A Tale Of Two Weeks

We are finally approaching the sunset of a more than two-week spring break from school (cruel, I know), and for the better part of the last week the kids looked mostly like this:

Sick couch potatoes with hot, molten lava fevers. For all their whininess and generally poor humor I christened them the stars of "The Clingy & Cranky Show" -- the show I was forced to watch for a week straight with little to no funny commercials. Worse than "Big Brother" and "Rock of Love" combined.

The only upshot of the week, really, was that for the first time in years, Finn actually napped. Every day. Sometimes even at the same time as Shea, which produced an eerie, surreal daytime silence in the house, the likes of which I haven't heard (not heard?) since before we had children.

And speaking of befores...

Before we were stricken with the Plague of a Thousand VHS Tapes, we had a fun week exploring Honolulu, including our very first ascent of perhaps the state's most iconic peak: Diamond Head.

And yes, Shea -- a month shy of her third birthday -- made the trip with us too! It took about two hours up and back and she did most of the journey on her own two feet.

Halfway up the mountain I was able to get a friend to take this quick snapshot of the three of us -- a millisecond after which Finn and his buddy practically ran the entire rest of the way up the mountain without breaking a sweat, making every one of my 37 years flash before my eyes.

These tourists made the journey in their wedge heels. Wow.

The views from the crater's peak were magnificent.

This is Waikiki and downtown Honolulu, behind that. That pink splotch there in the middle? That's the famous Royal Hawaiian hotel and it's faaaaabulous. Especially its beachfront Mai Tai Bar.

And here are a couple local urchins happy to be standing at the top of what was once a real live volcano with hot, molten lava and everything.

Come to think of it, maybe that was what inspired their fevers....