Happy Solstice, Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas), Happy Holidays 2016, and Hau`oili Makahiki Hou (Happy New Year 2017)
We celebrate the end of one year with family and friends near and far and welcome the sunlight after the dark days of winter into a bright future.
As I look back, I realize it has been over a year since I have written a web post. I started working at the Maui Ocean Center (again) as a marine naturalist. It was supposed to be two days a week but I was soon working four days a week covering vacations and attrition. My schedule suddenly became much more complicated and I found less time to work on my computer. I am working to change that schedule.
Last January, we welcomed a new grandson, Patrick Hayden Schultz. We flew to Missoula Montana in May to get to know the little man (You can read about him and our trip on the webpost). He will be 1 year old January 9. We are hoping to make another trip to the Schultz’s next Spring.
In March, Neil started working as a production assistant on an MTV reality show being filmed on Maui. When he was working, he couldn’t tell anyone the name but now we can say it was Are You The One, season 4. He really enjoyed the experience of meeting the crews and seeing the production process. Hardest part was 12 hour days! Which of course adding lunch break and commute time to Haiku added another hour and ½ to the day. He spoke about it so much, I signed on for the last two weeks. I was only able to work about 5 days because of my other work schedule. It was an interesting experience.
While on that job, someone knocked over our motorcycle at the hotel where Neil had parked it for the day. It was 20 years old and parts were no longer available. Shop called it a total. Neil was investigating trying to find parts on the internet but we gave up and bought a high performance scooter (we shopped for a motorcycle but I can’t reach the ground on the models that were available.) The scooter is a nice ride but hard to get used to after the motorcycle because it has an automatic transmission and the front brakes are very strong. Before leaving for our May trip I locked the front brakes while stopping fast behind a car turning left and I got some road burns. Just one knee was the most bruised and took time to heal. Neil took his turn of road sliding in August but at a faster speed when a jeep suddenly turned left in front of him. 
His road burns were much more sever and took several months to heal.
In October, we had several birthdays and the birth of Will Jackson Levy to celebrate. What I decided I wanted for my birthday was dental work. I was on a plane to Thailand a few weeks later. I will be writing more posts about that so stay tuned.
We are thrilled to have Mailea visiting with us for a few weeks in December, and we have enjoyed fun meals and time visiting. Mailea and Neil coauthored a scientific paper that was published last February: Maui Water Quality, a Comparative Study for Lahaina and Kihei. They began working on another follow-on paper; this one is the Microbiological Data. They have been having meetings and work sessions for a good portion of the time and have made amazing progress. But they taking off a few days for Christmas!
I have decided to develop my consulting services working with clients on website development and online presence. I hope to write more about that in January.
Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas and Holiday season!
[I wrote this Christmas Eve and am just now able to post it right before New Year’s Eve. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with Jean, Morley, and Mailea with good laughs opening presents from under the tree. Christmas night, we spent with Vajra, Quentin, Sophie, and Mailea sharing dinner before we opened stockings and unwrapped presents. Everyone was thrilled with all their gifts and I was so busy enjoying watching, I realized I didn’t take any photos!]