school photos, and holiday fun

Hello!

This year I forgot somehow to take the 1st day of school pictures, but I have 2 somewhat scruffy school photos to share ;-)  Iain is now in 11th grade, 16 years old, and Ria in 7th, 13 years old.  Goodness me!  This year for Iain is going to involve thinking and planning about college applications.  yeep!  This has all 3 of us somewhat stressed, needless to say.

Both kids are doing great this school year.  Iain is in the Freestyle Academy program at his high school, which pairs the English class with 2 elective courses, digital media (where they learn to use digital cameras, record audio, use photoshop and other programs, make web pages, make videos) and in his case animation.  All of the English class work is done project based using the skills learned in the 2 electives.  Iain is LOVING it!  He has found an artistic side to himself and is throwing himself with glee into it.  For Christmas his main gift was a drawing tablet for his computer, and he's been exploring it non-stop, with great joy.  Here's some eye candy from his efforts:

He has also started taking piano lessons this fall, though those got interrupted for a few months while he healed from a broken bone in his hand - he took a dump off his bike the day after his birthday.  He's back on the piano, back at aikido, and back on his bike (though rather less often as he's made friends on the city bus to school).  He never left the computer, and now has a D&D group he plays online with kids in Japan, England, and across North America - a true 21st century digital boy (without the connotations of the song).  He's taken an online drivers ed class, but hasn't yet taken the written test to get his permit.....soon, though.

Ria started taking guitar lessons this fall, and has gotten to the point where she is playing some songs that she likes, and I hear her singing along up in her room while she practices.  At school she's getting great grades, and in 2 of her 6 academic classes she is independent from her classroom aide.  In 3 others she only needs medium support, and in the last she needs strong support (nearly 100% project based group work).  So, we're starting to talk about how to wean her off her classroom aide next year.  They have roving aides assigned to the school in general so that she can have help in just 1 or 2 classes and be independent in the rest.  The goal is 100% independent, as long as she can maintain a B or better in grade level classes.  Even without the aide she'd still have the support class (in addition to the academic classes) to get help from her case worker in organizing, etc.  She's joined at D&D group at the local game store which is run by a guy who used to be a special education teacher, and has merged that with his love of gaming, so its a perfect group for her giving her all the support she needs to have FUN!  She also is taking karate lessons 2x/week, and has just been awarded her first "stripe" on her belt.  The yellow belt for kids is broken into 4 steps, 1, 2, and 3 strips, and then the yellow belt proper.  With her coordination issues its taken her longer than most to get that stripe, so it has truly been a labor of love.  So proud of her.

Our house has sprouted gluten based objects now that Ria's gut is healed to gluten tolerant levels.  Our gingerbread house was a great success, and was plundered on New Years Eve.  William has been sporting a new blanket on the couch, which comes with cat enhancements.

And, there's been some holiday projects:  shelves for cats, and new antennas!

Finally, proof that I've been here too.  Happy New Year ;-).

Passports !!!

Hi....
Long time no blog ;-)

Starting to feel like sharing more than just photos on Facebook....starting with.... The kids have just received their Canadian Passports!  They're official!  Well, they were already official, but now they're official-official.  The photos are cute:

As the images are precisely matched for head height, you can really see the differences in their face shapes... so funny they both came from the same source!  Their bodies and teeth have the same slim/sturdy dichotomy.

Heavy thoughts after a heavy summer

Ooh, look, it's a blog.

After this summer, I've lost touch with the blog.  But it's nice to take my thoughts and make them solid for the future.  I know almost no-one reads this, but we can save this away as a memory capsule they way people who journal save their thoughts.  Never quite managed journaling per se.  Maybe Iain and Ria will come read this when they're 40... that's when history suddenly starts being interesting to us geeks.

2 ideas have been coursing through my head that I wanted to capture.

1- 20 years.  40 to go.

It's been odd, applying this number of 20 years to William's and my marriage.  Compared to our parents' marriages, that's a way big number.  It feels like some level of completion.  So much has been experienced.  We've come so far.  The kids are suddenly in the realm of being grown (well, Iain is at least).  But, when we think about it, low to mid 90's is a likely age for us to leave this mortal coil, which is 40 YEARS IN THE FUTURE!  Holy BLEEP!  That means we could, god-or-whatever be willing, be only 1/3 of the way through our marriage.  That is a freaky thought.  We have gone through a lot together, but we have 2/3 of our together-lives to still go.  I can't even imagine what is to come.  I haven't seen it personally.  I know that Miles and Margaret are nearly at 60 years together, but I haven't experienced their 60 years.  I haven't personally experienced, day in and day out, a couple who have made it that far.

I feel like we are suddenly embarking on a new marriage, like we should be taking new vows for our next 20 years.  The old vows have worn out, we need a new set for the next 20.  I know Alastair and Bev have already had a big 20-ish year re-definition of what it means to be "them" (hi Rowan!), but it didn't gel for me until now. 

40 more years.  I have no idea what that looks like.  I feel like we are suddenly entering the unknown.  A new phase is upon us.  I wonder what it will be like.  We've done pretty darn good so far so I expect we'll make it to the next milestone, in 20 years, hale and hearty... but I wonder who we will be?

2- Laughing parents

So, William and I both come from "broken families", which is an obnoxious term, but is what they called it when we were kids.  Our parents got divorced when we were 13/14.  Frankly, I remember divorce as being a wonderful thing that reversed my parents aging.  They were suddenly so much happier and 5 years younger each.  A divorce can be a wonderful thing, when it is the right thing, which was the case for both of our parents' marriages.  We're happy they were together and made our families, but we're also happy that they divorced because it was better for them and brought them to better places.  (I know, this is a kind of weird thing to discuss and say, but it's true.  Divorce can be awesome.)

One thing is, neither of us recalls our parents laughing together.  That part of their marriages occurred when we were very young, and we just don't remember it.  I wonder what it feels like for our kids when they are awakened at night by us cackling to a movie, or a quote in a book that we're sharing, or something we found online.  I imagine it must feel nice to hear your parents enjoying each others' company.  But for them its just everyday.  It's probably just annoying because they were awakened.  I wonder how old they will be when they realize how lucky they were, that they remember that sound.

I guess death makes you think about life.  Middle age is truly middle -- only half way to death -- as well as being a point where you are at the top of a rise and can see both forward and back with a very slight bit of clarity.  I suppose it is expected that the death of a parent would bring such thoughts and musings about the nature of life to mind, but somehow I didn't anticipate it.

Hawaii - the Big Island!! Part the 2nd - Kailua-Kona side

OK, the title is a bit of a fib -- first, pictures from the drive from Hilo over to resort land on the west coast.  A bit more from the wet side of the island.

First falls - Rainbow Falls, just outside of Hilo.  Complete with a "short arms selfie" (of doom, doom, cookie, doom!) to prove we were there.

This cool tree looks like it belongs in Lothlórien.

 

Another panorama stitched to a panorama ;-).  Not perfectly stitched, but not bad!  More cool trees near Rainbow falls.

This one is Akaka Falls.  These falls are special because of the FISH and SHRIMP that climb up the falls to spawn at the top.  Yeah.

It's the 'o'opu fish, a goby; it has a suction disc on its belly, which it uses with its pectoral fins to climb 442 feet straight up on the water-wet rocks to the side of the waterfall.  The shrimp in question manages it without a suction disc.

As you can see, William and I were there too, but I look like I was doing that obnoxious mom thing where one "helps" one's son by telling him what to do while taking the picture.  Should'a just smiled proper ;-).

Then we crossed the climate border from east to west and found a grassy dry land, criss-crossed with old black rough lava flows, with neon green-grassed resorts along the coast, covered with palm trees and shopping malls.  And gorgeous sandy beaches with coral reefs.  And another mall and a golf course.  It was, frankly, kind of unreal feeling.

Black black lava, green green grass. Old not-so-black lava with cool petroglyphs, with palm trees and a resort in the background.  And below, the view on the road - flat and mostly treeless grassland, interspersed with old black lava flows.

Our digs in resort-land, a condo, like any other condo.  A little sad after the treehouse, but lots of nice flat walls to do my shoulder physio against, which was, admittedly, desperately needed. ;-).

The view of/from our "lanai", but it feels slightly wrong to call a condo deck a "lanai".  

The thin strip of sandy beaches is even more insanely gorgeous and inviting given its surroundings!  It feels like: "how the BLEEP did this get here?!"  Wasn't I in the middle of either black rocks or another damn mall?  Yet there it is!

This was "just" our local beach by our condo, available to the locals as well, not just resort people.  'Anaeho'omalu Beach on 'Anaeho'omalu Bay (aka, "A Bay").  It even had a feral cat colony, complete with lots of mongooses (it is incredibly hard not to type "mongeese").  No pictures of us actually on the beach because, well, I apparently look my age when I've just come in from the water and I'm a little vain for that.  William's got cool new octopus swim trunks, though.

The next day we did some snorkeling, but we were too busy snorkeling to take pictures of us doing that.  I really wanted to get one kinda like this: 

complete with Little Green Bag in the background, all Reservoir Dogs-ish, with the obligatory Red Dwarf twist, but without the mop heads and fake bad teeth, just with our snorkel gear....but it didn't happen, largely because my family would have smacked me if I tried to make them do that.  I'm getting a little embarrassing in my "mature" age ;-).  After snorkeling, though, and also before snorkeling again, we had a lovely lunch, all mildly sunburned (as we kinda didn't do that re-apply thing), salty, and happy.

And then, it was Homeward Ho ;-).

Hawaii, the Big Island!!!! Part the first - Hilo side

We've done it again - another vacation that doesn't involve visiting family!  Craziness, I tell you, craziness!  Countdown, 2.333 years until Iain leaves us for university.  A few more of these trips to go before he disses us for his journey to his future ;-).

This April break we did a short 1 week visit to the island of Hawaii (a.k.a., the Big Island).  The east/west divide climate-wise is pretty dramatic.  The Hilo side (east side, the bit with Volcano National Park) is dramatically wetter.  Hilo gets something like 140 inches of rain a year.  The Kailua-Kona side (west side, resort side) is on the lee of the mountains and gets more like 20ish inches of rain a year (one site says 9", one 32", so i averaged it ;-)).  Volcano Village and Volcano national park are in addition 10-15 degrees colder than sea level.  Definitely pack for layers!

Carla and Scott did us good and pointed us to the most awesome place to stay - a proper treehouse, yet with running water and electricity.  Completely off the grid.  Water collected from rain and electricity from solar panels (and honking big batteries).

View from below:

Staying here was heaven.  After a crazy day, overfilled with volcano/lava sights, we returned to the sounds of rain and birds, nothing else.  Cozy silence.  Utter bliss!  Here you can see the view of the whole treehouse, viewed from the couch (Ria's bed).  Double lofted, so 3 levels.  First loft up was the master bed"room", and you can just see in the top left corner of the picture the loft above our bed where Iain slept.  (I photostitched a panorama onto the top of a panorama for this one, turned out great!)

We were surrounded by rainforest, obviously!  Fern heaven.  (OK, one picture isn't a fern, but Iain took that one and it is so nice!)

VOLCANOES!  LAVA!

Man, its hard to limit the pictures.  Here we are at the south rim of Kilauea's main crater.

Ria @ Keanakako'i crater, just on the other side of Crater Rim Drive from the previous picture ;-), and some more lava.

And this is why much of Crater Rim drive is closed to traffic - the earthquakes that came with the 2018 eruptions ripped the road to shreds in mulitple places.

Lava flow from the Mauna Ulu eruption in 1969, I believe.  Boys available for scale.  It really looks like someone took a giant sized (12 foot tall)  road of black tarmac and just crumpled it into bits and dropped it where it started.  Massive rivers of black rock rising above the rest of the landscape, with trees/grass/plants just alongside.

In the grassy bits there's this lovely white flower that looks like an orchid, but I don't know if it really is.  On the right is the 'ohi'a.  It can close its pores so it doesn't breathe in volcanic fumes, and can grow directly on lava.  It is the start of plants on a lava flow (at least on the wet side of the island... on the dry side nothing seems to grow on the lava).

Alien landscape.

We finally reached the end of Chain of Craters Road, and found ocean!

This bit of lava looks like a cow patty.  I should send William to wash his hands ;-)

...and that was the end of our first full day.  Yeah, we overdid it that day.  Boy did we appreciate our silent treehouse when we got back!

Next day we checked out black sand beaches (sorry, no vista view picture, it was a nude beach ;-)).  There was a bit of a scramble to get down, with a cool tree.

William's and my feet in the black sand....and see how big the grains are in Iain's hand?  Nothing stuck to your skin you could just brush it off, even when wet.

Then we went to the end of Route 137, where the road is closed due to the 2018 lava flows, and saw new earth, not even 1 year old yet, where it flowed to the ocean.

One bit looked like a monster face!  And someone had put a nice wreath on the lava.

Day 3 had one last lava event - a tour of a lava tube:

Lots of colors to the rock, and shiny bits on the ceiling of the cave.

Finally, the best "Keep Out" sign of the trip ;-)

The transition to the Kailua-Kona side of the island will be in the next post ;-).  Far fewer pictures to navigate for that one....