Busy and Exciting April

This has been a busy and exciting week for the Thomason family.I will begin where I left off.



The play that Mindy, Mackensey and Makayla were in (Honk) ended with their final performance and tearing down the set Sunday night. Monday morning Barry took the older kids skiing while I took Marianne with me to pick up my Mom at the airport. That night we celebrated Makayla's 9 year old birthday.

One of Makayla's favorite birthday presents was a loom for making elastic rubber band bracelets. She has made many bracelets and other crafty things. Makayla is very artistic.

Tuesday morning Mackensey and I went skiing together and my Mom and Marianne hung out in the Ski Lodge and watched Tangled. 

Wednesday morning  Barry and I got up at 3am to drive to the airport for our trip to Maui. He earned a trip through work for their convention. It is in different places every year. I was excited to be going to Hawaii,  fulfilling a lifelong dream.

We arrived in Maui at 3pm their time. With all of the palm trees, green grass and plants, I felt like I had gone home (to San Diego). I loved all of the natural flowers, fruits and greenery. I felt like we were visiting the garden of Eden. This was taken at the Hyatt, Maui.

The difference that I noticed between Hawaii and San Diego was the beaches. In Hawaii the sand was light tan and the ocean green and blue and clear. San Diego has grey sand with browish looking water. The beaches in San Diego are crowded, but not in Maui. I have a story about how clear the water was:

I found a recipe that I use to make homemade hairspray. The ingredients include sea salt, water, and hairgel. In my research on the recipe they said that if you use fresh seawater, even better. So I wanted to collect some water from the ocean to make hairspray from ocean water. I was having a hard time collecting seawater from the shore without getting sand in my container. So I decided to get some on our boat ride Friday afternoon. I grabbed an empty water bottle and put it in my bag. We went with a group of 30 people on a catamaran for about an hour long boat ride. Then we anchored down and went snorkeling along the reef. It was fun to see hundreds of colorful fish. With the masks on it looked like the reef was only 2-3 feet away and I was afraid to put my feet down because we were told not to touch anything! I took my mask off and the coral reef was more like 6-8-10 feet down from the surface. After snorkeling we ate lunch on the boat. That is when I filled up my water bottle with seawater. We came home and I put my seawater bottle on the counter as we got ready for dinner at a restaurant with Barry's boss and co-workers at Whaler's Village (about a mile from our hotel). 

Saturday morning I picked up my bottle with seawater to make my hairspray, but when I opened the bottle I could tell that it was a new bottle that had never been opened. I must have mixed up the bottles when I was on the boat. I felt bad that I was not able to make my hairspray, but I felt worse that maybe someone picked up my saltwater bottle by mistake and what a surprise that would be! That day Barry and I rented a car so that we could drive around the island and hike to the waterfalls. We would be gone all day so I packed lots of water bottles. A few hours in to our trip I grabbed a water bottle to get a drink and as soon as I took my first sip I rolled down the window and spit it out the window. I had found my saltwater!!! I was amazed at how clear the saltwater was that I got it mixed up with fresh bottled water!

One cool part about the 2 mile hike to the water falls was the part of it passed through a bamboo forest. I had no idea that bamboo was so tall (30+feet)!

We made it! Here is the 400 ft waterfall. There were several smaller waterfalls to look at on the way, but it was worth it to hike to the top to see the grand finale.

To get to this waterfall hike we had to drive around to the other side of the island, taking what is called, "the road to Hana." It is a tiny, curvy highway. It took us longer than expected to get to the trail head and we were pressed for time to get back to our hotel for the company dinner that was being held that night. It was a Luau for our last night in Hawaii. We decided that we wouldn't have time to change into our swimsuits or get in the water, just do the hike. It was still disappointing though when we paid for parking and were informed that the machines that monitored the water for flash floods was down and we were not allowed to go in the water anyway...So this is a picture of me "standing under a waterfall."

Well, we did make it to the Luau, just a little late and missed some of the entertainment. That was okay, though. There was still plenty of hula dancing during the meal. We even got fresh leis!

Sunday morning we packed up and did some sight seeing on our way back to the airport in our rented car. Barry wanted to get some fresh sugar cane to take home for the kids. He remembered eating fresh sugar cane when he went to Hawaii as a teenager. We were able to sample some and buy some prepacked to bring home with us. We also ate a fresh coconut. At the coconut stand we asked the worker as he sliced off the top of the coconut with a machete if it was always this windy. (Every day it had been very windy). He said that yes it was always windy and that Maui was nicknamed the windy island. I thought that was funny that we hadn't discovered that in all of our research we had done before coming to Maui. We had done a lot of research planning this trip. Barry found a list of "Top ten things to do in Maui" and we ended up doing eight of them. The two we didn't get to were: play a round of golf, and go bar hopping. We did indulge in the different fruit juices of Hawaii. Guava juice was my favorite. When we got drinks from the bar they had a "Mai Tai" mix that we liked. A Mai Tai is a Hawaiian drink where they have a mix of fruit juices (guava, pineapple and passion fruit) that they mix with rum. We of course drank it without the rum. We arrived at Kahului where the airport is a little early and had some time to kill. We had a picnic under a tree on the beach. We watched people kite surfing, and talked with a man who had come in from kite surfing. Basically they harnessed themselves to a kite and hooked their feet into a surfboard. The kite would pull them along, and when they come to a wave they would shoot 10-20 feet in the air! When this man came in he had a one inch gash on his cheek and asked if it looked to bad. We told him it looked like it would need stitches. He didn't seem to concerned. You can tell from the picture that there are sharp rocks sticking out in the ocean. The shore to the left was also very rocky. Obviously this is a dangerous sport! 

We took a red-eye home Sunday night and arrived at our house before noon Monday morning.Everyone had a good time at home with Grandma Olsen. They played boola boola every day (grandma brought treats to hide and sing "boola boola" louder and softer until you find the hidden candy).  The girls were excited to get and wear the t-shirts we got them from Hawaii. In this picture Makayla is wearing a t-shirt that has a picture of a fish with the name of the fish on top. The name of the fish is "humuhumunukunukuapua'a".She had to wear it to choir and show their teacher, who taught them a song with that as the title. Marianne got a t-shirt that had cartoon hula dancers on it. She wore it to her speech therapy session and showed her teacher that she got a t-shirt with boola boola dancers on it :-)

The week after our trip was filled with normal school routine. We were gone during the kids' spring break, so they just played and had fun. Grandma took them to the park everyday, they had picnics and roasted hot dogs and s'mores. Maddy had to work everyday, but she was pretty pleased with the paycheck at the end of the week. Sunday was Easter and a beautiful day for an outside easter egg hunt. 

Friday night April 25th Barry and I took Ben with us on our date night to Spokane. We went to Red Robin in Spokane where Ben and I got our free birthday burgers. They were delicious!

We arrived home to a house full of guests! Barry, Maddy, and a friend helped plan a surprise 40th birthday party for me. They can't believe they pulled it off without me knowing about it, but I had no clue! (I had secretly always wanted a surprise 40th birthday party, but how do you ask for a surprise party?)

Barry had been getting up in the middle of the night to make a cake without me knowing about it. He said that he couldn't sleep anyways, thinking about all the things he needed to do to get ready for the party without me finding out. I guess as soon as we left the girls all cleaned the house and made all the food. Barry used a blow torch to light the 40 candles!

Saturday morning we went to the annual city wide clean up and helped paint curbs.

We had a birthday party for Ben in the afternoon. Our children have their first "friends" birthday party when they turn 7 and Ben wanted to take his friends to the firepit on our property for a hot dog roast. They had a blast even though it rained off and on.

A friend's dad brought drums to play.

We had started logging our property earlier in the week and the kids had fun playing on the piles of logs.

It rained off and on. Here is Marianne who did not grab a coat like I told her to.

They even made a three room fort with the limbs in the slash pile.

After we sugared the kids up with marshmallows, we came home and cut up the pinata cake the Maddy had made for Benjamin. The candy that he requested to go inside: m&m's, skittles, and jelly beans. It was an interesting combination. We celebrated Ben's birthday again on Sunday (his real birthday) with leftover cake and ice-cream.

On Tuesday I got breakfast in bed for my birthday. We had cake and ice-cream for the fifth day in a row....

On Thursday May 1st I went with my elementary school aged children on our homelink field trip to go Roller Skating. As soon as I stepped in the building and saw the disco ball and heard the music I felt transformed back in time to my field trips in elementary school to go roller skating. Well, it was just like riding a bike and after 25 years I took to roller skating like I had never left.

The kids all took to roller skating fairly easily. We have some roller skates and roller blades and the kids enjoy skating in our garage. They have Maddy back up the car and the van and they roller skate and roller blade. 

They did fall down some, too.

After roller skating we saw went to River Front Park in downtown Spokane. We watched an Imax movie and took the Gondola ride across Spokane Falls. Spokane River is a huge, powerful river that flows through the middle of Spokane. The falls are so powerful they generate electricity. The gondola was an enclosed bucket ride that seated 6. We got so close to the water that the spray from the falls came in through the open windows. People who were afraid of heights chose not to go on the ride. It really wasn't that bad.

One funny story about Ben, then I will close this lengthy update. Sunday morning was a fast Sunday and the only people in the house who were going to eat breakfast were the two youngest, Ben and Marianne. They came up first thing in the morning and Ben asked what was for breakfast. I told him that I would get out some cold cereal and milk for them. This is a special treat, so I was surprised when Ben said, No, he did not want cold cereal. I asked him what he did want for breakfast and he said that he wanted crumb cake. Crumb cake is a favorite weekend breakfast, and Ben can normally convince one of his sisters to help him make it. I knew they would not want to make something in the kitchen if they weren't eating breakfast, and I explained it to Ben this way, "Ben, sisters aren't eating breakfast this morning, so they aren't going to want to help you make a big breakfast. Why don't you just have cold cereal instead?" He thought about it and replied, "What if we make crumb cake batter, but put it in the mini muffin tins so that it won't be a big breakfast?" Smart boy! My heart melted and I helped him make mini muffins for breakfast. I need to fatten him up anyways. He grew 3 inches in the past year and only gained a few pounds. He is just a very active boy. He especially has liked having the huge equipment on the property doing the logging and he loves watching them work. He would take several breaks from his homework to watch the logging. It is pretty fun, and we all have gone to watch them work several times. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed the update. Have a great week!