Some March photos

Ruthie and Tucker. For some reason this photo doesn't really show just how gigantic he is in comparison. (It also doesn't show what a big baby he is, whenever Ruth pulls his fur he yelps and runs. Not that that's a bad thing!)


First caterpillar of spring.


Blue up on our roof.


Dawson "directing" Ruth's deconstruction of his drawing drawer.

Our last days in Hawaii

Our ridiculously enormous rental car. I thought "full-size" meant large, but not as large as a minivan. But sure enough, this car was as long as, if not longer, than either of the minivans my sisters rented. Got to feel like an idiot for almost 2 weeks.


D fell in LOVE with this Hawaii suit. Wears it as jammies in NS (or at least, he will once it warms up enough!)


enjoying the rain on our last weekend. And yes, that's our son sitting in the water-filled gutter further up the road.


Running around barefoot in the rain. Check out the solar hot shower on the outside wall of the house...


Who's gonna be a surfer girl


Hangin outside the guesthouse in the rain


And there's the guesthouse (with a banana tree in the background!)


Well, I think Ruthie spent a little more time on that board than Rob did, unfortunately...

After Feb 4, we stayed on for an extra weekend, and slept in the small guesthouse where Mum and Dad had stayed. It seemed downright dinky after the huge main house! We made our own trip up Haleakala (we'd skipped it when the Larsens and Tufts went, because it was a very long day for those families, whereas we went up for a fraction of the time they spent).


The living room of the guesthouse


All of us together, before the Walkers, Tufts and Larsens headed off for the airport.


Hanging out in the back "yard".

Half our group went on a fishing boat for the second-last day of our trip, while the other half went to the beach. The avid fishermen among us went on the boat: Josh, Sarah, Gill, Ron, Rob S, and Dad. And caught some very fancy fish!

Hana highway cont'd

watching the sunset and the surfers on the way back to Kihei


Sarah & Gill




Our picnic at Honomanu Beach

The Hana highway

Rainbow eucalyptus! It's incredible!


Sarah swimming at Twin Falls


wonderful!!


Rainbow eucalyptus!


On the way to Twin Falls


at the farm stand, on the way up to Twin Falls




hiking the trail to Twin Falls

Yes, still more Hawaii

Rob practically drooling at all the solar hot water on all these south-facing rooftops...


What am I? Just the craziest looking tropical spider we've ever seen. Hanging right about nose-height, too.


Mmm, jungly.


This was the funniest never-ending story about a Scooby Doo episode that Dawson says he saw, where there was a volcano with a big button on top and when you push the button, [insert all sorts of scenarios here]. This story did not stop, and he always re-started again from the beginning, which ALWAYS began with at least 10 "Mom... Mom... MOM... Mom..." Josh nearly lost his mind.

Rob and Ruthie on the way up to the Iao Needle.


...And that's the Iao Needle behind them.


sunset above the clouds, atop Haleakala


Mum and Dad at Iao Needle

More Hawaii

At the top of Haleakala volcano.


The Tufts and the Larsens, and the Larsens' friend Dan (who happened to be doing a cycling trip of Maui--what a great way to see Hawaii...)


favourite picture of Josh!


Here's a bizarre unidentified plant: growing at the Surfing Goat Dairy, on the way up Haleakala volcano. Some of the names inscribed into this plant's leaves are more than a year old.


Giving Dad a book of stories about him, collected from friends and family over a few months before the trip. Many thanks to all those who contributed memories and stories about Dad.


The giant Banyan tree in Lahaina. It was planted in 1873, back when Lahaina was the royal centre of Hawaii, as an 8-foot tree, and now it's something like 200 feet wide, with 12 major trunks. I've never seen anything like it. I'm familiar with trees and shrubs that sucker, with new growth coming up from the ground; THIS tree drops suckers from the existing branches, and some of them root and become new trunks of the tree. It's phenomenal. And no, those kids are NOT supposed to be climbing on the branches. (I, being the quintessential kill-joy Mum, was obviously not taking this picture.)