Back to life, back to reality

Dang you, Maui, Hawaii. Dang your lack of responsibilities. Dang your carefree laziness. Dang your insistence on leisure. Dang your redefinition of productivity. Dang your blissful do-as-you-wish-when-you-wish-it-...ness. You've made me relax into a puddle of unconstrained slackericity. Slackerocity? Even now you're forcing me to make up words for my lack of motivation to do anything that doesn't involve laying in the sun. Well, my tan has faded, so I can no longer pretend I'm still in Maui when I look in the mirror. It's officially time to get back into real life. The daily grind. Same ol' same ol'.

I knew once I blogged about it, the bubble would burst. So I apologize to the 2 people who might have actually believed I'd be typing furiously right after we stepped off the plane a week and a half ago. For the rest of you who are just now checking this in the month of February, you know me too well.

I am, of course, exaggerating how little I did in Hawaii, and how devastated I was to come home. Actually, I'll be honest. I'm not really exaggerating how little I did, but the part about dreading being home is completely false. As much as I loved soaking in the vitamin D, I really did miss home and was happy to come back to it. But you didn't blog surf over here to read about Oregon. And I didn't sit down 26 interrupted times to type about Gresham. So here's a brief (laugh...out loud please) synopsis of our Christmas vacation:

Really and truly, I did nothing. And I brought home proof. #1 is my tan that has since washed away in the rain. #2 is some extra body fat. My dad, who is very fit and healthy, said he gained 8 pounds in Hawaii. I may have gained a few (dozen) more than that. Give or take. I'm pretty sure I drank 8 pounds of passion-orange-guava juice alone. Oh how I miss thee, POG. You and your 10% fruit juice, 90% high fructose corn syrup/deliciousness. I also had a few pounds of macadamia nut pancakes. Mmmmmm. I'm salivating. Course that's maybe because I've only eaten a hot dog today that I bought while shopping at Target because I forgot to have lunch and was on the verge of passing out. Sorry, little Gresham interjection. Where was I? Maui. Oh yes, food. Cheeseburger in Paradise. Teryaki steak, carrot cake muffins, Hula pie, cashew chicken stir fry, BBQ steak and twice baked potatoes, pecan monkey bread, tropical smoothies. Oh and did I mention POG and mac pancakes?

Those delicious delights - the calories burned from jumping into the pool when I got too hot from laying out = enough of a fat layer to keep me warm for the rest of an Oregon winter...or 5. Now while I was winning grand prize in the eating and lounging around competition, my boys were burning calories like it was going out of style. They swam for hours. Not even a joke. Water wings are probably the best invention since POG. And you know how I feel about POG. Ty was leaping head first into the deep end of the pool. The kid couldn't love the water more. Unless maybe he had gills.
Jake got used to a mask and snorkel in the pool and then he went out into the ocean with Dan and my dad and a pair of kid flippers, and made his mama proud. He snorkeled like a pro, out for an hour with the fishies and even a pack of turtles. A pod of turtles? A herd? Doesn't matter, Dan says they were surrounded by 10 turtles and Jake was loving every second of it. Good gracious, that little man in his Hawaiian print swim trunks, his Quicksilver rashguard shirt and a snorkel coming out of his mouth. Dude with a capital D.

And how amazing is this picture. Face to face with a sea turtle. I bet most 5 year olds don't have a pic like this one.

I just realized I'm going to have to do a gazillion picture collages just to show you the tip of the iceberg. Dang you again, Maui. So much time and effort into your blog. I'm just going to insert a video here because I've already drug this out too long. Oh no, I have so much more to go. This was the boys first time flying, and I knew they'd love it. For the first 5 minutes or so. It was long, but they both did so well. Only one mishap when Ty dumped out my bag to look for a toy, and ended up dumping out the goldfish crackers all over the floor as well. Here's Ty and his first take-off. You can also hear Jake, who was sitting right in front of us with my dad, in the background.

And here's some pictures. Make up your own captions, would'ya? I'm really worded out all of a sudden.

Did I say I was worded out? I'm a disgrace to the Alcorn blood. Looking through the pictures, including some I've borrowed from my photographically gifted father, I realized I forgot to tell you one major thing. We went whale watching. And ooooooh did we watch some whales. One came just a few feet from our boat and Dan caught the end of it on a bumpy video, but this ginormous beast poked his head out of the water and proceeded to show us his entire back and slap his tail at the end of his production. Quite the show off. It was pretty impressive. The boys loved the whole experience. And I loved the fact that I remembered Ty's Dramamine. I even slipped some to Jake. And Dan. The whole morning was vomit free and fabulous. It was an experience we will surely never forget.

I have to admit that it felt very weird on Christmas day. I've never been away from home on Christmas, and of course never in a place that was 80+ degrees. But the kids sure didn't miss cuddling up by the fire and sipping hot chocolate. They had a blast jumping into the pool and dodging waves on the beach.

And here are just some more pictures. It's past ridiculous how much time I've spent on this blog. I should have broken it up. YIKES.

This is Ty, looking through a plastic cut out on a floaty toy. It was taken by my dad with an underwater camera when he was...under the water. Love it.

And here's more random goodness. Including a few of me, just so you know I was really there. I knew you were wondering. One of these pics includes Jake's new BFF, Dillon. An 11 year old who was a real sweetheart to Jake and his undying devotion. There was hardly a minute that went by without a mention of the famous Dillon and his cool goggles and awesome skateboard. Dillon, you will be missed.

And Maui, you too will be missed. But life goes on here in Gresham. I'm not going to tell you about it for quite a long time, of course. If you read through this whole thing (and watched the videos) all in one sitting...you're probably either really trying to avoid doing something important, or you're my mother-in-law. Love you, Ann!

My word count on this blog alone should satisfy the rest of you readers for a few weeks. More like months. I'm going to bed.