Remember all that ugliness that came with the sewer problems last year? We had to destroy the back walkway to get at the problem, and there it has sat all winter.

Two weeks ago, Ross and a coworker’s partner built this lovely form!

This is the formwork for the back step and walkway.

Then we paid a ridiculous sum of money to have a company come and pump it full of concrete. It was still cheaper (time and money wise combined) to do that than to rent a cement mixer, get all the materials needed to mix cement, and shovel/wheelbarrow it in ourselves. Here is what it looks like now!

Ta-da!

We also decided to create a concrete pad on one of the slope-ier parts of the backyard, and to make it the permanent home of the barbeque and picnic table.

Before: picnic area

And here is the “after”. This allows the table and barbeque to use an area of the yard that didn’t really get used because of the slope and general squashiness, freeing up the more level, sunnier, and drier part of the yard. I have some awesome patio lights I’ll be adding when I find them from the depths of the basement.

Ta-da!

The backyard is really starting to feel like what I imagined. Chickens, laundry line, a place to entertain, and grass.

Blissy blissness

Now we just need to finish up the mess that is the path that connects the backyard with the walkway / step and we are DONE. This is going to be levelled and well, generally made less awful.

Mess.

C is for Cookie

Last week I had one of those Norwex home parties. I kind of agreed to have a party a while back – rather randomly and spontaneously. I like their products quite a bit, because even though they are made from petrochemicals, I like that they do a good job and don’t require toxic chemical cleaners. There seems to be some controversy because they contain silver to be antibacterial, but my opinion is that a well made cloth will last for years and I’m okay with using them.

Anyway, I made peanut butter chocolate chip pecan cookies. I made four dozen. At the end of the party with eight women, there were five cookies left.

Yahoo!

Ross and I had the basement spray foam insulated a while back (at a cost of $2200) and after an energy assessment (this would be the third one we’ve paid for at $150) we were eligible for $750 grant from the federal government for the now-axed Eco Fit program.  A few dollars back is better than no dollars back, right? This is how we are financing, in part, the next step of new drywall. The drywall should have happened this past weekend, but the drywaller came by and there are a few things Ross has to fix up before the drywaller can come. Our basement has been in a state of flux for almost two years. What’s another few weeks? We did a whole lot of other work in our yard this weekend, but you’re going to have to wait until next week’s Picture Tuesday to see the before and after!

If you look closely, you can see some egg shells between her paws.

So I learned the other day that Mooki likes raw eggs. And not just raw eggs, but raw eggs in their shell. Kale and I left the other morning and after I dropped him at preschool, I had a meeting at a nearby coffee shop. We came home at lunch time, and the two eggs I had left on the back steps were no where to be seen. I started questioning myself – did I actually put them there? Maybe I did put them in the fridge and I’m just getting confused. After coming upstairs, I noticed a certain fuzzybutt was looking a bit guilty. Then I saw the shell crumbs on the rug. And by crumbs, I mean, exactly what you can see between her paws in the picture. Nothing else, anywhere. Mooki stole two eggs, in their shell, from the bottom of the steps, and managed to eat them completely, not leave a mess, and almost convince me I was crazy. Good job, MooFace. Note to self: don’t leave eggs where dogs can reach them.

Popcorn!

I’ve mentioned a few times that we don’t have a microwave. On Friday, I had Bonnie come for a sleepover with Kale and we had a movie night. We watched Toy Story 3 and the two of them snuggled adorably in the chair with a bowl of popcorn in their laps. I made the popcorn in a pot, on the stove. It was awesome. I can’t believe I ever thought microwave popcorn was tasty.

New ride!

The biggest news from this past weekend is that we bought a new vehicle. We bought a 2006 Jeep Liberty diesel. It was owned by a older guy in White Rock, who did whatever the dealership told him to do, and kept it in really great shape. We think we got a very fair price. Now, we have a Mazda 6 station wagon for sale, which has been a fantastic car but can’t pull our tent trailer. The Jeep is so incredibly awesome to drive. I really missed being high up. It’s also an automatic, which I haven’t owned since I owned a 1989 Hyundai Pony.

I just realized I’ve owned an awful lot of cars: 1982 Honda Prelude, 1989 Hyundai Pony, 1989 Dodge Daytona, 1974 Volkswagen Beetle, 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit, 1993 Honda Civic, 1974 Volkswagen 411, 1994 (?) GMC Tracker, 2004 Mazda 6 Wagon, and now a 2006 Jeep Liberty. One of these days I might actually get a brand new car.

Well, for one, I spent about 10 hours on the phone with tech support getting a replacement printer. It is so freaking huge it’s just nuts. But this one works properly, and well. HP satisfied me as a customer with their response to the horrible printer that required replacement 3 times and eventually was replaced with a different model.

I also spent a bit of time this past few weeks in sandals. Ah, yes, the nice weather has returned! I’m looking forward to cultivating my hippie birkenstock sandal tan early this year.

Kale also drew me a real picture. This one is two flowers. He ran out of room when he was signing it, which is why the E is on the other end.

We attended a birthday party on a Monday, that involved some very serious Jenga and some very serious beers.

Our solomon’s seal is growing vigourously. We have a little section of our garden that is in a rather shady spot. When I have time, I like to google “shade loving dry plants” and dream about what I can plant with it.

And I went for a walk last night, with some girlfriends, and was treated to this:

I’m going to try and post pictures from our week on Tuesdays. I snap a lot of pictures with my iPhone and they seem to be a visual representation of what we’re up to more so than me finding time to write. I picked Tuesday because that’s what today is and it seems like a good day to do this – without the busy-ness of Mondays but without the slackery of Fridays.

Without further ado:

Kale and I have been curating a "stick pile" at the park for about a year. It's a collection of "neat" sticks we have found. It started as a way to convince him not to bring home every stick he saw. Now we "visit" the stick pile and it has sprouted a secondary one a few hundred feet away.

Last week our chickens impressed us. One day, two chickens, three eggs, four yolks!

Taken at the farmers market Saturday April 7, this is the view from the boardwalk at River Market in New Westminster.

This pair of ducks hung out while I ate my lunch. They were very chill.

This past Saturday was my final winter market. Although I'm still involved with the farmers market for some of this summer, this was my last winter market and it was somewhat bittersweet. One of my lovely vendors gave me a bouquet of flowers, as did the venue staff!

I wanted to write an update now with a few more words of wisdom about what it really is to work from home and be a stay at home parent. Because you can be both and you can do both relatively well provided you have tight routines, a relatively agreeable kid, and a supportive partner (be that a family member, a person you hire to help, or a friend).

Good thing I love this view, I stare at it a lot.

First though, I want to mention that my routine has changed a bit as Kale has grown and has different needs. Kale now attends preschool from 9-11:30 Monday through Friday and that is the bulk of my working hours.

I still grab work in snippets throughout the day (while Kale is eating lunch, for example, or if he has earned 30 minutes of TV), and I still do a lot of work at night. Since December 2010, I have elected to no longer work part time evenings for my pre-pregnancy employer. I’m also going to be moving on from working for the farmers market; I’ve given notice and have committed to staying on until the end of this summer season so that a new person can be carefully and fully trained. The company I started with my friend has seen steady growth and we are successful enough now that I felt I had to “pick one” and do it well, instead of continuing to divide my time and do them only half as well.

So, when I sit down to work now, I have specific routines I use to keep me focused:

I settle into work with fluffy stuff. I take about 10 minutes and I flip around in my social networks. I watch a few videos, comment on a few threads, or reply to some mentions. I find if I dedicate a few minutes to engage my brain into the idea of sitting at a desk and working, and use those minutes on something I enjoy, it is much easier to turn them all off in 10 minutes and get down to it. After I shut them down, I keep them closed unless I am working for longer than two hours and am taking a brief brain break.

I operate using lists of three. Immediately after I shut down the fluffy stuff, I compose three lists of three. Critical work that must completed in this working session, work I need to keep chipping away at, and work that would be great to tackle. Sometimes I don’t have work that’s due, and I struggle to find a third or even a second thing to add to one of those lists. So I will also add things like “pay bills online” or “call Person X to chat”.

I track my time closely and carefully. In fact, I’m actually tracking the time it takes me to write this blog post out of habit. I use Freshbooks (and no, they have not asked me for the plug) to track and invoice for my time. Our company does as well. It is easy to track time and divide it into various projects and I find it helpful to see how I could have been more efficient. I also schedule downtime. No matter how busy you are, you need a bit of time off.

I ease out of work by tidying my desk. Sometimes when I need to stop working for the night / day, but have not actually completed the task, I find it hard to disconnect. When your brain is engaged, I find it really hard to just shut it down and stop. So, I’ve started easing out of work by tidying up my desk. I set up my computer to run a back up, and while it runs I tidy and put things away – pens, scraps of note paper, and folders. If I am done tidying before the back up, I give myself a few more minutes of fluffy stuff.

I schedule meetings during preschool. If that won’t work, I schedule them for when Ross can cover me or for when I can hire a part time on call sitter. Kale is good with being babysat by a number of people, and I have taken the time to cultivate a list of people I can contact. Some aren’t available during the day, and some won’t come out at night. Some work for childcare swapping and some I pay by the hour.

I rely heavily on technology. I worship my calendar, and note everything and anything in it. I take advantage of its ability to remind me of things and I share my calendar with Ross and my business partner so that we can consider one another. I use a MacBook Air and store almost all of my files in the cloud using Dropbox, which is also shared with my partner. (If you aren’t using Dropbox, I totally recommend it – it has saved me So. Many. Times.  And just so you are aware, if you follow that link, and sign up, I might get a bit of free extra space).

I should also mention that I no longer use a stand desk. I rearranged my office to allow space for my sewing machine and other crafts to come up from the basement, and found the stand desk simply wasn’t wide enough anymore and now sit at a very large heavy table with a comfy chair. I can’t say I prefer it over the stand desk I was using, but now all my things are in one place and I much prefer that.

There are days when Kale probably watches too much TV, and Ross probably forgets what I look like, and there are days when I probably don’t get enough work done. But we’re doing okay, and I like this working from home thing very much. I feel like I have achieved balance.

Photo by Justus Hayes, used under Creative Commons license

Today the Vancouver Playhouse announced it was closing down after Saturday’s show because they simply couldn’t afford to keep running. I’ve been hearing numbers of close to one million dollars in debt. I think it is terrible they have made this announcement, because anything having to close is bad news. I feel bad for the actors and other people who were employed by the Vancouver Playhouse over the past 49 years and I don’t envy the directors having to have a late night meeting to essentially disband what is considered an institution in downtown Vancouver. Twitter has been awash all afternoon reacting to their announcement, and the reactions have ranged from condolences and nostalgia to “non-surprise”.

Non-profits are a tricky beast. I’ve worked for and volunteered for a fair number of them, ranging from animal-focused or arts and culture, to my current employer, the local farmers market. I know how hard it is to start and run a non profit, having had first hand experience at creating a federally registered charity as well as other provincially mandated charities. To be clear, when I talk about “non-profits” in this post, I’m pulling from my experiences with an assortment of them and I’m not talking about any one in particular.

Getting off the Ground

There’s a conundrum in non-profits. In order for a non-profit to even get off the ground well, there first needs to be clear goals, mission, and values. This is hard to establish, because so often a non-profit starts after an individual or small group develops a desire to do something they deem to be a contribution to the greater good. It’s hard to remove one’s personal wants from the organizational goals. This is probably why so many groups or organizations pay homage to their founders – the founders plant the seeds and that deserves respect.

In order to succeed, a non-profit needs employees or volunteers to work fairly tirelessly promoting and acting on behalf of the goals/missions/values. Continuity helps in this; having the same group of people stick around long enough to hand off well explained responsibilities to the new people coming up the ranks helps immensely. In some instances, an organization can be 100 or 99% volunteer run, but generally as the group grows and expands and takes on more responsibility it will become inevitable that a person or group of people who are committed not only in spirit but also in monetary compensation may do better. In short, when someone is employed, they may very well be more reliable than a volunteer.

A Board of Directors usually steers the organization and do so using whatever judgement they deem to be the best for the group. Usually this works, and most directors are voted into their positions, although in very small organizations sometimes the required number of directors is all the committed volunteers there are. Directors generally follow the democratic process to arrive at decisions, although I have been involved in more than one group with “ghost” directors – people who have agreed to have their name on the paperwork but have no interest in the group.

Managing Success

Well intentioned people sitting on boards often struggle to manage organizational growth as success is experienced. Let’s be honest: you aren’t generally elected to a board because you are a bookkeeper or a professional fundraiser, for example, although that’s a boon to the organization if you are and are willing to share your skills with the group. Most people are generally elected to a board primarily because you are passionate about the organization and want to be involved.

The government doesn’t provide training with their BC societies or Canadian charity designations, and so many times the organization is left floundering a bit, and is ill prepared to run the organization. Let’s face it – “non-profit” means “doesn’t aim to make profit” but that doesn’t mean an organization isn’t responsible for thousands of dollars and complicated budgets, and it also means that profit can happen.  Most directors I know do the best they can with what they have and the organization does okay, whether by a particularly well matched director, employee, or volunteer.

Damage Control

But what if this doesn’t happen? What if the group realize they lack the skills necessary to do make the organization a success? Well, they’re usually going to do one of a handful of things:

Stop growing. If you can’t manage growth well, the surest way to ensure you don’t need special skills is to stop growing. Groups will stop undertaking new activities and focus only on managing the day to day, and often look to scale back where possible. No long term planning happens, and therefore, no risky ideas are explored and limited, if any, growth takes place. This is a stagnant but practical way to operate. No extra costs and no extra risks, but you limit the new supporters you will be able to attract.

Hire someone who can handle it or can teach you to handle it. This costs money, and sometimes those who govern organizations are faced with difficult decisions about reallocating budget to hire someone (as a consultant, contractor, or an employee) who can fulfill the goals and missions. This is so hard, because we all want our programs to have as much of the budget as possible, and skilled consultants are not cheap. You are paying someone to essentially guide you to doing a better job, and so there are long term rewards. But faced with cutting program X or honorarium Z or shutting down entirely, this one makes a lot of sense. This option tends to hurts feelings, though. No one likes hearing their funding got cut so that someone else could come and teach an organization how to “not suck”. This is the option that is often best for the organization, however, provided the person hired is well selected.

Muddle through in the name of “trying”. This is the poorest decision to make, and sadly, what I’ve seen as the most common one. This is when organizations green-light projects and activities that are detrimental to the future of the group; taking on debt the organization can’t afford because the directors like the idea, feel it is reflective of the organization, and desperately want to carry it out, but lack the resources to do it well.  This is a “head in the sand” approach to running a non profit, and this is where the conundrum is. How can an organization possibly do all the things the people involved are passionate about, and all things the people involved identify as being important, if they a) lack the skills to do it well themselves and b) don’t want to stop growth?

What I Can Do

I’m sad today for the Vancouver Playhouse and I wonder where it all went wrong. I don’t know that a lack of funding from various levels of government is the sole reason. It is terribly hard to run a non-profit well and even when it is run well there are so many challenges – funding being but one amongst many. Community support, committed volunteers, clear goals, and directors who have the right skills are all required to make an organization succeed.

So, today, I’m looking at the website of the Vagabond Players, my local community theatre group, to see what show I can afford tickets to. Community support is one way I can help ensure other arts groups don’t suffer the same fate as the Vancouver Playhouse. Anyone want to join me?

Where We Were

We stayed in Kihei, which is in south Maui, along the coast of the “big blob” of Maui. Here’s a map:

Map of Maui from GoHawaii.com

We visited west Maui and spent a bit of time in upcountry Maui, and we landed and took off from Kahului, which is in central Maui.

Arrival

We scheduled our flight to land fairly late at night on a Thursday. Kale flew well – he slept through much of it and although got a bit bored was easy to placate and keep occupied. We flew with Westjet and they were great both there and back with friendly staff and no hassles.

We were arriving the day before Ross’ parents (it was cheaper by a lot to fly that day), so I had booked a cheap room at the Maui Seaside Motel near the airport to crash in the first night. It was about $95USD for one night through Expedia. The reviews said it was “clean but dated and sparse and sometimes noisy” and it was rated as a 2 star hotel and that’s exactly what it was. The beds were really small but it was great for a late arrival and I have no complaints. The staff were incredibly friendly when we checked in and out, and we were given a free pretty decent breakfast I hadn’t known was part of the deal which was a nice surprise. We woke up fairly early, being still on Pacific Standard Time, (Hawaii Time is 2 hours earlier than here) and Ross snapped this great picture.

Sunrise our first Maui morning

After breakfast, we spent about 30 minutes farting around on the beach immediately below the motel. It was warm with a lovely breeze, and Kale really enjoyed digging in the sand. Ross got directions to take the bus back to the airport to pick up our rental car.  Maui has a public transportation system called Maui Bus and it’s a single buck to board. No luggage is allowed though.

Pretty much all visitors to Maui rent cars, and we were no exception. Ross’ folks had booked our stay in the full service condo we were renting, and part of the package included a car rental. Hat tip to Alamo for making the pick up totally smooth for Ross, and for comping us a decent quality car seat for Kale. Ross picked a Subaru Forrester. Not a bad mid sized SUV but next time we go as a group I think I’ll look for something with a roomier back seat. A car seat and two adults in the back was squishy on our longer excursions.

First Impressions

We stopped in Costco for supplies (hello giant bottle of rum and Pina Colada mix) and left Kahului for Kihei, about 15 miles and 45 minutes with the traffic. We made a mistake and drove all the way through Kihei on the busy and slow moving main strip looking for our condo, not realizing we were supposed to check in at an offsite office until we arrived and started reading through our documents. Whoops. We had time to kill anyway so it was no big deal, and it was nice to drive through town to get a feel for where things were.

The condo folks were really nice and let us drop off our groceries to the condo even though it was still getting cleaned from the previous occupants, and we dropped our luggage before heading off to check things out and find some lunch. The nice woman at the condo office suggested a place back in Kihei called Pita Paradise and pointed it out on the map. The owner apparently is the fisher who provides the fresh catch for the fish tacos. Pita Paradise was good – fresh and tasty with nice staff (the friendliness of the staff wherever we went will become a running theme in this post) but pricey (also a running theme). Two “fresh catch” pitas for Ross and I (amazing ahi tuna!) and a single chicken skewer with rice for Kale plus two beer and a juice rang in at $50 not including tip. Seemed high for a place you order at the counter with a questionable decor. But! we were starving and it fit the bill.

Settling In

Ross’ parents were arriving that day so after a quick dip in the pool, Ross dropped Kale and I off in town to forage for some food while he headed back to Kahului to pick them up. Seems we’d gone to Costco without thinking about small meals so Kale and I went in search of a grocery store and we settled on a box of mac and cheese.

Our condo had all sorts of goodies packed away in the cupboards to make it easier to stay – cooking gear, pots, pans, dishes, dish soap… you name it. They also provided snorkel gear, beach chairs, beach towels, etc. It was well stocked. We stayed at a place called Hale Kamaole and each unit is individually owned so the furnishings are the responsibility of the owner. Our unit was only so-so and I doubt I’d recommend that specific one although the condo management company was great. It was right across the street from Kamaole Beach III (really great for kids) and toward the end of the line of resorts, so a bit of a quieter place to stay.

The big complaints I have were that the beds were only moderately comfy, the shower head in both bathrooms was awful, and the whole unit seemed in need of an overall facelift – the art, paint, and finishing were kind of tired. Also: no wifi. I run on a Macbook Air so the “complementary wired internet connection” was of no use to me. I managed to pilfer a signal enough to log in every few days, but I was disappointed.  And, although this has nothing to do with the owners or the property managers, we had obnoxious neighbours who let their even more obnoxious 5 or 6 kids run totally wild.

But the thing is, the condo is only there for eating and sleeping and a mid afternoon break out of the sun so these weren’t deal breakers for me, I’d just try somewhere different next time. The condo grounds were well manicured and maintained and again, the staff were totally friendly and helpful. They had  a tennis court, two pools (open 7am-9pm), a concierge (more on that in a minute), and huge communal briquette barbeques (you supply the bricks). Most people there seemed to be either young families like us or retirees, with very little 40-50s folks. People (outside of the obnoxious huge party there for a wedding) were really pleasant.

We had hoped to alternate busy excursion days with days on the beach and we definitely accomplished that. Kamaole III and II were the preferred ones (because they are across the street) but we tried other beaches as well and the pool saw us regularly.

Excursions

We had three big excursions during our 8 days there. We went snorkelling to Molokini, spent a day upcountry doing some agri-tourism, and spent a day seeing the more tourist-y Lahaina. The first we booked using the concierge at the condo, who gets a cut of the price we pay and gets to charge us a “ticketing fee”. We didn’t learn this till later, but it is apparently quite common. It was useful to have someone with a wealth of info, but the person we booked with was kind of scattered and didn’t even know about some of the places I had pre-researched before we left. My tip: if you’re comfortable with a guidebook and Google, book your own activities. Just be mindful that if it seems like too good of a deal, it is likely a trap into a timeshare pitch. We also had a quick afternoon drive to Makena Beach and checked out a lava field. Definitely cool.

Molokini

Ross and I had a kid free day early on in our trip and we decided to try a snorkelling trip. I’ve snorkelled before when on my dad’s boat growing up, but Ross hadn’t. Molokini seemed like the best place to go. It’s a teeny islet off the coast of Maui that used to be a volcano. Half of it is submerged into the sea and now it is a protected marine area. You can’t go ashore to Molokini, but the snorkelling is amazing.

Molokini

We booked this one through the concierge/activity planner at the condo. She had provided us with the info on a number of outfits, and we selected the Four Winds II and I am really glad we did. What she didn’t tell us is that the significantly less expensive afternoon excursion isn’t guaranteed to go to Molokini (it’s windier and it is less time so sometimes they go to a coral garden closer to the harbour), but we when we showed up at the dock in Ma’alaea (where there is a massive amount of confusing construction going on) there was general celebration and merriment when the affable man-at-the-dock-counter announced that Molokini was the destination.

Most outfits offer the same sort of thing – food, beverages, gear, instruction, and one or two stops. Four Winds II offered an optional add-on lunch (served after you get out of the water) consisting of your choice of hot dog, cheeseburger, or chicken on a bun with chips, an open beer and wine bar that they were definitely not stingy with, high quality well fitted gear, and incredible (truly, incredible) staff. They were friendly, laid back, helpful, and were definitely out to make sure you had a good time. We paid about $120 for the two of us and felt it was good value.

The boat itself is a huge glassbottom catamaran and can hold up to 130 people. The day we went there was only about 25 so we really got a great experience. After the requisite safety talk, they told us to enjoy the boat like it was our own, coming by regularly to see if you needed a new drink, to fit you with flippers and a mask and snorkel, and to generally see if you had any questions. It was choppy on the water, so for those without experience on a boat (and even those with experience) it was tough to move around when you were on the top deck. The captain was a nice chap as well, stopping to observe and talk about the many humpbacks we saw over the loudspeaker.

The snorkelling was amazing and we got a good 45 minutes in with no other boats. I found this video online of someone else’s trip and it’s pretty much what we saw, although I missed the white tip reef shark (it swam away before I could spot it) and it was Ross that enjoyed diving to the bottom. I was still struggling with the tail end of my cold so I wasn’t really keen to push my luck.

We returned to the dock happy, relaxed, and bubbling with excitement from our outing. Kale went to the Maui Ocean Center with his Gran and Grandpa, and reports it was fun but dark. His Gran reports he liked it but wasn’t thrilled as some of the stuff was likely beyond his comprehension level. We’ll go again next time.

Sunny and windy on the Four Winds II

Upcountry: Surfing Goat Dairy and Ali’i Kula Lavender Farm

Being really interested in local food and small agricultural producers, I had wanted to spend a day doing some farm tours and getting a sense of the foods grown in Hawaii. We all known about pineapples from Maui, and sugar cane fields are everywhere you go. After learning how they harvest sugar (they turn off the irrigation for two weeks, then burn the field and harvest what’s left), I wanted to visit the Sugar Museum. We didn’t have enough time for it, so it’s on the “next time” list. Ross is also a big coffee fan, and we spent a lot of our trip eyeing “deals” on 100% Kona Coffee (most of it roasted months, if not years ago) and ultimately purchased fresh-roasted Maui-grown coffee from Maui Coffee Roasters on our way to the airport.

Some pre-research before our trip turned up two destinations we made out way to, both in Upcountry Maui at the base of Haleakala, the volcano everyone hears all about. (We didn’t go there either, but will next time.) We hit the Surfing Goat Dairy first and paid $10 each adult for a “casual and informal tour” on a working goat dairy producing award winning feta and chevre cheeses as well as some spin off items like truffles, goat milk soap, and other goodies. I really wanted to like this place but I was disappointed in the “tour”. We were given a lunch bag full of hay, walked 50 yards to a goat pen, were allowed to feed the goats through a fence while given a few facts about the farm and its owners, and then walked back to the main area to see the milking equipment and cheese making area. The whole tour lasted less than 20 minutes, and I suspect it was longer than most because Kale and I doled out the hay very slowly to the goats. Aside from that, I wanted to support them and bought a shirt and some other items from their gift shop, and I think they could do very well with a few improvements to their tour.  The goats were adorable, the staff were friendly, and Kale really liked it (he said the goats were the best part of that day), but I was expecting a bit more for a $10 per adult fee. They could do better but it wasn’t bad.

We proceeded to the Ali’i Kula Lavender Farm and it was great. They offer a guided tour option ($12), but the woman at the gift shop / info centre recommended we just take the map and wander at our own pace for no cost. They offered a “treasure hunt” for kids, where 10 stampers were hidden at various points on the property, and a completed card would get the child a reward. This gave us some direction to our tour of the farm and was a very nice touch. We wandered around and looked at some of the amazing flowers and types of lavender being grown and met a people loving rooster (there are wild chickens everywhere in Maui) and two chameleons lazing in a tree. It was a nice and beautiful smelling place to be. The reward for the treasure hunt turned out to be lavender shortbread cookies! YUM.

Nice view

We stopped in Makawao for lunch (decent enough food but overall kind of meh) and headed home by way of Pukalani and Paia, with a stop a Baldwin Beach Park.

West Maui: Lahaina, Kaanapali, and Kapalua

The west side of Maui is where the resort industry really started. Lahaina is an old whaling port and has some neat stuff to offer, like the world’s largest Banyan tree and some cool historical buildings, but it’s also become one of the shopping districts. It felt like a town out to grab tourist money. Every second shop was a jewelry store and I didn’t like the vibe. There were two standouts, though: Tub n Scrub Bath Salt Company where the service was so great I spent almost 30 minutes making my purchases, and Ulu Lani’s Shave Ice, where the man serving us was top notch and the shave ice was great. We had a fun family vacation moment when we returned to the car to discover that the breadfruit tree we had parked under had decided to splat a large and ripe fruit all over the hood and window of the car, and Kale thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Banyan Tree in Lahaina

We had lunch at a great place called the Cane and Taro restaurant, and moved on to Kaanapali, which was a stark contrast to the old whaling town of Lahaina. Kaanapali was the first master planned resort town in Maui and it shows. Row upon row of tidy and neat hotels. I felt poor. We ended the day at DT Fleming Beach Park at Kapalua which was a nice place and probably the beach Kale enjoyed the most.

Overall Thoughts

We really enjoyed our trip to Maui. Everyone was friendly, the weather was awesome, and it was easy to navigate. It was more expensive than I was hoping, though I’d been warned it was pricey so there wasn’t much sticker shock. If organized pay-activities or eating out are your thing, Maui might not be a best bet unless you have a deep wallet. If chilling out, spending time on the beach or at the pool, and cooking your own meals, with a few pay-activities thrown in here and there are more your style, then Maui is a definite best bet. We’re hoping to go again, and have a small list of to-do’s including drive the Hana Highway, check out the Sugar Museum, and see Haleakala. I’d pick another place to stay and plan my food a bit better, but I have no real complaints about our trip. It was just what I wanted and needed and we all had a great time.

Picture Gallery

Kamaole III on Dwellable

Typical "travel" for me in the earlier adult years

The travel bug never really bit me. I always prefer to be close to home and the perfect vacation for me is camping close by. I’ll probably be singing another tune when we return from Kihei where it is currently 21°C and sunny - ”OH MY GOD LET’S BOOK ANOTHER VACATION THIS INSTANT!”- but in 37 years it’s just never been my priority to travel to foreign destinations – there is just so much to see and do here in BC the northwest part of North America.

I made it! Vista # 10 at the Diez Vista Trail at Buntzen Lake (click for link to more info)

I’m currently accepting travel advice. While I have no real fears of Kale having a meltdown on the plane (he’s easy to placate and has flown before), it’s the longest flight both he and I have taken at 5.5 hours. Share your best “packing light” tips, or your tried and true “vacationing with preschoolers” in the comments.

As a reward, I give you a 2 minute concertina of “Green and Speckled Frogs” by Master Kale Arbo:

Green and Speckled Frogs from Jen Arbo on Vimeo.

Without further ado, here is my stash!

The whole kit and caboodle

The tower of boxes on the left is Celestial Seasonings Perfectly Pear (a favourite but discontinued I think), Celestial Seasonings Echinacea Wellness tea which tastes awful, and a box of Cozy Chamomile which is my least favourite tea. In front of the tower is a container full of my own chai recipe.

The tower of cans is all Tetley: Jasmine Green Tea, Tranquil (fennel and passionflower – yum!), Warmth (cinnamon and orange), and decaf green tea. I am not a huge green tea fan, but Ross is. Next to that is two packages from Great Wall Tea – Organic Lemon Lavendar Rooibos and one called Provence. What is missing is a third Great Wall bag as I am OUT of my usual tea called Arbo Grey because they were out of lavender – it is a Cream Earl Grey with Lavender. Below the Great Wall Tea packages, there are two glass jars – one is some sort of popcorn tea thing that Ross won’t let me throw away that he brought home from South America, and the other is loose leaf Earl Grey. In front of them is a cardboard tube with green tea that “blooms” when it is rehydrated – they look like blossoms. And the boxes on the right is a box of decaf Red Rose from when I decided I was having too much caffeine in my life (what was I thinking?) and a impulse bought Celestial Seasonings “Gingerbread House” from Christmas.

So much tea!

Now, let’s get into the large container of loose bags. A lot of these are from gift baskets, stocking filler, and tea passed on from people that think I’ll like it. In here are:

• 16 bags of peppermint tea
• 13 bags of lemon ginger tea
• 5 bags of licorice spice tea
• 2 bags of lemon blossom tea
• 2 bags of raspberry tea
• 2 bags of lemon spice tea
• 4 bags of organic chamomile tea
• 1 bag of Earl Grey tea
• 18 bags of organic free trade Indian chai
• 2 bags holiday chai (don’t ask me)
• 6 bags of chai green tea
• 3 bags double spice chai
• 4 bags “premium” green tea
• 4 bags organic green tea
• 3 bags fusion white and green tea
• 2 bags white tea
• 4 bags of “assorted tea samples”
• 3 bags of “mystery tea”
• sadly, only 1 bag of my most coveted favourite tea – La Tisaniere Pear Vanilla

I think I have too much tea! I also broke the basket on my loose leaf tea  pot not too long ago, so I am thinking I need a new loose leaf brewer and I’d love your suggestion.

Share your stash!

Our weather today is unseasonably sunny and cold, but according to the forecast, we will return to the normal west coast winter weather of grey and cold and wet. Yay.

Our animals are loving it. Well, Mooki does. I don’t know what magical properties snow has for the old girl, but I took her out for her walk this morning and she was leaping, bounding, snarfing, and stuffing her snoot into the snow like a pup. Of course, she is now passed out.

Mooki relaxing after partying in the snow

The chickens, on the other hand, are not totally sure. I went out to feed them this morning and discovered they were both stuffed face first into their nest box, which isn’t where they sleep.

Put your chicks in a box!

We are in our nest box together even though we do not fit. Because we are kind of dumb.

Remind me to tell Ross to take down the Christmas lights.

But it is a beautiful day.  Tomorrow the snow will be brown and melted and make everything slick. Today, though, it is fluffy puffy and pretty.

PS: It’s your job to shovel your walk. Your pedestrian neighbours will thank you. In New Westminster, the bylaw says the snow must be removed by 10AM. So get out there. If your neighbour can’t do it, do it for them and then reward yourself with chocolate.