I am catching up with pictures from a few months ago. Over Christmas break, Sophie spent two weeks on Maui visiting her mom and brother. She is currently residing in Portland with her dad. Vajra had their two weeks  packed with fun filled activities and outings. Neil and I practically had to get scheduled in to get to see them 🙂 Actually we had several great outings with them and they made a Christmas delivery to us!

Sophie and Quentin came bearing gifts of homemade Christmas cookies and live fish to add to our fresh water tank! They bought us a pair of Rosy Barbs which they named Dasher and Aqua. They are the only ones of our 16 fish that have official names. We sometimes call the Spotted Green Puffer “Lil’ Piglet” or “Jo Jo” depending on what he’s doing. The namesake Jo Jo is a parrot belonging to Neil’s aunt who is content to playfully amuse himself for long periods of time. And the Spotted Pictus Catfish is sometimes “Mr. Snuffle-up-aguss” when he’s frantically sucking up all the food he can lay his whiskers on. Aqua is currently pregnant (so full of eggs her sides bulge out) and Dasher follows her around attentively ready to fertilize the eggs when she is ready. He seems to want her to hurry up with that, by the way. We don’t have any hope of little fish babies because there is no nursery section in the tank which could protect the eggs or hatchlings from the other fish.

While Quentin and Sophie were here, they got to open their Christmas gifts from us, Quentin’s dad, grandparents, and great-grandparents. There was much more excitement about that than watching how the fish settled into their new home! Imagine!

Sophie loves the water. Vajra set up an above ground pool in the yard for the Christmas break which they played in several times a day she said. There was also lots of beach and ocean time. As a special treat, Vajra arranged a night at the Wailea Marriott so the kids could play on the water slides and in the adventure kids pools. We visited them for an afternoon so we could play on the water slides too. We all had a ball.

For a fun outing I took them to the Maui Golf and Water Park which has two Hawaiian themed 18 hole miniature golf courses and water bumper boats with spray blasters. Guess what was the hit! We made it through about half a golf course before Sophie lost interest. The bumper boats are in a large pool with two waterfalls pouring into it. We all got some good spray blasts at each other and Vajra caught on film the kids giving me a real soaking.

Sophie specifically requested to visit the aquarium. Quentin has been there “a thousand times (he says with a dramatic sigh)” and has no interest in going anymore, but of course he wanted to come too when he found out I was going to take Sophie on one of her last days here. We all had a great time exploring and moving from exhibit to exhibit. What a fun visit!