Hawaii Last Day :(

Our last day in Hawaii was all about soaking up all of Hawaii that we could! Kent and I both started our day with a run on the "beachwalk." Back in the room we spent the morning packing up and preparing for check out. It's amazing what a mess 6 people can make of a 2 bedroom condo in a week! Especially when one of those people is 2!

After our 11 am check-out, we headed for the pool. Taylee (finally), on our last day, decided to play in the zebra floaty I brought along for her. And guess what? She loved it! She thought she was pretty cool in her "zebwa!"
After our pool time we headed to downtown LaHaina for another healthy lunch of burgers from SureThing, and shave ice. And it was delicious yet again! One milestone to note - Taylee ate her first hamburger on this trip! That's our little meat-eater! Skyler still won't eat em', but now Taylee will!

After lunch we were headed towards Kahului and the airport (although our flight wasn't for another 10 hours!). We took the looooong way around the north shore of the island past Kapalua, and through some of the most beautiful parts of the island. It is mostly uninhabited up there, and the road is quite treacherous. We stopped at just a few photo lookouts, and for some world-famous banana bread, and it took us over 3 hours to make the 38 mile drive. We were very fortunate that Taylee slept through most of it, or it wouldn't have been quite so relaxing.

The Nakalele Blowhole

By the time we made it to Kahului it was after 4. We checked into our hotel. Yes we rented a cheap hotel room just to shower and relax that evening before our red-eye. Totally worth the money! Then we split up and Kent and Skyler headed to check out Twin Falls waterfall, while nana, poppi, Taylee, and I went to Paia for a bit of last minute shopping.

We met up after our adventures at the hotel and got showered and freshened up for our flight home. We grabbed some dinner at the Kahului Ale House, which actually turned out to be pretty good. After wasting a little time in the outdoor mall - Taylee was fascinated by the water fountain - it was time to head to the airport.

When we checked in for our flight we were informed that the flight was overbooked. I had a mini panic attack because we were traveling on frequent flyer miles, and would be the first to get the boot. They asked us to stay overnight, on them, and would provide us with $600 per person flight credit, and fly us out of Honolulu the next day. We were very tempted, but one look at the expression on the kids faces and we knew it was time to go home. So we sadly declined and crossed our fingers that someone would take their offer so we could all fly home together. Fortunately, we were in luck and we flew out, as scheduled, at 11:20 pm. Taylee melted down before we even took off because she needed to go "peepee in the TOYET!!!" "Can't want to go peepee in my pull-up!!!" (I put her in a pull-up for just this instance. Too bad it didn't work!) We were stuck in our seats because we were prepared for taxi, and it took some conniving with the flight attendant to get her into the potty before takeoff. I was certain that we were going to listen to her screaming for 20+ minutes until we took off and got to altitude. Oy! I got lots of dirty looks from the other passengers. :) The looks got worse when she melted down again an hour into the flight, and again 2 hours later. Well, at least she was sleeping between the meltdowns! We all made it home, safe and sound at 10 am on Friday. Whew, what a trip!

Hawaii Day Seven

One of the coolest things about our trip to Hawaii was introducing Skyler to all these new experiences. Although all of us adults have been to Hawaii before, this was Skyler's first experience in a "tropical" locale. Boogie boarding, snorkeling, whale watching, etc, were all "firsts" for him. We were so excited because he loved everything we did! Well, except whale watching, but that was cuz the whales were lame. :( Since he loved snorkeling so much, we decided that with our last full day we would snorkel in Turtle Town! We snorkeled around the bay for about 30 minutes and were disappointed with the sealife (or lack thereof). After relaxing for a bit on the beach the boys decided to give it another go, and were rewarded with a sea turtle sighting. Waaay Cool - as Taylee would say.
Our "campsite" at Turtle Town

The bay where we snorkeled
I posted ugly pictures of the boys in their snorkel gear on my blog, so it's only fair I put an ugly picture of myself in snorkel gear, right?
After we had our fill of snorkeling we headed back to Big Beach. We grabbed lunch from the food truck in the parking lot, which has apparently been pretty good in the past. Not so much today. Two burnt quesadillas, a couple flavorless tacos, a burrito, a shave ice, a smoothie, and SIXTY dollars later, we headed for the beach.

As we walked down the looong tree-lined path to the beach I could hear the waves crashing on the shore. I thought that was odd because I hadn't noticed that the last time we came. When we came out onto the beach, we saw that the surf was extremely high. There were signs posted all over the beach about the dangerous riptides and shore break. I'm no good at judging the height of waves, but these had to be at least 20 footers! Okay, not really, but they were BIG. Much, much bigger than they had been on our previous visit. However, we weren't to be deterred from our fun in the ocean, and we braved the high surf. We did have fun, and each of us did get tossed by the waves a few times. Poor nana made one attempt to come out and play with us (past the break), and got flipped end-over-end by the first wave. That was it for her ocean time. :( We were a bit abashed when the lifeguards used their bullhorns to warn all "inexperienced" swimmers to please get out of the water, as the conditions were very dangerous. I will say there were much bigger idiots out there than us! Hard to believe, I know!

We had to find other ways to entertain Taylee, as she wasn't allowed in the ocean today. Not even in the safety of daddy's arms. Just too scary for me!
She did a great job entertaining herself in the sand, cooking dinner and serving it to all of us. Strange, I know, but she's two, so what can I say?

By the end of the day we were all roasted, toasted, and sunburnt!

We had some great Chinese takeout that night from China Boat. There are very few choices for Chinese food in LaHaina, and we were pleasantly surprised with our meals. A relaxing evening "in" after a big day at the beach.

Hawaii Day Six

I love this photo. No Taylee doesn't exactly look good, but I love how it shows the trust and love she has for her poppi. Her little hand gripping his finger. So cute. And that intense stormy sky in the background? Gorgeous.

That intense and stormy sky made for some beautiful photos, but it did NOT make for good ziplining weather! Nana, Skyler, Kent, and I eaded off to the Skyline EcoTours headquarters to get outfitted for our zipline tour at 8 am. They bounced us by van to our "staging location" where we got helmets and harnesses in preparation for a day of exciting zipline adventures! We were loaded back in the van, ready to hit the road, when the trouble began. This is what we heard from our zipline tour guide as he spoke on the phone "So it's as slippery as a rooster's you know what?!" Hmmm. We weren't sure what to make of this, so we stayed in the van, waiting to go. Soon, they asked us to hop out. I honestly thought they were joking. As they started collecting our gear I was still thinking they were playing a practical joke on us. I mean where we were sitting it wasn't even raining! Our guides were pretty funny - but not about this apparently. It wasn't until we were back in the van, sans equipment, on our way back to the "office" to reschedule, that I realized we really weren't going to zipline. Apparently the roads up to the zipline course were impassable due to a rain storm, and this is a rare occurence. Huh? It is a tropical island after all! So, anyways, we were disappointed to miss our opportunity to add Maui to our growing list of exotic zipline locales (Cabo San Lucas, Alaska, Kuaui, and Park City! Ok, so it's not that exotic.) We are grateful, however, that they quite possibly saved us $500 worth of cold, miserable ziplining in the rain.

Doesn't it look sunny and pleasant here? Who knew?

We quickly headed back to the hotel to meet up with Taylee and Poppi, and make a plan for our day. We headed out for Black Rock Beach (another famous snorkel locale), and got rained out. :( We decided to try and get ahead of the weather and headed to Kapalua. It sure was beautiful, but still pretty overcast and not very warm. They boys snorkeled for a while, and we decided to bail just as the rain started to fall.

We spent much of our afternoon in the condo, waiting for the sun. When it finally peeked out from the clouds we ran straight to the pool. We enjoyed a nice afternoon riding the Honua Kai water slide!

After we got cleaned up we headed for dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. We were all in a festive mood that night, the beers and cocktails were flowing, and we had a great time!

Best of all? Nana had a Double Trouble (as in - double shot!) cocktail, and she was feeling PRETTY good!

We picked up a few souvenirs before heading back to the room to tuck in for the night.

Hawaii Day Five

We were planning our whale watching adventure for months before our trip to Hawaii. In fact, that's why we went to Hawaii in February, the peak of whale season. We have had some amazing experiences with the whales in Maui before, so our hopes were really high.

This is how we felt at the beginning of our whale watching tour.

This is how we felt an hour and a half later . . .Unfortunately the whales just weren't very active that morning, so we were left feeling a little disappointed. We did see a few whales, but all we saw was them spouting, and their tails as they dove deep under water. Well, you win some, you lose some.

We perked up and cooled off after our whale watching tour with a shave ice in Lahaina.
Then we headed back to our hotel and took a dip in the pool. Taylee had become a fan of "her floaty" which the condo owners had provided for us (bless them!). This inspired her to finally get in water more than 6 inches deep. Then we headed for the beach to build more sand castles and bury kids in the sand! It turned out to be a fun afternoon after a drag of a morning.That evening we went to Lahaina Pizza Company (again!) for dinner. That's how much we like it!

Hawaii Day Four

We woke up on Sunday morning ready for an adventure! We were headed to Haleakala to bike down the volcano. Nana and Taylee were planning a big day of fun in the sun at the pool hotel. Although Taylee thought biking sounded pretty fun! Me, Kent, Skyler, and Poppi had booked the "deluxe" tour which allowed us to take a van tour to the summit of Haleakala and take look at the crater. Haha! We chose the wrong day for a tour of the summit, and we encountered sleeting rain and gusty winds when we arrived, and the fog was so thick we couldn't see a darn thing. See the photo below? That's how much of the crater we saw too. None.

We decided we better take a photo of the crater model in the visitor's center to prove we were actually there!

Well, since we couldn't see any of the crater, we resorted to playing silly games in the fog.

They took us down below the fog to 6700 feet, and we were ready to bike the volcano!

The views were pretty spectacular, and this picture doesn't do it justice.

We had one very frightening incident in which this massive plant tried to attack us and eat us! Arrrgh!

We stopped for lunch on our way through a series of small towns, and ate at the Kula Sandalwoods. Yummy sandwiches, but they had no french fries. Darn health nuts. :)

We had a fun dinner that night at Bubba Gump's, but unfortunately our one picture didn't turn out. Darn.

Hawaii Day Three

Our third day in Hawaii took us away from our Lahaina home and down into Kihei, then past Wailea and beyond. We headed out early to catch the Whale Parade (part of the Whale Festival!) in Kihei. The parade was kind of lame, but, really, we can't complain, we were in Hawaii!

Here's the happy duo on our way to the parade. Oh yeah, and Charlie.

After the conclusion of the exciting whale parade, we headed down to Ahihi Kinua Reserve for some world renowned snorkeling. The boys had a great time snorkeling while nana and I did our best to entertain Taylee on a very rocky beach. We were mostly succesful.

These guys looked so good in their snorkel gear, I just had to get a photo!Kent wasn't impressed by my photography skills. Heehee!

(Sorry to all you faint of heart folks!)

Unfortunately poppi suffered a massive shark bite while snorkeling.

Well, maybe it was just a coral scratch, but it looked awful, and shark bite sounds better.

After the guys had their fill of snorkeling, we headed for an old favorite - Big Beach! We did NOT however, make the trek over to the infamous Little Beach, where swimsuits are optional.

Taylee had lots of help building a sandcastle, and she thought it was pretty cool! Except when the waves would wash up near her castle. She would yell "no waher! Go Way!"

You can see from this photo that the boys took a beating on their boogie boards at Big Beach. We found out later that not only is it not an ideal boogie boarding beach due to the shore break, it is downright dangerous. They could easily have broken their necks! We saw a fellow get carted off with a broken arm sustained while boogie boarding a few days later. Kent managed to literally fold his boogie board in half, and was lucky to only suffer some bruising to his rock solid abs.

The thing you CAN'T see in this photo are the keys to BOTH rental cars in Kent's pocket, which did indeed go swimming AND boogie boarding with him. And yes, they were electronic key fobs. We were thrilled to find that the key to the Jeep worked just fine! We were not so thrilled to find that the key to the Chrysler 300 did not work at all. After talking to the rental company and finding out that they wanted us to pay to taxi a replacement key to us, we all decided to pile into the jeep for the 45 minute drive to the rental location. Kent was thrilled to ride in the hatch back of the Patriot. $100 later we had a new key and were headed back to get our car! No harm done, right?! It was getting late, so we snagged Maui Tacos on our way back to Lahaina, and ate in the room.