A few equivalents of thousand words.

The view from our hotel balcony at the conference hotel. Um, amazing.

Kayaking in the hotel lagoon, with Princess Tiger Lily and Pirate Tucker.

Matt enjoying the local delicacy of shave ice.

Roadside caves, near Hanalei, on our last day on Kauai.

Before it's gone.

Long time no post here.  Last day of vacation, and a well-spent one. Since all the good pictures are on the camera, which I brought the wrong cord for, no uploading of visuals is possible until we return, technically some time Monday morning.  Much of the next 36 hours will be spent en route.

This is the longest "vacation" (read: vacation weekend-Matt conference at VERY swanky hotel-vacation weekend) we've ever taken as a family and I learned any number of really important things on it in addition to actual relaxation.  Some of them are quite simple.

1) You can never pack enough underwear.
2) The further you are from home, the more helpful it is to know where the emergency room is.
3) Every dessert target-marketed to small children drips, leaks, spurts, or otherwise is not a good match for church clothes. They all still taste good. Jesus still loves my kids when they're sticky (thanks god!).
4) When you are on an island, there is sand. Everywhere. Just deal. It's all good. It will all get back to the ocean someday anyway.
5) When you're a tourist you might as well act like one--this doesn't mean being rude, just that it's okay not to try to act like a local who knows where you are, where you're going, what's cool, where to eat, and so forth.  When in doubt ask. Other people love to be experts.
6) We had a day today for just being. Not doing.  It rocked. Will try to plan a "being day" into future vacations. Went almost nowhere. Did almost nothing. Enjoyed where we were without trying to go anywhere else to see more.  It was nice. Did some laundry which was also most excellent because now we'll have clean clothes to wear our first day home. yay that.

When there are pictures of the incredible journey uploaded, I'll share and get back to posting here. Then maybe I'll start applying some simplicity to the rest of my life so I have more time to blog... :)

Parent share night!

A video of a young man who dearly loves table washing at his preschool, demonstrating the "soaping the table" step of the task to his captive audience.  You will note that, in order to be allowed to serve as his assistant, his sister was also required to wear an apron.  Mama escaped the aproning by pleading camera duty.  I particularly appreciate his booty-shaking table-washing dance in the middle, around :17.

Too pretty not to post.

We went to my friends Mariel and Adam's wedding a few weeks back, out in the Longmont countryside on a beautiful October day. And some young man decided to make friends with the photographer. Future dress shirt model?  I report. You decide.

Halloween hijinks.

Long time, no blog, I know. But October contained two Matt trips, and two shows which opened and closed. With great sales and some rave reviews, so both companies are off to a great start for the season.

I slept for eleven, count them, ELEVEN hours last night.  And there were approximately the same number of inches of snow on the ground this morning.  Which means I have five minutes to upload photos of the kids' adventures. Because isn't that what every adoring mama does with her copious spare time when November finally comes and it's not Thanksgiving panic break yet?

T's class went to the pumpkin patch up in Longmont the Friday before All Hallows' Eve.  The train there was the highlight of his trip.  Here he is with a friend in a middle boxcar, and then in the caboose:

Slightly after T's big Halloween trip to the patch, M's school had a costume party and crafts day on Monday, where she made a cute little spider-and-ghost mobile for the kitchen. Here is the Wicked Witch of the West, with SuperGirl:

And the two troublemakers together, on their way to a Saturday night Halloween soiree. For those of you not au courant with Pixar films, T was Dash from "The Incredibles." I love how the costume is one size too big so it looks like he has a very muscle-y potbelly. M is doing her best to look wicked:

Now that we've passed the four-day-holiday-marathon that Halloween was this year, I can clean house and dig out all the winter clothes.  Clearly we need them since we're already having our second snowstorm of the year.  T tried to sneak shorts under his snow pants at one point in the recent past, but we are now past those days of innocence.  Now I have firmly implanted that SNOW = PANTS.  His future wife will thank me one day, I'm sure.