Hawaii, Baby!

Well, we are back!:( We had so much fun! We can't wait to go back again, soon, maybe fall...

So we went to Maui for 8 days with our friends, Cory & Sonja Hansen. They took their 5 month old baby, Lily, so we also took Lorry Bare to go take care of Lily while we played. It was a week of beaches, swim suits and fun! I think we ended up in the Ocean every day, at some point.

Lets see if I can remember what we did.... We arrived on Thursday, we got checked in, went to dinner, I ate a piece of sushi for the first time. (I had to pick of anything that had to do with seafood, but it was pretty good) Then Jacob and I drove out to Ho'opika Beach and just watched the waves and the surfers. Unbelievable!

Friday we went to Makena Beach, this whole beach with like 2 other people on it! It was awesome. We snorkeled out and saw these huge sea turtles, and lots of cool coral and fish. Saturday we went to Lahaina and rented surf boards and went to a beach just south of Lahaina. We spent the day there and then went to the Old Lahaina Luau. It was super fun! (too bad we don't drink, they offer free drinks, ya know. We didn't even think of getting virgin versions of the drinks. oops.) The guys climbed Haleakala, its a Volcano. From sea level up for 35 miles to reach a summit of 10,000 feet. It was a climb. I can't believe they made it up. It took quite a while to get up, hours, but they flew down in 45 minutes or less. They beat us in the car coming down. CRAZY!

Monday, Jacob and I were up and at the boat dock by 6 am to go Scuba Diving out to Molikini, a crater in the ocean. It was awesome. I got down 100 feet, for the first time. It was my first dive since getting certified a year ago. I was kinda trippin at the beginning! We saw two sharks and we could hear a whale. We never saw it, but we could hear it. So cool. Then we went to Red Rock, and dove again. We saw tons of turtles, and so many different kinds of fish. The water was so beautiful. Our first dive, you could see all the way to the 100 foot bottom. It was spectacular! What a rush.
We did more surfing, more beaches...

On Tuesday, I think, we hiked in the Bamboo forest. We hiked up to one water fall and then you go up above it and keep hiking to the next one. We did the first three while Hansens went on up to the fourth one. They were so pretty. But there wasn't much falling water. I guess it hasn't rained much so they were pretty bare. But still beautiful. That night, Jacob and I took off to Lahaina to walk through the little town and have dinner at Bubba Gumps. Its just the cutest little town. We went back there on Thursday and spent most of the day there and had lunch at Cheeseburgers in Paradise, Tiff's suggestion, thanks Tiff. It was super yummy! We went back to our beach Thursday night to watch the last Maui Sunset of our trip and then went to dinner and to the airport for our red eye flight home. We got home Friday morning about 11:30.

What a fantastic week. The whole week was one high after another. I felt such a rush each time we did something, scuba, hiking, water falls, trying to surf, (I did get up a couple of times for like 2 seconds--- I am going to master that for next time! Even just sitting on the beach or watching the sunset just makes you feel so good. I've never had such a fantastic week. I think we are addicted to it. We can't wait to go back. I was a little worried I'd be disappointed after all of the years wanting to go. But it was actually better than I imagined.

A huge thanks to my sister, Michelle, who came and stayed with my kids. She was so wonderful and they had so much fun with her, and we just didn't worry about them at all. It was so nice. And to Tiff and my mother in law for helping out, and everyone else who helped too. I have such wonderful friends and family. Thanks~

Oh yea, funny story.... The first night we go out to hot tub, and there are naked people in the swimming pool. 6 of them. I dared Sonja to take their clothes and throw them over the fence, which she did... apparently they were wasted, two of them had just gotten engaged that day and they were CELEBRATING! (I'd say!)... we ran into them the next day at the pool and I was like "Hey, its the naked people!" they about died. It was pretty funny. We saw them everywhere during the week! Lots of laughs.