Last winter we went on an amazing trip to Kauai. When we went the kids were 5, almost 4, and 1 at the time. They remember some things, but not too much. We try to tell stories about it and look at pictures from when we were there, because I’m guessing we won’t be back for a long while. That’s where these pillows come in.

Kauai is a teeny island with one main road that goes almost all the way around the island. When you are driving one way the ocean is on your side and when you turn around and drive the other way the mountains are on your side. Most directions include one or the other to help you find your way. The Hawaiian for this is mauka and makai:

– Mauka (mow-kah) means on the mountain side of the road.

– Makai (mah-kigh) means on the ocean side of the road.

The big kids each had their side of the car (the baby was in the middle). That mean one kid was mauka and the other makai. They would have argument about which was better and rub it in if they got the good side. Of course once we turned around and went home, the other one would rub it in. Some days the mountains were the favorite and other days it was the sea.

I’m not super big on souvenirs (except we got a hula girl of course), so I made the pillows, hoping it would help the kids hold on to  a bit of Kauai. The mountain is a simple green triangle. And yes it has snow, shut up it looks good. My first idea for the ocean pillow was to make it look like this, but when I sewed it up, it looked like a blue santa hat. I was working on these pillow right after I made this potholder and I was getting into the polka dot as neutral thing–as you can tell with the ocean pillow. I really love how it turned out: the day side, the night side, and polka dots all over the damn place.

We are finally home. And while I would like to say it’s wonderful to be back, my kids seem to have come down with all the illnesses they missed while we were away, so I am too busy nursing three very sick and whiny jet lagged kids to even know where we are. I only have a minute of quiet while everyone naps, so I thought I’d show you a bit of where we were.

we stayed in our friend’s amazing house.

we hiked up to..

amazing views.

we went to the beach everyday it didn’t rain (this is a crappy phone picture, but still!)

and we ate amazing food. It was an amazing trip. How could it not be? We are incredibly lucky to have such generous friends who live in such an unbelievable place.  We are offically screwed for all our future vactaions.

A quick shout out to all the awesome bloggers who kindly took care of this space while I was away: Anna, MaryJo, Julia, Rae, Holly, Erika, Abbey, Lily, and Eerika.   They baked and sewed and drew and photographed all that is the best about winter. Made winter look like paradise.