Blog! We have a lot of ground to cover. Let’s hope my lower back holds up in this medieval torture contraption of a computer chair.

Bob and Fleeta drove over last month for the redhead’s second birthday party. I did invite my two IVF mama buddies and all their kids, but they are both going through a LOT right now and couldn’t make it over. Life.

I’m not exactly sure why Flickr didn’t post the party pics, but here’s one from the day of his party. We had three out of four grandparents, Brenna’s entire family, a “Peppa Pig” pink strawberry cake, and a few toddler meltdowns due to overstimulation. On the whole? A successful second birthday party.

For Halloween our original family costume theme was going to be superheroes, so I picked Lady Miss Kier, of course! My ONLY regret is that I didn’t wear the yellow headband I had put aside…at the last second I got too lazy to add it to the wig. Even a famous NYC drag queen pointed out on my IG that I was missing a headband “To hide the wiglette line,” he said. DAMMIT.

Goo further blew the theme by requesting to be a “My Singing Monster”, the game that he has been 100% obsessed with for most of this year. For the pumpkin patch however, which is where this photo was taken, he chose the more comfortable play-friendly option of dragon. We have a large number of cool children’s costumes thanks to a major lucky draw from Buy Nothing last year. The redhead was a cute lil turtle. Josh was Bob Ross, which was so popular that strangers requested their photo with him, like a celebrity.

I bought some incredible, deeply-discounted pink satin Fluevog knock-offs for the photo session to go with my costume, but wore the much foot-friendlier silver Hunter boots to the pumpkin patch. After the last couple of years of being pregnant/post-pregnant, I’m happy I can wear them again! They were always slim-fitting.

Next year I’d like to resume couple’s costumes. His Bob Ross costume was a HUGE hit, and naturally he won the Halloween costume contest at work. I am so sad that my work doesn’t have a costume contest. I would KILL IT.

This is how I looked for work the Friday before Halloween, with my current favorite wig, a black glitter bat pin in my hair, and the cool monster shirt I bought at “Trash and Vaudeville” in NYC in 2015. I hadn’t been able to fit into it since 2015. Thanks, Weight Watchers!

The Friday before Halloween I visited my hairdresser, who spent a good two and a half hours carving layers into my hair, bleaching my roots and then adding toner. This whole process is so expensive I only see her twice a year, and she knows I like to DIY my hair the rest of the time. She actually offered to teach Josh how to maintain my roots in between visits, which I would love to take her up on. Apparently bleached blonde hair is super high maintenance, BOO.

On the Saturday before Halloween, I took Goo to a schoolmate’s Halloween party. He was dressed as Clamble, his favorite My Singing Monster, and I was dressed as um…a Good Time Gal. It was such a beautiful sunny day!

Our jack-o-lanterns this year, done at the last possible second: PAC-MAN, a T-Rex, a hippie (mine), and Spongebob Squarepants. I do most of the drawing; Josh does all of the carving. He always does an excellent job.

On Halloween evening, which was a Sunday this year, I couldn’t bring myself to get back into the Lady Miss Kier drag so I did a last-second improv “Happy Little Tree” costume and we took the boys trick or treating just around the neighborhood. At their age, it was enough.

My mother refused to put on a wig this year (although she did dress up as Sally from “Nightmare Before Christmas” at the pumpkin patch) and handed out candy at our house. We had less trick or treaters this year than last year, which was odd.

Back to Maui again! We hadn’t been since the Very Forgettable Trip of 2018, where we were sleep deprived from 16 month-old Goo waking up at 4:30 every morning. Ironically during this trip, we had sleep-trained the boys in advance and WE woke up EARLIER THAN THEM. Middle age is awesooooooome.

But who cares about that? Maui is Magical! IT ALWAYS IS. I didn’t even edit my photos for the entire week, who needs to? Maui is already saturated, and who can fuss over a few wrinkles or cellulite dimples in Paradise. Not me, Hank McGee. This photo was the first day we arrived–my mother, Goo and I rushed down to the ocean to get in the water. Unbeatable.

Day two, look at that beautiful sunrise. Bob, Fleeta and my mother stayed in one room, Josh and I stayed in another with the boys. The rooms were right next to each other and this was the view we had every single day. My mother and I split an order of banana bread French toast at Slappycakes and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I should write a Yelp review.

Not only did Goo brave the “big kid” slide at the hotel’s pool, he learned to doggy paddle with me! Unfortunately no one else was around to confirm, but I hastily managed to capture a picture of him. So proud.

I bought myself a couple of padded, bra-like bikini tops prior to this trip to match my Peter Max-ish swim bottoms. Speaking of Peter Max, please visit www.freepetermax.com to sign a petition to save poor Peter from his awful, abusive guardianship.

Mumsie and I on the patio. She was happier on this trip than I’ve seen her in years, and after the last two years of divorce/stress/Covid/bullshit, we ALL needed this trip. She’s already planning our next Hawaii trip.

Bob and Fleeta bought us all tickets to a semi-submarine hour-long tour aboard the “Reef Dancer”, which has divers swimming around and pulling up fun creatures from the depths to show us. It was a little underwhelming–not one octopus! But everyone enjoyed it.

A trip to the Maui Ocean Center is something we do every time we visit Maui, and it’s always cool! Goo was underwhelmed by the shark/sting ray tunnel, however, which surprised me. Friggin kids. I still thought it was cool. And we learned the difference between manta rays and sting rays–sting rays have their “smile” on their underside, and manta rays are larger and their mouth is towards the front of their body.

During the staging of this photo, Goo lost his blue floral hat. It was kind of hilarious capturing in a photo the exact moment he lost his hat. We never made it back to the Ocean Center to retrieve it–hopefully some other kid enjoys it.

I felt pretty cute the night that Josh and I went out to dinner, sans children. A perk of traveling with three grandparents! The only thing missing was a good helping of glitter. I can’t believe I traveled to Maui without body glitter.

We went to the Ka’ana Kitchen and I had perhaps the most amazing mushroom risotto I’ve ever had it my life, but unfortunately my GERD kicked in right before the meal was delivered and I was practically doubled over in pain. I’ve finally seeing a specialist next week about my heartburn–I’ve been dealing with it since I was pregnant in 2019 and enough is enough. Ugh.

We all rented snorkel equipment mid-week, and were able to go out snorkeling 3 times total. The snorkeling the first day at Mile Marker 14 was too silty, but look at that gorgeous view!

Goo threw an epic, and I mean EPIC temper tantrum during this trip to Mile Marker 14. None of our usual tricks worked, and we tried them ALL. Josh finally got him out of it by introducing the concept of searching for sea glass with him, and it was enough to snap him out of it.

I never want to come back home.

The flowers in Hawaii are so beautiful and fragrant.

Although Maui is currently in a drought (at least that’s what Fleeta speculated) and it didn’t rain all week (until the day we left!), we all spotted this beautiful rainbow on the way to Duke’s for breakfast one morning.

The last two days of snorkeling we discovered excellent snorkeling right outside the hotel! Talk about convenient. The water was crisp and clear, and I saw a dozen different kinds of fish, including an incredible pastel neon rainbow fish that I badly wanted to photograph, but I was scared to go swimming with my phone, even in a so-called “waterproof” cover. Josh used a cover several times during the week and his phone was a little wonky by the end. I was jealous of Josh and his mother, who spotted a sting ray on their trip out.

The grandparents let Josh and I have another night out sans children, and we strolled around Lahaina, where we had delicious Thai food and fabulous ice cream from “Banyan Treats”, and listened to a homeless dude serenade under the banyan tree with Sublime hits and “No Rain”. I gave him our leftover Thai and he seemed very grateful.

Last day! We took turns feeding each other grapes while Goo acted as our photographer. What a trooper!

Josh and I went to the swap meet in Kahului Saturday morning, sans kids. Thanks grandparents! It was a good thing too, because it was ROASTING. The kids would have burned alive, especially the little redhead.

I spent much of our time looking for/asking about Ken Loyd, our favorite Maui artist, until finally someone in the know told me that Ken had passed. I wasn’t surprised–he had looked fragile in 2018, but I was sad. Josh and I both love his art, and he was a kind soul.

Excitingly, I set a new new record for weight gain during a week-long vacation: 7 pounds! And then I lost 6 of it the following week going back to my usual diet. WORTH EVERY CALORIE.

The last sunset in Maui is always bittersweet for me. After 2018 I was somewhat ambivalent about returning to Maui, but this trip re-ignited not only my love of Hawaii, but my love of travel as well. Life is short! You gotta get out there, man.

The return home and last moments of Bear Cub will be up next–I’m not prepared to start crying again right now, it’s been a good day. TTFN blog.