Nice little mention over at Save The Kales blog. :)

Check out Gerry’s first Two Dollar Tattoo project entry he did on our favourite receptionist Nova. So cute!

And here’s the tattoo that Colin did. Insane!

Now if Gerry would get off his butt and send in some photos of Kannapali maybe there would also be a blog entry about my tattoo. : )

We’ve been doing some minor renovations at the tattoo shop … actually not so minor. We’re taking up all the ugly old tile and it’s back-breaking work!!

First we removed all the old tile (ugh).

We also demolished our rickity old desk. That was fun.  :)

Removing more tile … these boys are working so hard!

Last night we started to paint/stain the floor but ran out of product. Dang it!

I have some serious renovation fatigue already. My shoulders are SO SORE from hauling all the demo garbage to the dump. Maybe I’ll get a massage at the end of all this *hint hint* Are you reading this Gerry? *HINT HINT*

Me and my Pops.  ;)

Click on photos to see larger version.

This ALMOST makes me want to go to church.

Oh Kaanapali you are so adorable!

Yay! I got a new tattoo today!!

Gerry and the rest of the gang at Tattoo Zoo have been participating in the Two Dollar Tattoo Project and I wanted to get in on the action! :)

The other day Bryan did a sick R2D2 on our friend Ryan (Hi Ryan) and Gerry did a tiny ship in a bottle on Nova (Hi Nova) and Colin did the scene from the Empire Strikes Back with the AT-AT walkers on Bryan (Hi Bryan). Oh man it’s so sick! I’ll post the link to the photos once they’re up on the blog.

In a nutshell they have to do a tiny tattoo no bigger then a toonie (about the size of a silver dollar) and you can only tattoo with a single needle. For those of you tattoo virgins – single needle tattoo’s are technically very demanding and are an “old timey” way of tattooing that isn’t used very often anymore.

Gerry sent me a text this morning of the drawing he did for me with the line “Will you be my Mommy” under it. Ha! Look at how cute the drawing is!! How could I say no?

I realized as Gerry was tattooing me that it’s been a YEAR since my last tattoo (how did that happen?). A YEAR? Really?

My last tattoo was the matching “13th wedding anniversary” tattoos Gerry and I gave each other on our anniversary. Wow. A year? I’m still kind of dumbfounded. Time flies. :)

Here’s my puffer fish as just an outline alongside Gerry (for reference so you understand how small it is).

Here he is … all coloured and cute as pie!! I’ll take a better photo once he’s healed … I think I’ll name him Kaanapali! :)

Here is a photo we took as I am passing the $2 to Gerry as proof of compliance with the set parameters of the Two Dollar tattoo project.  :)

It was a fun day. I wish all my tattoos were that easy!

Ahhh ha ha. This photo always cracks me up.

Obvious spoof of Attack of the 50ft Woman. This photo was one of the ones I stressed out about the most as I wasn’t sure we could pull so many different elements together. How was I going to pose? What was I going to wear? Could we get the photo and drawings to work well together … but it turned out to be the easiest photo of the bunch.

Gerry drew the back-ground (with the CN Tower in the back to add a little Canadian flavour) and Rudee put all the design elements together and added such brilliant touches like the “Vegan 3-d glasses” etc.

The blurb above the recipe I wrote after watching the trailer for the movie. My favourite line is “Grown men will weep like babies…”

In my hands is mini Mork doll that I grabbed from my shelf of toys and the beautiful dress is from Bettie Paige Clothing. All together I think we shot maybe 6-10 photos and got the pose right away. Like I said… easy photo shoot.

Have you read this interview with Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine?

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” — Roger Ebert

2 thumbs up! :)

Our last day was a weird one. Our flight wasn’t until later in the evening so we had the whole day to do stuff but had to check out of our room at 11am. Gerry and I went for one last walk on the beach before we packed up our bags and checked out. Good bye orange sand…

One last look at our view from the balcony (good bye whales) …

Packed all our bags in the car and we were off. First order of business was a little walk through Lahaina’s Front Street to pick up some presents and kill some time. It reminded me a lot of Victoria’s Government Street. Tourist trap shop after tourist trap shop selling cheap trinkets and ugly T-shirts and discount Macadamia nuts which we bought a box of to give to our staff back at Tattoo Zoo.

Nothing says “Mommy and Daddy went to Hawaii and didn’t think about you at all while we were away” like a tin of nuts. *laugh*

While in Lahaina we walked by a Crocs store. If you’re a frequent reader of my blog you know how much I despise Crocs but Denise wanted to pop in and look at them while I tried my best to keep them out of the store …

I failed as soon as these cute flats caught my eye. OMG! So cute!!

Lucky for me they didn’t have my size … so I didn’t purchase any crocs but I came dangerously close. DANGEROUSLY close!! Well done Crocs. Well done …

Next stop? My Dad really wanted to go to the Hiliimaila General Store for lunch.

… not much for vegans on the menu but Gerry and I had a roasted vegetable sandwich and french fries. I give it a “meh” out of 10.

Next on the list was a trip to Paia to hit up Mana Foods for some airplane grub. On the drive to Paia my parents GPS (who’s nickname is Missy because of her fancy British accent) had us take a crazy back-roads route. As we were driving through sugarcane fields on dirt roads I could hear the theme song for Deliverance – but before we knew it we were at the end of a dirt road staring at the most incredible ocean scene yet!

The waves were HUGE! You can’t really tell how intense the ocean was because there’s no little person out there to give you perspective but the waves were high, crashing around and kind of scary.

We stood and watched them for a long time … it was glorious!

Got to Paia and bought some plane provisions. Thanks Mana. You rock! And then hit up Flatbread Company one last time for our farewell Hawaii dinner.

I’m going to miss that pizza. I think it’s the BEST pizza I’ve ever had. No lie! Drove to the airport. Got on our 9pm flight and said GOOD BYE to Maui!

The flight home was … um … horrific. It started out ok but I had 2 kids sitting behind me and kicking my seat for the first 2 hours. I asked the parents (very politely) to make sure the kicking stopped but to no avail. As it rounded midnight (and I NEEDED to sleep) I eventually had to complain to the flight attendant and have her admonish the parents for their unruly children.

Look. I know it’s hard to travel with kids. I totally get it … but feeding them chocolate bars and giving them coke on an overnight flight is bordering on child-abuse and is KEEPING ME FROM SLEEPING!

I think I got maybe an hours sleep. And not real sleep. More like 10 minute intervals of snoozing and then I’d be woken up by kicking or being punched in the back or by having someone grab my hair. *sigh*

We arrived in Vancouver at 5:30am and I was beyond exhausted. We said happy but weary good-byes to The Rents and drove (for an hour) to Gerry’s parents to pick up the dog. Luckily for Gerry (and for me) he had managed to sleep on the plane so he did all the driving.

Happy to have Fergus back in my lap where he belongs …

We drove another hour to the ferry terminal to grab the 9am ferry home. WHY we did this I’ll never understand. Why didn’t we just have a nap at Gerry’s parents? Or spend the night? I have NEVER been so exhausted in my life. It was like I had narcolepsy. I couldn’t stay awake no matter how hard I tried. It was intense.

Got home and crashed hard for a few hours. Woke up confused and with a terrible travel hang-over. Gerry reminded me that we needed to go to the grocery store to buy some dinner (why hadn’t I thought of that before we left)… and I tried so hard to get dressed and go with him to the store but I ended up sobbing in his arms in the hallway. I was SO exhausted I could barely stand up and was dangerously close to vomiting. Not pretty.

Lovely husband that he is … he went to the store alone and I sobbed into my pillow for 10 minutes and fell asleep again. I WILL NEVER do a crazy overnight flight like that again or at the very least I will go somewhere and sleep a little before I make the arduous trip home to the island.

Gosh. Just thinking about that long night/day/night makes me feel sick … thank goodness I’m home, the dog is in my lap and all is well.  :)

Thanks for the fun Maui!