A friend recently teased me because I said Hawai'i like Hawai (stop) ee. The matter of fact is that the glottal stop is one of the main rules in the language. And me, being the perfectionist that I am (and right now, particularly in tune with languages) am trying to pronounce Hawaiian words the correct way. There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian language, 5 vowels and 7 consonants. Like Spanish, Hawaiian vowels are always pronounced the same way and separately. You don't blend them like in english (e.g. weather). And the apostrophe denotes a glottal stop, like when we say "uh-oh". I don't sound like kama'aina, but I'm trying...
This past week has been rather quiet. Once I got sunned, salted and sanded after my trip back to Vancouver, I was all healed and ready to take on the next four months. It's so funny, after going back to Vancouver, I felt like I'd been away for so long (it had been a little less than 4 weeks), but my return to Maui felt like the real start to this min-retirement, knowing that I have four months now until I return.
My dad arrived on Tuesday after his long trip from YVR to LAX to OGG. He was alright, I was pretty impressed. We have taken him around to our favourite spots, Big Beach (where we couldn't swim with either him or the kids, due to awesome huge waves), Pa'ia & Ho-okipa (where my dad asked me in front of many tourists if I ever surf there - I love him for that), Lahaina & down to the lava fields south of Makena. The trip to Lahaina was quite funny, we got all dressed up for Halloween, the three adults were pirates and the girls were fairies. We did fit right in at the biggest Halloween party on Maui (and possibly Hawai'i). The highlight of Neil's night was seeing a supermodel dressed as some sort of sexy bunny and mine was a man dressed in a leather penis holder. Nothing else, just a leather penis holder. Not really sure what he was trying to be, but hey, how often do you get to see a man wearing a leather penis holder???
The week has been pretty quiet, I think my dad is quite amazed that we pretty much don't do much except go to the beach and drink. But without childcare, we can't really do too much. After one month, Neil and I are feeling this very strong need to "escape" our children. Please, don't get us wrong, we love our children more than anything. But we're really tired of them. And just between us adults, I think they're tired of us too. Okay, correction, we're not tired of them, we just need a little break for some couple-time. You know, nothing fancy, a walk, a coffee, some surfing or boogie boarding. Ooooooh, or how about getting drunk together at the local pub and stumbling home, or a morning hike in the crater, or scrabbling on all fours along black lava to a massive blowhole or a really long road trip where you drive with coffee's in your hands, snack whenever you want on whatever you want and pull over to take a hike inland to a really cool waterfall... Okay, for all you non-parents out there, you're thinking "just do it and bring them!" But for all the parents out there, we know you feel our pain. There's just so many awesome things to do here and our kids are just a little too little to do them all with us. We don't want them to get hurt or even worse, whine at us...
But - it's only 4 more weeks till Neil's parents come and I think we've told them (and any other house guest) that the only charge for this hotel is that you have to take on a bit of childcare. They're awesome and we know we'll have some alone time when they come. But in the meantime, our surfboards will have to collect a little more sand instead of salt, unless we can find someone else to look after these rugrats.
So, the moral of this story is this and I'm not sure how many parents will tell you this. Kids are a loud, highly irritating encumbrance. But I'd take that pain over any fleeting moment of drunkeness, gorgeous vistas or adrenaline. The End.
This past week has been rather quiet. Once I got sunned, salted and sanded after my trip back to Vancouver, I was all healed and ready to take on the next four months. It's so funny, after going back to Vancouver, I felt like I'd been away for so long (it had been a little less than 4 weeks), but my return to Maui felt like the real start to this min-retirement, knowing that I have four months now until I return.
My dad arrived on Tuesday after his long trip from YVR to LAX to OGG. He was alright, I was pretty impressed. We have taken him around to our favourite spots, Big Beach (where we couldn't swim with either him or the kids, due to awesome huge waves), Pa'ia & Ho-okipa (where my dad asked me in front of many tourists if I ever surf there - I love him for that), Lahaina & down to the lava fields south of Makena. The trip to Lahaina was quite funny, we got all dressed up for Halloween, the three adults were pirates and the girls were fairies. We did fit right in at the biggest Halloween party on Maui (and possibly Hawai'i). The highlight of Neil's night was seeing a supermodel dressed as some sort of sexy bunny and mine was a man dressed in a leather penis holder. Nothing else, just a leather penis holder. Not really sure what he was trying to be, but hey, how often do you get to see a man wearing a leather penis holder???
The week has been pretty quiet, I think my dad is quite amazed that we pretty much don't do much except go to the beach and drink. But without childcare, we can't really do too much. After one month, Neil and I are feeling this very strong need to "escape" our children. Please, don't get us wrong, we love our children more than anything. But we're really tired of them. And just between us adults, I think they're tired of us too. Okay, correction, we're not tired of them, we just need a little break for some couple-time. You know, nothing fancy, a walk, a coffee, some surfing or boogie boarding. Ooooooh, or how about getting drunk together at the local pub and stumbling home, or a morning hike in the crater, or scrabbling on all fours along black lava to a massive blowhole or a really long road trip where you drive with coffee's in your hands, snack whenever you want on whatever you want and pull over to take a hike inland to a really cool waterfall... Okay, for all you non-parents out there, you're thinking "just do it and bring them!" But for all the parents out there, we know you feel our pain. There's just so many awesome things to do here and our kids are just a little too little to do them all with us. We don't want them to get hurt or even worse, whine at us...
But - it's only 4 more weeks till Neil's parents come and I think we've told them (and any other house guest) that the only charge for this hotel is that you have to take on a bit of childcare. They're awesome and we know we'll have some alone time when they come. But in the meantime, our surfboards will have to collect a little more sand instead of salt, unless we can find someone else to look after these rugrats.
So, the moral of this story is this and I'm not sure how many parents will tell you this. Kids are a loud, highly irritating encumbrance. But I'd take that pain over any fleeting moment of drunkeness, gorgeous vistas or adrenaline. The End.
1 comment:
Hey guys,
Glad you decided to join the blogging world again. Of course you suckered us into FB first...but this is a better forum for us to follow your adventures. Keep writing!
Gillian and Jason
www.One-Giant-Step.com
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