Heading up Haleakala

Well, our Chuseok break has not started out with much excitement. I decided that since I have a few days off, I should finally get these last two wisdom teeth pulled. I had planned on doing it before school started, but my cold was so bad that I couldn't breathe through my nose. Nor could I last long without coughing. I almost let this little cold I have be a good excuse, too, but I can breathe just fine and my cough is pretty sporadic.

At least it's done now. Eric has done a great job of making me smoothies and mashed potatoes. Yesterday, I spent the entire day laying in bed, trying to sleep. He had made plans to visit a friend of our who is in the hospital going through chemotherapy, so the kids were on their own. They played Legos all day long and Kennedy prepared a healthy lunch of toast and cereal for the two of them.

Today, I'm determined to stay out of bed. Maybe even get out of the house. I have a feeling that I may have managed to glorify how I was feeling after the dental work I had done last spring. We have big plans to go to one of the water parks tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be feeling up for it by then!

I also have high hopes for all of the work that I am going to accomplish on this little break. Of course, I was hoping to get much of that work done yesterday when I wasn't getting out of bed, but that didn't happen since I could barely keep my eyes open.

These pictures are of our trip to the lavender farm on our way up to Haleakala. After lunch, we packed a little picnic and jumped into the car to drive up and see the sunset.

We stopped at this cute little lavender farm on the way up. It was a photographer's paradise, of course, but it is set up pretty well for kids, too. They immediately started on a scavenger hunt through the gardens to find various items and get their stamps. That is exactly the kind of activity that Eric needs when he visits places like this, too, so he led them around and made sure they got every single stamp.

I wandered around finding flowers to take pictures of and Evan and Jen enjoyed their lavender coffee and tea. After the kids finished, they went into get their prize--a box of lavender shortbread cookies. Yum.

We decided to save the cookies for our picnic, so that we could get warm lavender scones with marmalade. They were delicious!

We left the farm, heading further up the mountain. The roads are pretty windy up the mountain, so Jen didn't want to drive any more. She and Evan took the kids in a vehicle that they'd borrowed from friends, and Eric and I took their car. It wasn't long before I realized that I wasn't going to be able to the passenger any more. I'm not sure why I even tried, to be honest.

We eventually made it up into the park and stopped to have our picnic: a lovely assortment of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes, and 7 layer dip, all followed by lavender shortbread cookies.

Then, we were off again, headed further up the mountain. As we drove, the clouds got thicker and the rain began. By the time we reached the parking lot just below the summit, we couldn't see anything. It was cold, rainy, and so cloudy that we could barely see any other cars. We were not going to be able to see a sunset from there.

The boys jumped out to see what they could see. A whole lotta nothin'. The women and children waited in the car. They returned shortly and we headed back down to the visitor's center where we had eaten dinner.

We had just dropped out of the clouds and as we pulled into the parking lot, the sky was turning orange. Clearly, we were back down around buildings as there are power lines going through the above picture.

 

Nonetheless, it was beautiful and I was glad we got to see it, even if it wasn't the original plan. Unfortunately, we hadn't made it much further down the road when Kennedy threw up because she was carsick. Clearly, we weren't going to be able to try this again, nor were we going to be able to attempt the road to Hana. Maybe next year!