Violet's Art Camp

Violet is a talented artist, but she hasn't wanted to take any art classes. I was thrilled when she agreed to attend a visual arts summer camp at the local community college, for junior highers exploring various careers.

The camp went from 9 to 3 for one week, and was an excellent value. Violet enjoyed it, and came home with some neat pieces, using different media: charcoal, ink, paint, etc.

This first one is a collage she made out of old National Geographic magazines. She didn't enjoy this assignment very much, but I thought she did a cool job with it.

For this, the kids were tasked to design a music album cover. Violet focused on music from her favorite anime show, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

This was a magazine illustration assignment. Violet chose an article about a Korean War veteran's painful memories from the frontlines. Quite a moving image she designed.

This was a book cover.

Violet enjoyed the class, and I'm so glad we found out about it. Also, on Friday, the girls were both at the college together, as Cora was there for her Spanish class. 
 

Cherry Picking!

Over the weekend, Stace, Violet and I drove up to Leona Valley to a u-pick cherry orchard. There are several to choose from, but we went to Windy Ridge Cherries, where years ago I'd interviewed the owners for a story on cherry season for the AV Press.

The trees were covered in ripe fruit!

Violet picked the Rainiers, while I focused on the deep red Bings. Stace and I appreciated her choosing to leave the house and have an outing with us, one that involved a 40-minute drive.

Stace liked checking out the old farming equipment.

A nice summer afternoon... with delicious fruit.
 

Time with Violet

Violet and I got out for a little walk, and we drove to the Iron Horse Bridge trail for a change of scenery.

I was shocked by the amount of water still in our Santa Clara River!

It wasn't deep, but it sure was wide.

Pretty sunset behind the river, under the bridge.

It was a neat moment together.

With the lovely cooler June weather we've been enjoying, Violet has been able to have a couple of more mounted archery lessons. 

At Gilchrist Farm, the baby goats and rabbits are so cute! Violet went into the petting zoo area with the goats to check out the baby bunnies in their hutches.

 

This will be her last lesson for a while, as we know the heat is coming.

Cars and things

JT and Jim spent the night after the party, and went to church with us on Sunday, which happened to be Father's Day. Our church always invites community members to bring their cooler cars for a Father's Day car show. 

We ran into Steve, Linda and Matt, and their friend, who owns this lovely Thunderbird.

This will count as our Father's Day photo opp!
 

After the party - stretching. This is obviously what you do when you reach a certain age!

Also this week, as part of Stace's birthday, we had his TT detailed. It looks fantastic!

My friend Sue's son, Paul, is an ambitious young man who started a car wash business as a young teen and has grown it into detailing and ceramic coating and paint restoration. Happy to pay him to do such amazing work!

Finally, Stace asked me to make loco moco, a Hawaiian dish with a ground beef patty over rice, with gravy and a fried egg. It was yummy!

Celebrating Stace

Stace is (turning) 50! I don't really believe it myself, but we know when he was born, and we know what year it is, so...

We had a few friends over to celebrate over the weekend (a few days early), and Colleen made this lovely chocolate cake. 

Stace is such a great man, loved by so  many, a blessing to all who know him.
 

It was great having some friends and family over for our first "party" in a long time.

Melanie and Nick both were working, so Grandma and Grandpa picked up Ellie and brought her over. She was such a good girl, alternating her time hanging out with the "Kids!" and the "Friends!" 

At one point, she was inside with the "kids" and was hopping with both feet. Lucas asked her if she was a frog. She adamantly pointed to herself and said, "I'm Ellie. I'm not a frog. Not a frog." It was adorable.

Creeks, tadpoles and skunks

Back home, and June Gloom is continuing! Making lemons out of lemonade, we'll continue to enjoy being outside and taking walks in the middle of the day, before the summer heat surely strikes in the coming weeks.

We met up with Colleen, Rigo and Liana for a walk at Placerita, and there was still so much water in the creek!

Also, there were approximately 4 million tadpoles in various states of development.

 

The nature center has improved its offerings, and one of the buildings now has a little skunk on display. So cute!

Almost as cute as our little skunk, who continues to visit us many evenings after dark, hunting for leftover birdseed under the big feeder. 

Final Fun

Our flight home was on Thursday night, a red-eye, so we landed at LAX on Friday morning.

On Wednesday night, our final full "night" in Maui, we went out to a nice dinner at a Japanese restaurant that happened to be attached to our resort. We'd seen long lines outside earlier in our trip, so we knew it was probably good food. 

We kind of celebrated Stacey's upcoming milestone birthday with a nice dessert, too.
 

We decided to make the most out of our Thursday, our last day. We started out bright and early with a ride on an outrigger canoe with the Kihei Canoe Club, led by our guide captains Al and his wife Sue. 

Stace had noticed the canoe club down the street, with a big banner out front advertising rides for visitors on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We signed up and paid, and it was a great experience.

Here are a few of the canoes coming onto shore, where we came up for a break to see some resting sea turtles.

After our canoe trip, we all enjoyed a continental breakfast, and then went back to our condo to shower and pack up and check out. 

We thought of going to lunch at the Maui Brewing Co., but the local one - home of the brewery - was randomly closed for the day. So, instead, we headed back to Lahaina for one last time. 

After Lahaina, we had one more adventure planned. Not far from the airport is the Iao Valley State Park, where we went for a late afternoon hike through the jungle-like greenery.

This mountain formation is known as the Needle, and this area was home to one of the big battles in 1790 that ended up uniting all the Hawaiian islands under King Kamehameha. 

In the nearby town we had one last fabulous Hawaiian meal, before heading to the airport.  

We ate so well this week! This was the meal Stace, Violet and I had at Coconut's Fish Cafe on our first full day, while Cora wasn't well: coconut shrimp, fish tacos and a fish sandwich.

The seared ahi at Tobi's shave ice in Paia was delicious.

Tobi's shave ice

Our "night out" meal at Isana Japanese restaurant...

Tempura-fried ice cream with pound cake - yum!