Green thumb tests results: negative

This is very sad news for me to report. After a long, hard week of struggling my hydrangea is starting to look very dead. Leaves are wilting. Lots of brown is showing. If plants did rigor mortis it would be setting in about now. And to make matters worse my nice new laurel bushes are doing a sympathy death dance. The ground is mostly clay with some compost and topsoil that I tilled in, so at first when they started to go brown I thought I was over-watering them. But less water has not helped. They have withered like the grasses. I'm even too traumatized to take a picture.

The Montana Experience

These last few weekends have been busy for us. Two weekends ago we went to Seattle for a wedding. Last weekend Joel and I and another couple (Mike and Kathryn Church) drove to Bigfork, Montana to visit our friends Rachel and Hilary who are working there for the summer. Mike and Kathryn very conveniently have a boat and so we brought that too. We had such a blast, the temperature was great and although the water was frigid we still managed to get in some time inner-tubing. The water temp was great incentive to stay on the tube, believe me.
Rachel's grandparents own a lake-cabin right on the edge of Flathead Lake, and since they're out of town we were able to stay there. It's an amazing cabin with a fabulous view. We got to eat at a few different places in the adorable tiny town of Bigfork and walk to a fabulous view of river rapids. It was a wonderful Montana week-end experience.

Green Thumb Test

We've started noticing our yard this summer, and that's resulted in some changes. Joel and I have always hated the Juniper bush which spitefully takes up half of our front yard. During the winter we had so much snow that the juniper was covered, and for a few weeks I blissfully entertained the idea that it had vanished. But alas, summer has come and it is still there, as big and ugly as ever. Yesterday Joel started cutting branches off, and after filling one whole garbage can and two wheelbarrows he had barely made a dent. It's going to require some major work.


On a happier note, Joel and I shoveled up all the river rock which lined our front walkway and replaced it with dirt. I decided to relocate some daffodils which were in the way, but after uprooting those two or three plants I discovered a mass daffodil bulb graveyard below the earth. The first picture there is all the bulbs which I found (not even all actually, I destroyed several as I was digging) bathed and dried and waiting to be stored in a cool dry area until I think of where to plant them. And now I am scheming as to what to plant next to our walkway. What you see in the picture is a lovely hydrangea bush which sits near the front of the walkway beside the garage. Next to it is a little dahlia flower which really has no business being there, but it was so cute and I couldn't help myself at the store. So after those two buys I still have a good patch of dirt beside the walkway to plant in, and I'm debating over what shrubs to buy. I would like to get evergreens because I love having color in the winter. But there are also very few evergreens which I like. So I've been investigating and pondering and will post pictures once I've made my decision.
The other pictures are my planter in the front doorway-area, and Whiskey being helpful as usual.

Last, but not least

I thought I would end with some miscellaneous pretty (or fun) pictures we took along the trip.


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Two down, two to go

I hope this isn't a Maui overload, I thought it might be easier if I broke it up into smaller posts. Only two more to go! We took a morning trip to see what was supposed to be a very cool blowhole; however, the tide was not high enough I suppose, or the water was not rough enough, because the blowhole only managed a few meager spouts at best. But it was still a beautiful rocky area overlooking the ocean, and the view alone was worth the trip.



After that we went to the Olivine Pools, natural rock pools that overlooked the ocean. The biggest one was deep enough to jump into, although I had to get over my squeamishness at the thought of what little, pale creatures (possibly with pincers or teeth) might be nestled in the underwater crevices in those pools.

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Maui, cont.

Here I go again, I'm on a roll so I'm going to try and finish up our Maui section today.

We drove the infamously curvy Road to Hana (Dad was our fearless driver) which took almost the entire day. Some guidebooks say there are about 600 curves and 54 one-lane bridges. It's really not a good idea for people who get car-sick easily. But thankfully none of us threw-up and our car did not slide off the narrow roads into the steep ravines, and we got to see some very pretty waterfalls.


Along the road to Hana we stopped at the Hana Lava Tube. The cave was formed from liquid rock plowing a path through the earth and leaving behind plenty of neat rock formations (stalagmites and stalactites). They let you do self-guided tours (my favorite) and our guidebook recommended we turn our lights off inside the cave if we wanted to know what complete and utter darkness was. Some of us liked this more than others.

Back to Maui

It's been a very busy week, so I haven't had time to post anything, but I really do have loads of intriguing things to say (well, not really loads...). Before I move on to more exciting things around the house (like tulip graveyards and hydrangea bushes) I should finish up with Maui pictures.

One of our adventures on Maui was to the Iao Needle. The Iao needle is located in the middle of Iao valley (surprise, surprise) and is a neat, natural rock formation in the shape of a needle. It was once an altar to the gods, and as we learned on the way there this beautiful valley was not always so beautiful. It was the famous last stand of some native Maui warriors against King Kamehameha (Joel and I are considering this for a son's name). The natives were no match for the King's canon, and the body became a mass graveyard in a few short hours. Now the valley is absolutely beautiful, lush and green with fun trails and pathways to explore.

One Year Anniversary and a Weather Report

Sunday was our one year anniversary. We went out to dinner at Sangria (very good food) and then to the movies to watch Indiana Jones. After one year Joel and I both admit that we feel like we know even less about marriage than before. However, it's been an absolutely wonderful year, and we're so grateful for each other, even if we have no idea what we're doing. And so we give thanks for God's grace in holding our hands as we walk in the dark, and look forward to the years to come as God slowly unfolds to us this great mystery.

This morning (June 10th) was a little bit of a disappointment. I feel as if it's my fault, since I inadvertently started humming Christmas songs last night. I saw on Meris' blog that it was 103 in Phoenix. Divide that by three and you have our weather. We clasp our hands together and chant "summer, summer, summer" and hope it will have some effect.

Biking in Paradise

The owners of the condo we stayed at in Puamana graciously let us use their two bikes. And so Joel and I rediscovered our love of bike-riding. The town of Lahaina was only about a 15-2o minute walk away, but sometimes even that was too long in the hot Maui sun. On bikes, however, the distance shortened dramatically and so we used them often during our vacation.
Our first time trying to ride them was comical. Having no tools to lower the seats, we were forced to ride uncomfortably high on both our bikes. We also could not sit on the bike seat with both feet touching the ground, a luxury previously unappreciated. This meant that when we wished to go from a state of rest to one of motion, we had to perform serious acrobatic maneuvers: one foot would kick off the ground while the body would jump onto the bike's seat, causing it to veer back and forth as we desperately sought balance. Then one foot had to make contact with whatever pedal was high enough to push on, until hopefully the bike was moving consistently in a forward motion.
We caught the hang of things after a while and will fondly remember our bike-rides into Lahaina for ice-cream or lunch or to explore the town. Please take note of the delightful Wizard-of-Oz baskets on the front of each bike, as well as the strangely curved handles, which made steering interesting.

Home again, home again

to end our title with "lickity split" would be a lie. Our plane left Maui at 9:15 last night, and we finally arrived home at about 3 this afternoon. When you only sleep in bits and spurts throughout a night it really messes with your ability to distinguish days. Thankfully, internal clocks are fairly good at righting themselves.

In a nutshell: we had a wonderful time. The weather was the same every single day of our trip (in the 80s and sunny), we sunbathed and snorkeled, climbed to waterfalls, read good books, and ate lots and lots of great food.

It's difficult to know where to begin and how much information all the relatives actually WANT to read. So I thought I'd write about our trip in installments (kind of like Dickens, right?) adding pictures as we go and writing about what we hope you'll find interesting. This way, if I notice the responses to our posts starting to get....terse, perhaps (wow Christine, another great picture of Maui. Thanks for rubbing it in)... then we shall simply stop with grace before everyone starts throwing tomatoes.

Food is a subject near and dear to our hearts, so I thought I'd start with that. We had a wonderful guidebook (Maui Revealed) which recommended many fabulous restaurants. Our first night in Maui we were somewhat rushed (the season finale of Lost was on and we just HAD to watch it) so we got fish and chips to go from Mulligans Pub. While the people there were not the most..... (sober?).... amiable, the food was fantastic as you can see from Joel's enthused face.

Another favorite was Bubba Gump's, which served us the most fantastic shrimp appetizer I have ever eaten. And of course the atmosphere was delightful.

This fetching picture (we think we should be models) is taken at the Mexican restaurant Cilantro's, which we think would live up to Tio Benjamin's standards.

That's all for now. As we came back into town Joel remarked that although he truly enjoyed visiting the tropical sights of Maui, he is much more drawn to the evergreens and rolling hills of the Northwest, and I have to agree. As chilly as it was back in Moscow, the green hills interspersed with patches of soaring pine trees which stretched for miles were picturesque.