relaxing this much is hard work

One of the things I thought the girls would really enjoy is snorkeling. There is a great reef with tons of varied fish to see right off the resort's beaches and water sports equipment is available to any guest. John got some gear and decided to let the kids try it out in one of the pools first.

Allison got the hang of it right away, she was a natural. She and John snorkeled together I think 3 or 4 different times. She loved it.


Kate did just as well and enjoyed snorkeling around the pool quite a bit, but wasn't enthusiastic about trying it in the ocean.

Erin was a completely different story. After John got Kate and Allison going in the pool he sat and worked with Erin for nearly an hour, but she couldn't get the mouthpiece in and around her teeth correctly so that she could actually breathe with it. Her unconventional jaw shape and overbite were the problems, and she really tried, but couldn't make it work. Not surprisingly, orthodontics for her is already scheduled to begin as soon as we returned home.

Apart from new water sports, the girls made their own seashell necklaces, and enjoyed a Hawaiian BBQ complete with singing Hawaiian cowboys.


Terri and Randy took Erin kayaking:

Did I mention that Allison likes snorkeling?

And the girls swam nearly all day, every day. They put on their swimsuits first thing in the morning, attending breakfast each day all suited up and got into the water soon after eating. It was nearly always about 82F and the water was always warm too. Anytime was swimming time. We had to practically drag them out for meals each day.

Lawn games:

Visiting one of Kona's smaller beaches with black sand. Allison was ready to snorkel once again, Kate found the whole idea too much work.




Since Erin couldn't snorkel she just wore fins and a vest and her goggles and held her breath to look under and see the plentiful fish.

Cousins Laura, Tim, and Sydney joined us and Allison asked to be buried.

And then some fine black sand castle construction.

Another scene on the property, walking back from the black sand beach to the kiddie pool area.

There was a lot of climbing on each other's shoulders, especially on John's shoulders, and the size of the climber didn't seem to matter.


On Christmas Eve John got the idea to have the kids try surfing. What a great idea, the resort had a number of boards right there for anyone to use. The kids never went out far and the resort's beach doesn't have much for waves since the beach lies in a little cove. Still, it was surfing and Kate LOVED it.



Erin and Allison were successful too, but neither kept up with it the way Kate did.

Twin surfing:



On Christmas day we went back to the beach and all Kate wanted to do was surf, and she did, off an on, for probably 2 hours.

More kayaking for Erin, with cousin Laura this time.

christmas in kona

Our last full day in Kona was Christmas day. Santa managed to find the girls in Hawaii, thanks in part to a letter Allison wrote to him to inform him of our travel plans. After some small gifts were opened, the girls put on their bathing suits as usual and we had a nice breakfast followed by...more swimming and playing on the beach.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve Santa made a surprise visit to the beach, landing there in a boat as an employee played "Santa Claus is comin' to Town" on her ukulele.

Then, jingle bells in hand and bare-footed, Santa came up the beach to greet the Kona guests and take photos with all of the kids, and hand out goodie bags.



On Christmas evening as we gathered for dinner by the beach we got a group photo,


and watched the last of many beautiful Hawaiian sunsets as we ate a big meal accompanied by a bigger dessert buffet. It was certainly a vacation to remember, and I hope the girls do.

and the shows go on...

This fall has been a season of theatrics. First the twins' play, then the big dance show, and finally Erin's play, with each event accompanied by months of rehearsals.

Erin's play proved to be a big time commitment for me as well because when I volunteered (as I always do) to help with the backdrop and showed up at the planning meeting, I discovered that we had to create the entire set from scratch in about 10 days, and no one else who volunteered for the backdrop work had any experience with making them in the past. Nor did they feel especially comfortable with drawing or painting anything. All eyes quickly turned to me to create the set over the Thanksgiving break.

I didn't mind all the work it took so much as I worried about how the final result would look and if the teachers would think it fit the story well enough. This was a brand new play written by Erin's teacher and I didn't really know the details. I had previously made copies of the different speaking parts for her to hand out to the kids so I remembered vague categories of characters, which I kept verifying with Erin. "So, part of the story is in the mountains, right?" "And there's something about a tropical island?" And from that I created a not very complicated nor professional-looking backdrop, but it was the best I could do in the time that I had with my amateurish art ability.


And the central portion with the title and continents pictured below. When a couple of helpers and I put everything up, it seemed satisfactory. The teachers liked it and were grateful to have it done.

This play had a number of major speaking roles for which the kids had to audition if they were interested in the parts. Erin really wanted a speaking part and tried out, but didn't get one. Her role of the toucan in the rainforest wasn't very interesting, she kept saying.


I thought the story was very cute and the songs were very clever. The beginning of the play and the intro song along with the song about the continents (one of my favorites) is in the clip (it's long). I took a video from the back of the theater, but I got a copy of the video made from the front row by another parent:

Toward the end of the play was the rainforest song, featuring Erin as the proud toucan.







The school kids and the genies travel to all the continents, the mountains, the pacific islands, the rainforest, and explore the oceans in search of what the genies "lost". At the end of the play the kids discover that learning about geography is pretty interesting after all and that, say the genies, is what they were searching for.

It was really one of the better plays I've seen at their school, among so many plays that I thought were really, really clever and funny. The amount of dialog those kids with the main parts had to learn was really impressive, and they pulled it off very well.

And my backdrop was carefully taken down and wrapped up for storage, saved for re-use in case they decide to do this play again in a few years.