s holiday, so we took the long drive along the Hana Highway, one of the most famous and beautiful drives in the world. All along the road were gorgeous views of the sea cliffs, the crashing waves, and on the other side, endless waterfalls and more varieties of trees and plants than I could imagine in my dreams. We saw everything from ferns to tulip trees to rainbow eucalyptus trees. Towards the middle of the drive, we stopped at Waianapanapa State Park (try saying that a few times) and I saw for the first time in my life a black sand beach. With the shiny black lava stones on top and the white waves crashing to the shore, I felt as if we’d entered another world. We took Duke, her French bulldog, along what we thought was a loop hike along the shoreline, traversing up and down a variety of lava, seeing a natural arch, a sea cave, and lush green plants growing in stark contrast to the black rocks, only to end up at the Hana Airport! Duke, wheezing from exhaustion, had to be carried a good part of the way, and we were able to hitch a ride back to the park. We hit the road again, saw more waterfalls and the other side of Hana with the rolling steppe-like climate. Amazing! We picked Jake up from his job site in the desert, went to happy hour, then had a relaxing evening at home.

My last day in Hawaii, I went back to Ka’anapali Beach to snorkel next to black rock. Again, I was amazed. I only had to walk ten feet into the water and a coral reef filled with fish that swam inches from my face surrounded me. After snorkeling, I read my book under the nice shade tree and had one more lunch at Hula Grill. That evening, Hannah and Jake treated me to a delicious fish sandwich at a famous local restaurant in Pa’ia, and then we went to the mall to see one of Jake’s coworkers perform his own Hawaiin-style music before they took me to the airport.

Even though I wasn’t expecting this trip, I will always remember it, not only for the beautiful scenery that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, but for the opportunity to spend time with Hannah, the cousin I grew up with and will always hold close to my heart. And when I returned to what was left of a heavy snowfall and three clingy little girls who all wanted to hold my hand as we walked out of the airport, I was happy to be home, but I know that I will always hold a piece of Maui in my heart.