Maui, Day 4

I forgot to add these two pics yesterday. With a fancy camera, phone camera and underwater camera, I don't know what is where.

Ok, so now on to day 4 of Maui. We started the day bright and early with a 6:45 check in for our snorkel trip. That may seem early, but none of us are on Hawaii time. We are all asleep by 8:30 or 9 at the latest. It's kind of funny.

The view of the boat with the sunrise in the back was so pretty.
 
We all went to the top as the view was much better and we were by the captain to hear stories and what not. 

Now, we've been on two snorkel trips as a family and they both weren't ideal. The one in the Bahamas got cancelled due to wind, so they took us to a beach and gave us snorkels. We were in like 2 feet of water. Then, in Cabo, the water was so rough that we were kind of being tossed around and we didn't have a lot of time. It was fun, but still not exactly what I'd call a good snorkel trip.  Today, well today, was a perfect snorkel trip! Third time is the charm!

We decided to rent wet suits and are so glad we did. Even with them, Noah's lips were almost blue after an hour in the water. It's hard when you only weight 58 pounds .

 The underwater camera does fine, but the brilliant green colors don't show up. It's so pretty under there. Ben and Noah were both freaking a little bit at first. I think they were more afraid of being in the middle of the ocean than anything else. This is Molokini crater and it's full of fish. It's like swimming in an aquarium.

 David is so good about swimming deep under water.

We didn't know, but you float in wet suits. So, you don't need a life vest. It was awesome. Here's Em and Alanah.

 I got in a picture.

 Emily is like a little fish. She was swimming deep under the water with her snorkel.

 That's my husband down there.

 These long skinny fish were so clue. They were a pretty blue. I found out later they are Needle fish.

 We left Molokini and headed to turtle town for more snorkeling.

 There was this arch at the bottom and David swam through it. I don't know how he did it. It was hard to even get under water with the floatation of the wet suit. Here he is going through the arch. This was probably 15 feet down.

 Totally impressive! He's better than Aqua Man!

 Then, Noah wanted to try to swim down. I couldn't believe it. I love how up for anything my kids always are. Ben and Noah were nervous asking about sharks and whales. I'm not going to lie to them. Yes, there are sharks and whales, but they don't want to eat us and typically aren't where we are. You can tell they felt pretty comfortable after awhile.

 Look at my little fish!

 And here are some humpback whales! It's so hard to take pictures of whales, but at least I got a little something.

 We had free mai tai's on the way back! Dak was on her third!  'Atta girl!

One of my favorite thing is when my kids skin get all sun kissed and brown. Noah has amazing skin color with his Mexican and Italian grandpas. He's working on getting all golden.

We passed this pie shop the other day called Leoda's Kitchen and Pie. We decided to stop after snorkeling. Wow, was it good. Em and I shared a piece of banana creme pie. David got chocolate macadamia nut pie. Ben got peanut butter pie. Noah got a chocolate chip cookie. HA!  They were all delicious.

We got back to our condo and the ocean was just spectacular. We relaxed for a bit. Then, went and got pizza and then headed to the beach!

Ben gets the same golden brown that Noah gets. He's working on his tan. Emily, Alanah and Noah are in the background playing.

And here's the sunset tonight. It was muted by the clouds, but still cool.

It was a fun filled day!  

Tomorrow...a full day at the beach!

Maui, Day 3

I woke up today and looked up at the beautiful skylights. It was a lovely sight.

Then, I looked over and saw the sweet boy sleeping next to me. He's an even more beautiful sight.

We got out to the water. It was not as rough as last night, but there are some big rocks at our beach. So, we had to be careful and avoid them.



We just enjoyed floating around and playing in the water. The kids love that there is a pool and hot tub right here too. So, if they get a little cold, they go warm up.

 It actually started raining a little, so we came up to the condo for some lunch. This is the view of the mountains on our 9th floor. It's so pretty.

 We decided to head up to Nakalele Blowhole. It's about 15 minutes from our condo. The drive was just gorgeous.

This was the sign on the way down. It had just totally rained and it's was crazy wind. Like, I worried Noah might blow away.

We didn't walk all the way down to the blowhole. It was really rocky and wet. But, you can see the water shooting up in the air. It sometimes goes as high as 70 feet!

The boys were hiding in the rocks to try to get a break from the wind.

We stopped at sights all along the way home. The scenery was just gorgeous.

These two boys. This kind of sums them up perfectly.

My girl doesn't like to pose for my pictures. This is payback for every time I rolled my eyes at my own Mom. Sorry Mommy.

Dak and Josh at the beach.

David breaking open a coconut. Or trying too... He didn't get in it, but another guy did and cut us some pieces with his knife. It was pretty bland and not so good.

The roots on these trees are awesome.

This stop along the way was just breath taking. I told David to throw my ashes there when I die.

We got back to our condo and headed down to the restaurant at our condo. They have happy hour, so it was a cheap yummy dinner with a great view of the water.



After dinner, the kids played games and we enjoyed a little downtime.

 
We have an early morning tomorrow and are headed out on a snorkel trip!

Maui, Day 2

Day 2 didn't start out so great for me. We went to bed at close to 2 Arizona time. I took one of David's Lunesta thinking I'd get a good night sleep. But, Noah was coughing and moving constantly. I was awake probably every 30 minutes. Sometime in the middle of the night, I rolled over and felt an awful headache coming on. I knew this was going to bad.

We had plans to go to the Farmer's Market and Costco to get most of our food. We were all up super early, like 6:00 or earlier. We were shopping around and I knew I was going to throw up. I was just majorly off. I knew I wasn't sick. It was just dehydration, lack of sleep, climate change, etc. So, I ran into a grassy area and threw up. Then, I got a smoothie. Then, I threw up again. We were there for about 90 minutes. The kids got some souveniours. We got a Christmas ornament and a got a saroong for my cover up. Then, we got out of there. We got the hotel and I puked again.

I was supposed to go shopping with Darki. Instead we let the kids all go to the pool while David, Dakri and Ryan all went to Costco. David brought back pizza for the kids and Ryan and Dakri went to Walmart. I took two Excedrin and took a nap for an hour. I woke up and felt just fine. I knew that's all I needed.

So, we went to get some lunch.  They have chickens all over the place. It's very bizarre.

We took our lunch to this awesome beach. This place is known for it's winds and kite surfers. The kite surfers were so cool. They'd literally get like 30 feet off the water. Ben's eyes lit up and I know he's going to try that sport one day when his mother isn't telling him how unsafe it is. The food was so good. It was a place called Tin Roof and the guy was on Top Chef which is one of our favorite shows.

Noah was finding treasures.

We hung out for a few hours since we couldn't check into our condo for a few hours.

There were turtles all around these rocks!

We got to our condo finally, got on suits and went down to check out the water. There was some high tide warnings and the water was rough. So, we didn't boogie board much, but still enjoyed it.

The guys grilled us up some T-bone steaks and we had potatoes and salad. It was delicious.

Our first sunset...

It was a great day and we are glad to finally be settled in our condo for the week.

Hawaii, Day 1

Getting to Hawaii is an adventure. You'd think from Arizona, we are fairly close, but it is still a 6 hour and 42 minute ride, nonstop. That's a long time on a plane. I figured we'd watch 3 movies and be there. We get on and the seats have no screens on the back of the seats. What? I had doubled checked to make sure, and the plane we were supposed to be on had screens. This one, nothing. OMG, what will I do for almost 7 hours. What will my kids do?

Surprisingly, with this group, it wasn't too hard to pass the time. Noah was pouting and not in the picture. He wouldn't share french fries with Ben, so I took them all from him and gave them to Ben.

Dakri made us the best chicken salad. It was so much better than expensive airplane food. We were eating like kings.

These kids played games and passed the time.

These guys had some movies on their kindles luckily.

I think Ben took a little nap.

And before you know it, we were landing in Maui. That's Haleakala, the big volcano that's in the middle of the island. We are going to see it on Thursda.y

We got off the plane and headed to Paia Fish Market. With the internet, it's easy to find the best places to eat. And this one did not disappoint.

 

 Then, we got to our hotel and crashed. Our condo is 45 minutes from the airport and expensive, so we weren't going there at 9:00 at night. By the time we went to bed, it was 1:30 in the morning Arizona time. Hawaii is 3 hours behind us. We were beat to say the least! But, we were happy to be here safe and sound.