Clint and I were lucky enough to go on a little vacation to Maui for 8 days with no kids! My in-laws had been offering to send us on a trip since we got married and we finally found the time to take advantage. Clint got my mom a plane ticket to come to Omaha and stay with the girls. It was nice of her to make the trip and also nice for her because she doesn't get to see them very often. I was a little worried about how Ava would do without me, but she did great. I tend to think she needs me a little more than she really does.
We had a really good time together. We had a bunch of activities booked, including a snorkel cruise, a luau, a zipline tour, and cliff jumping. We did some shopping, lots of eating, and drove around most of the island with the top off the Jeep. All that stuff was really great but honestly our favorite thing while we were there was to just lounge on the beach or in the hot tub and read our books with no interruptions from the girls.
You know how you always go on vacation and come home with only pictures of either you or your spouse (never both at the same time), because the other one is behind the camera? Then the few times you ask some stranger to take your picture together, they end up cutting peoples' heads off, or shooting out of focus. We didn't want to take the risk of being disappointed with the pictures we came home with, and decided to hire a photographer to do a little shoot. We're glad we did.
Now as nice as it was to have a break from the girls it was funny how much we talked about them, and how often we said, "aww, Mayah would LOVE doing this..." or "Ava would be having a blast here." I think the best of both worlds would be to take a vacation with the whole family, but arrange for a babysitter some of the time. Turns out you can arrange for that through the concierge or other local services. We'd just have to get past the initial worry of leaving them with a complete stranger.
After 8 days of doing everything imaginable on Maui, we were excited to come home and tell the girls about the whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and other wildlife we saw. We both had built up a pretty good tan (which is already fading), and our batteries were charged to get back to our daily lives.
Omaha welcomed us home with its hospitable 9 degree weather.
This weekend we packed up the family and did a road trip to Grand Island, Nebraska for a Gymnastics Competition. As you can see from the picture above, it was not the usual sing-a-long in the car, where families play the alphabet game and continually say, "are we there yet?" Mayah, Ava and I fell a sleep the second we got in the car and didn't wake up until our exit in Grand Island. That left Clint with enough time to flip through all 170+ XM channels and recite the dictionary. We got to the dump of a hotel we booked because it was the only one with an indoor pool and close proximity to the Gym. We had a good time hanging out in the pool and hot tub, but there was a team of 12 year old basketball players staying on our hall. They were running the halls, making noise until all hours of the night, when I finally opened our door and hollered a warning down the hall. The kids seemed to settle down after some time, although the parent social hour continued until long after we finally fell asleep. We got up early and headed to Mayah's competition. There were girls from all over the state at around the same level. Mayah competed on the Beam, the Bars, the Vault, and the Floor Routine. She has improved a lot since her first competition a month or so ago. She must have gotten a taste of what competitions are like, and knew she wanted to win...because she's been practicing parts of her routines all over the house, every day. At her level, they do not actually give a numbered score for the girls, or place them (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc). Instead they give them ribbons that signify their proficiency. Blue is the highest level, followed by red, then a few other colors. Last time, Mayah got a blue on the vault, and reds on everything else. This time, she got all blues! They also did a head stand competition, and Mayah placed 4th. We are so proud of Mayah. She came focused, ready to compete, and she was the most graceful, best prepared, naturally gifted, all around little gymnast in that place! I think she has a bright future ahead of her in gymnastics. She better work hard, cause Ava is going to be trying to compete with her before we know it. She is already dying to get out on that floor, as she points and says, "nastics." When Mayah is practicing at home, if she falls down, Ava says, "do over, do over."
