GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT

Ever since I have had children, I have never given them a say on what they are going to be for Halloween. Partly, because they are so little, but also because I like to shop the day after Halloween sales or use free stuff. The problem with buying stuff the day after Halloween is that they are generally the rejected costumes that nobody wants to wear. Poor Charlie was going to be a banana last year if it wasn't for a last minute lion costume that my sister gave us.

Found this costume for $2.50 the day after Halloween a few years ago!
Hmmm, wonder why.

The other problem with forcing your child to wear a costume they don't want to is that it makes Halloween a miserable holiday. I will never forget the year that I tried to entice Luke to be a giraffe against his will. I hung the costume up for months, let him look at it, try it on, and he still hated it.

2007 was the year of the giraffe. Not a happy Halloween.

This year, I actually asked Luke what he wanted to be for Halloween. He thought about it for a few minutes and responded, "A superhero robot with a cape and fire." I thought it was a fluke, so I kept asking him for a few days, and the response was always the same, especially the fire part!

So, I've decided to do something totally out of character and give Luke a well-thought out homemade costume. I feel that I owe him that much. I purchased a can of "hammered metal" spray paint, some metallic dryer venting for the arms and will use a cheap plastic container (with lid) for the body. The helmet will be an old bleach bottle cut in half. My sister, Caitlin, gave Luke a cape for his birthday, so that's an easy one. My only problem now is how to give him "fire," without giving him a torch to carry around. Or is it okay to give your 3 year old a lit torch if it is part of his costume?

HOW TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION

Luke started pre-school this week. I don't know who was more nervous about it, him or me.

My greatest concern was that he would have no friends. I have seen Luke shunned several times on the playground, at church, and at home. I've even watched kids play Hide and Go Seek with Luke and then laugh when they purposefully never go find him. I know there isn't much I can do about it, but it really does break my heart.

So, I was determined to make sure Luke was accepted by the other kids. I picked out a new shirt for him, quizzed him on how to make friends and actually brushed his hair.

His teacher insisted that I stay with him during his first day. The first hour was swell. He immediately made friends and seemed pretty confident about the whole pre-school situation.

For the 2nd hour, the students held hands and walked over to play at a nearby park. About 20 minutes into playtime, Luke informed me that he needed to use the bathroom. His teacher told me that the closest "toilet" was behind a tree about the length of a soccer field away from where we were standing. We took off running and when we were about 10 feet away from the tree, Luke began to cry. He had gone in his pants. Wait, it gets better. It was diarrhea. Nasty, gross, makes you want to vomit in your mouth, diarrhea.

As I was walking Luke the 2 blocks back to change into the only spare pair of shorts at the pre-school, all I could think about was his reputation. "Great," I thought, "Now he's going to be known as Poopy Lukey. It's all over." Oh, and it was all over his shoes too. Bad.

I am happy to report that 3 and 4 year olds are self-centered and oblivious. None of the other kids even noticed Poopy Lukey's little mishap. It will remain our little secret. Now if he could only learn how to use scissors....

FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FRODO

One Ring to Rule Them All

Before I finish posting about our trip, I would like to make one thing clear:

I hate Lord of the Rings. Erik loves Lord of the Rings. Somehow, we still manage to make our marriage work.

No, Erik, for the 100th time I will not take the LOTR tour with you.

Everywhere we went in New Zealand, Lord of the Rings tours of some kind were being promoted. Go dirt biking to famous spots! Fight an orc on location! Pay $5,000 per person to see all the sights! Substitute Lord of the Rings with The Sound of Music and maybe I would have been tempted. Besides, even Erik, didn't want to spend money on these tours, so it was all good.

Lake Wakitpu

I could post 500 pictures of beautiful New Zealand scenery, but I will spare you. You get the idea, though. It was incredible (and terrifying) to drive on the left side of twisty mountain roads overlooking cliffs and lakes.

Near Mt. Cook

The great thing about being on this kind of vacation, is that we were able to just pull over and stop on the side of the road whenever we felt like it.

Omahau Downs

One of the nights we spent at this Bed and Breakfast outside of Mount Cook. It looked like a mobile home on the outside, but the rooms were clean and modern. That was a pleasant surprise.

Onsen Hot Pools

We visited these mineral hot pools on a cliff overlooking a river. Each pool had it's own little "garage door" that opened up to the view so that you could choose between being outside or inside. I'm embarrassed to say that I actually found out about these pools when Jason took Melissa there on the Bachelor. Embarrassing, I know, but hey, they were pretty neat.

Picking out a gift for my sister, Kelley

Our last stop in New Zealand was Queenstown. It was full of a lot of people that are too cool for school, i.e., college students walking around in snowboarding outfits and huge sunglasses. We just can't compete with that. Erik wears safety glasses all the time and I don't know how to ski. We still had fun anyway.

I survived the plane flight, barely.

On our last day in New Zealand we flew out of Queenstown to Milford Sound on a small plane. It was beautiful, but very bumpy. Of course, Erik loved the flight.

View from the plane.

If you look closely, you can see the short little runway on the left. I couldn't believe we landed on it without flying into something.

Milford Sound

We took a cruise around Milford Sound and out to the Tasman Sea. Our pictures don't do it justice.

Then, we flew home!

I miss vacation.

MIDDLE EARTH

Continuing with the travelogue -

On our 8th day in Tonga we left Tongatapu and flew to New Zealand. Kaci and Salesi said goodbye to us in Auckland, and Erik and I took a connecting flight down to Christchurch on the South Island.

Our plan was to rent a car and make our way over to Queenstown, where six days later, we would fly home from. I don't know what I was thinking when I rented our car.


I'm lying. I know what I was thinking - SAVE MONEY. So, I rented the cheapest, smallest, powerless, manual car I could find. Poor Erik. Not only did he have to drive on the left side of the road, but he also had to shift with his left hand as well. It was so terrifying for me as a passenger, that I couldn't fathom driving. All I could think when we were on the road was, "Stay on the left. Left side, left side." So, he did all the driving. What a man.

Thrown into the fire.

I used to think that the secret to a successful marriage is a dishwasher, but that has now been overruled by the GPS. The best thing we did before this trip was to purchase the New Zealand maps for our GPS. It made everything less stressful because we didn't have to interpret maps or fight over directions. Not that we ever fight.

The view from our B&B

I loved Christchurch. I don't remember loving a city this much since Chambery, France. It reminded me a lot of England, but younger. The people were incredibly friendly and the city was full of parks.

The Classic Villa

We stayed at this bright pink Bed and Breakfast across the street from the Botanical Gardens. Coming from a week in Tonga, it felt like we had entered another universe.

Breakfast

Breakfast included exotic fruit we had never heard of, pastries, gourmet cheeses, meats, cereal, fancy pizza, and yogurt.

We did all the tourist stuff like take a gondola ride up for a view of Lyttelton Harbor and Christchurch.

Avon River

We went punting down the river that ran through the city and tried to figure out a way to move to Christchurch. You know, as if moving to Christchurch is a logical option for us right now.

Christchurch Cathedral

We visited this beautiful old cathedral and ended up staying for about 30 minutes to listen to a service that was completely sung.

We laughed at all the school uniforms. These particular ones reminded me of Harry Potter for some reason.

I pretended to make phone calls in all the phone booths. Real mature, I know, but I couldn't resist.

Christchurch Art Gallery

We visited this idiotic art gallery that had exhibits called "Logs" with a pile of logs and "Rocks" with a pile of rocks. It was free and I still felt jipped.

He acts tough, but he loved it.

In Christchurch, we attended a performance by the International Tour of Mamma Mia! Excuse the blurry cell phone picture, but I had to prove that Erik was there. There were about 50 women to every 1 man. The crazy women were almost as entertaining as the show.

Erik's Heaven

Since I am a good wife, we stopped at the New Zealand Air Force Museum on our way out of Christchurch for three hours so that Erik could do their restoration tour. Here he is standing with the "engines galore" promised in their advertisement.

Tomorrow, I will wrap up the travelogue with the trip to Queenstown and home. Then I will return to blogging about my normal, vacation-less, boring life, I promise.

HOW BIZARRE, HOW BIZARRE

Erik summoning the blowholes!

Here is my final installment of Tonga pictures. As I have been going through these, the thought has crossed my mind that we could have gone somewhere just as beautiful and tropical for less money.

Pigs catching fish for us.

Although, I highly doubt we would have seen pigs fishing in the ocean in Hawaii!

How do they keep the pigs contained so well?

Or pigs in every other front yard! At first it was a little stressful for me to encounter so many pigs, until I realized that they were scared of me. It also helped to carry a long pointy stick.

What a smooth talker!

Also, I wanted to publicly thank Salesi for teaching us how to break the law. The Tongan police stand at the side of the road and point at cars if they are speeding. That's right. They point. (Can you imagine the CHP doing that?) We were driving by and caught them pointing at us. Salesi made a u-turn, the cops realized he was a foreigner, and we paid them some "lunch money" in return for their leniency. The cops were so friendly, we probably could have asked them to pose for this picture if we wanted.

Don't worry, he only had one cup.

I hope that the Mormons working at our resort will accept this public apology for our poor examples. Erik asked the (non-Mormon) owner of our resort if he could try some kava. The owner obliged by throwing a kava party after the banquet on Friday night. Too bad we found out after the fact that Mormons in Tonga don't drink kava. Good thing everyone at that resort knew we were Mormon!

The Real Kid City

Being in Tonga made me grateful for our parks in the USA. There was this place called "Kid City" in the middle of Tonga's capitol, Nuku'alofa. Kids pay a few bucks to play in this typical United States playground.

Erik playing hide and go seek.

On our last night in Tonga, we slept under a mosquito net at Salesi's parents' house. I really doubt this net did anything, except maybe give us more confidence that rats wouldn't eat the bottoms of our feet off.

Honoring the dead.

It was hard to miss all of the cemeteries on the side of the road. 99% of the graves aren't marked. Even though the people are buried in the ground, they still have a mound of dirt to represent the deceased person's body. A little creepy, don't you think?

Speaking of creepy, halfway through our stay at the resort, the security guard walked into our room in the middle of the night. I was so freaked out that I couldn't fall asleep for another two hours. When I mentioned it to the owners the next day, they said that the guard felt bad about it. No good explanation though for why he walked right into our room at 11:00 p.m.

Beautiful Tonga

So, with that lovely story, this will conclude the Tonga portion of our vacation. Stay turned for the next post when I will share with you the secret for a successful marriage... and New Zealand!

THIS LITTLE PIGGY

Both of my kids have been crying all day. Luke is throwing up. Charlie has diarrhea. People have asked me if I missed my kids while we were gone. Does it make me a bad person to say that after a few days, I started to really enjoy our little time apart? On a day like this, the whole trip seems like it was a dream. Good thing I have these pictures.

The main reason we went to Tonga was to experience it with a native Tongan. My brother-in-law, Salesi, and sister, Kaci, were going to visit Salesi's family and we sort of invited ourselves along. Salesi and his family were great at giving us what they called the Polynesian Culture Center experience.

Friday night, our resort hosted a large dinner and show. The climax was a big fire dance. These girls started twirling balls of fire, inside the hall. It was a little scary. Kaci got up because she was afraid of getting hit. I just kept looking at the grass roof, waiting for it to ignite.

In Tonga, everyone wears a skirt to church, even the men. Erik must have thought it was pretty comfortable because he wore it all day long.

After church we had a huge meal with Salesi's family. Lots of Tongan food. They were so good to us.

We visited the local market quite a few times. Erik examined the produce like he knew what it was.

Erik and Salesi snorkeled around and dove off this old shipwreck. It wasn't until we got home that I read in my Lonely Planet guide that this is the site of many spinal cord injuries. Glad I read that after the fact.

If you squint (or click on the picture to make it larger) you might be able to tell that this is Kaci and I kayaking. I was surprised to learn that many Tongans do not know how to swim and when they do go in the water they wear all their clothes - even jeans! Interesting, huh?

The highlight of our trip to Tonga though was the day we killed and roasted a pig!

Erik thinks this video is a little morbid. I disagree. If you eat pork, why not know where it comes from? Although I highly doubt that the nicely vacuumed packed pork that we purchase at Costco is killed like this. It was a little sad that the pig took so long to die, but wow, did it taste good. The video isn't that graphic, but if you have a problem watching a pig die, you might want to avert your eyes.

I STILL HAVE SAND IN MY SHOES

Tongatapu, Tonga

15 days doesn't seem like a very long time to be away from home, but it feels like so much has changed. My kids seem better behaved, Charlie talks more, and Erik's Aunt Doris is engaged!! Maybe we should leave the country more often.

Tonga was a great experience. Since I am a huge cheapskate, spending the money to make a trip like this was a big deal for me, but I am so happy that we went. I am even happier that we went without our kids. As Erik put it, "Now, we don't have to go on any more dates for the next two years." Pretty much.

Our resort.

We spent almost our entire time in Tonga at the Vakaloa Beach Resort on the western side of Tongatapu. Calling it a "Resort" might be a little misleading. The entire place consisted of 8 rooms right on the beach and a main hall with a restaurant. I'm not complaining. The solitude was incredible.

Our room. Geckos? Yes. Hot water? Sometimes.

If you are a cheapskate like me, I highly recommend Tonga. It is like the Mexico of the South Pacific. Good food for around $7 USD a plate. If you liked Tongan food, it was around $3 USD a plate. Plus, no tipping! The bus around the island - $1 USD. The beach - FREE.

The beach outside our front door.

We spent a lot of time laying on the beach and snorkeling. I read Into Thin Air in 3 days. Erik snorkeled for hours a day. It was fabulous. It felt like a real vacation. No stress. Nowhere we had to be. Everything was on "Tonga Time."

Proof we were there.

Erik and I decided that when people ask us about our trip, our generic response will be, "More in love than ever!" However, after driving around New Zealand together, I think our generic response should be, "At least we're still speaking!" (More about that in a later post....)

Another freaky dog outside our room.

Tonga has a lot of random animals (dogs, pigs, chickens...) roaming around. It wasn't uncommon to find a stray dog or two lying outside our door. I tried not to freak out every time I encountered one.

I think that will do it for today. As you can imagine, I have over 1,000 pictures of our trip. I'll spend the next week picking out some fun tidbits to post about. Coming up tomorrow, Erik goes all Lord of the Flies on us!