July 2023

Summer for real
We had our first truly hot pool weekend, where it was over 90 both days — felt a bit like old times! But we had been so long without real swimming that I had signed Lukas up for sprint swim lessons at AVAC — half an hour every day for a week, just to get him stronger and more confident, plus improve his technique a bit; he thought he would hate it, based on his memories from the lessons we quit years ago, but it actually went really well and he ended up enjoying himself. We spent a couple of afternoons at the Patels’, swimming and hanging out, and Annika & Lukas hung out together a lot, including most of an entire day of Lukas teaching Annika some extremely complicated online game; it’s really nice that they’re spending more time together, after Annika’s self-imposed Teen Isolation of the past couple of years. We went to see Dude Perfect! on tour at SAP (featuring special guest Mark Rober, who, in a crowd like that, got a reception like the Beatles in 1964). And on the last Sunday of the month, we went over to Grandma & Grandpa’s to celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary — we were cracked-out tired from getting back from vacation the night before, but they’re worth it. :-) 

Wildcat trip to Disneyland
It’s possible that we are insane, but: We went to Disneyland over the Fourth of July! We all wanted to see Rogers! The Musical — an actual 35-minute musical based on the brief scene in the TV show Hawkeye, which was played for laughs, but which I guess we weren’t the only ones who took seriously, heh. It was running at the Hyperion in DCA June 30-August 31 only, so looking at our calendar for the rest of the summer, this was pretty much our only shot, and we took it. I had long assumed that the 4th would be a terrible time to go, hot and crowded as hell, but a tip from one of our Disneyland insiders (a guy on R.’s team) and some anecdotal concurrence from the DisBoards convinced us it would be ok — and it was one of the best trips we’ve had in years! Good weather (70s-80s), the lowest crowds we’ve seen since 2015, fireworks, and we saw the musical twice, once on each of our full days in the parks. With three-day park-hopper tickets, we shifted our usual plan, and instead of going into the parks in the afternoon on the day of arrival, we did two full days and then a half day on the day of departure — catching the early morning entry and knocking out a bunch of rides before we had to leave for the airport and our 4:30 flight. Totally worth it! 

Aloha Hawaii!
Just over a week after that hilarious nonsense, we were off to Hawaii once again. We came the closest we ever have to missing our flight — check-in lines were hundreds and hundreds of people long, and if not for the help of a guy in line who told us how to get our TSA Pre-Check notification added to our boarding passes (which I thought I had done, but apparently it’s not automatic, ugh), we would’ve still been in line at takeoff. Then, our gate was literally as far away as it was possible to be, and for some reason the flight boarded fully 20 minutes before we expected it to, which meant that not only were they calling our names and about to close the doors when we finally got there, but also we had to sit separated; it was Southwest, so first come, first served for seating. The kids sat together (which seemed fine and kind of adventurous, but they later told us they didn’t know they could get the drinks the flight attendant offered, and didn’t know how to reach us (they were … two rows back …). Anyway! Lessons learned, and when we got there, it was like coming home. We spent the first couple of days at the beach club, then did Hapuna as a hurricane (downgraded to tropical storm) was making its way toward us. Lukas, newly confident in his swimming, was an enthusiastic and durable snorkeler and channel diver at our beach, and bodysurfed the whole morning with R. at Hapuna. The fourth day, the tropical storm had veered off and didn’t actually touch the island, but the weather was overcast and the water choppy, so we decided to do some different stuff — we had a fabulous buffet breakfast at a newly-renovated hotel near the beach club, then drove down to the Kona area and pretty much straight up the mountain to tour a coffee farm (super cool!), and then back into Kona to go to a couple of bookstores and find shave ice. We visited all of our old favorite restaurants (Pu’eo’s Osteria was a huge standout) and tried some new ones — not a dud in the bunch! — plus enjoyed the novelty of cooking for ourselves (the condo has a kitchen, unlike our house!), grilling fish from Da Fish House up in Kihei on Hapuna days and random stuff from the grocery on beach club days. The kids started every beach day with a long walk up and down the shoreline by themselves, discussing forming a band, starting middle school, and sundry other topics for up to an hour and a half while R. and I chilled on the beach; it was a little mystifying, but really awesome to see. Everybody did a bunch of beach reading; the kids tore through a terrible young-adult book from the 90s that was left at the condo, Annika brought her AP Euro history textbook to knock out the summer prep for the class, R. had Ready Player Two, and I hopped around between A Room with a View and whatever Ray Bradbury Lukas wasn’t currently reading. We had great snorkeling, seeing an amazing variety of creatures (and encountered honu four separate times!!!). All in all, it was a truly amazing, wonderful trip; it’s really hard for us to make ourselves go anywhere else, with what we know is waiting for us there. Aloha and mahalo, Hawaii!