13 Years of Wedded Bliss

Today Paul and I celebrated our 13th anniversary. Since the trip to Hawaii was our real gift and the luau was our celebratory meal we kept in simple today. We went out to Noodles for lunch. Since Paul picked up the tab, I made him cookies. (This was after he reminded me that anniversaries weren't just all about the woman.) We have been through a lot together. Most good, some bad. I am constantly amazed that he knows me so well and even more amazed that he still puts up with me. I am thankful to have him. I am thankful for the two beautiful, wonderful, fabulous children that we created together. I look forward to what the future brings. We make a dang good team. No I did not intend to rhyme.

Day 8 in Hawaii

Since we didn't leave Hawaii until late at night we needed something to do during the day. We had to be out of the hotel by 11:30. (that is the best they could offer us after we asked if we could stay later) We called the desk and did the automated check out and then stayed in the room another 30 minutes watching TV and reading. Aren't we rebels?

After that we went back to Lahaina (Is it too obvious how much I love it there?) for one more round of pizza at BJ's. (Nope, I'm not touching that one.) They have a lunch deal that is super cheap (even on the mainland it would be a good deal) called "The Nooner." You get a personal Chicago Style pizza

and a salad. They have the most amazing papaya dressing for their salads.

I will be craving their food for years to come. From now on when I ask Paul for a nooner it will have a whole new meaning ;)

After eating we walked around looking in shops debating on whether we could fit anything else in our bags or not.

Paul found two pairs of clearance surfer shorts and I got a long sarong (they were everywhere, I would have felt weird not buying one) that we were able to stuff into our carry-ons. After killing as much time as we could we gave up on battling the geriatrics from the two cruise ships,

got our last shaved ice

and headed for Kahului to check our luggage.

We had called Delta and asked how early we could check our bags. We were told six hours before the flight. We got there 5.5 hours before we were to leave and found out that the Delta desk at the Hawaii airport didn't open for at least another hour. (Some said an hour, others said 45 minutes) We were stuck since we had already gone through the agricultural check point. We sat in line talking to a fabulous gay couple for the next hour. I even got to watch a slide show on their IPhone of all the hot guys on Waikiki Beach.

Once we got our bags checked we spent some more time killing time. We ate a quick dinner and watched the water near the pier while we read in our car. Finally it was time to go to the airport for real. I was freaking out that my sand and shells would be discovered but really it was the coconut banks I had bought for the kids that I should have been worried about. I was stopped near our gate at yet another agriculture stop point accused of trying to bring home coconuts. After digging them out, passing some dirty undies along the way to the bottom of my bag, I was cleared.

We watched Yes Man right after we took off and then took our Tylenol PM and the rest of our trip is a bit foggy. I would swear to you that I never slept but the flight went pretty quick so I am guessing I did. I do know that I ate McDonald's at LAX around 4:45 am. I personally think selling that crap that early in the morning should be against the law. We were glad to get home and even more glad to get a four hour long nap.

I am still pretty screwed up time wise. I didn't think it would be an issue but I am up until 1:00am each night and can barely drag myself out of bed when the alarm goes off at 8:00. I had been getting up pretty good, even before the alarm on most days, but that is no longer the case.

And that my friends is our trip to Maui in a nutshell. (Yes I realize that it must have been a very large nut.)

We're Home!

Last night we left Maui at 9:00pm, flew all night long and got to our house by 10:00am. Since sleeping on a plane sucks we took a nap and slept until 3:20, right before the kids got home. We made the most of our last afternoon in Maui and I will tell about that later. If you don't hear from me for a while it is because I am buried under a pile of laundry the size of Haleakala.

Day 7-The Road to Hana

Everyone said that this is a must. I agree that you should do it but I think it would take a lot to live up to what Paul and I were expecting.

It was what I had envisioned all of Maui to look like. We are both still shocked that so much of Maui looks similar to California, and not just the pretty parts. Anyway the road to Hana was lush and green. There were tufts of moss and ferns growing off the top of fence posts. There were so many types of flowers

and birds I had never seen before

and then there were these little critters scurrying about.

We saw waterfalls and rivers

and picnicked above a black sand beach.

We even paid the $5.25 for a mini loaf of banana bread that we were told was a must. (For the record I like mine way better!)

The drive was beautiful but tedious. This is taken from the Maui’s Visitor Guide. The road to Hana is dangerous. With approximately 600 curves and 54 one-lane bridges,

(We believe it. Paul says he bets that they got a great deal on the one lane bridge signs since they could buy in bulk) the Road to Hana can bring you closer to heaven in more ways than one. With winding roads, blind turns, constant traffic, distracting views, narrow one-lane roads, cliffs, and wet conditions, Hana Highway has proven its worth as a danger with many fatalities. Take your time, and make sure the driver is focusing on the road. Our adventure took the whole day and we didn’t even come close to seeing everything.

I spent the whole day looking like a gomer.

I wore my swimsuit thinking I would swim at stops along the way. We didn’t, the water was cold. I had my cover up (one of the elastic topped, strapless dress jobbies) on over my suit. Paul had the top down on the convertible so I had on a big Hawaii t-shirt on so my shoulders didn’t get sunburned and since we weren’t getting in the water I kept it on most of the day. Not a good look over the cover-up. I am lucky that I didn’t spontaneously combust with all the friction I had going between my bare thighs. I’m really wishing I had worn regular clothes. My pictures will be a constant reminder that I chose my wardrobe poorly for my journey to Hana.

Here are some pictures from our day. Paul by one of the falls.

There was a cave right off of the black sand beach that was so cool. It had all of these smooth black rocks inside. I loved it.

Here is the black sand beach that was just awesome! I am wishing that we had swam here. It looked perfect but neither of us wanted to feel salt-watery the rest of the day.

When we got to the town of Hana we tried to find the red sand beach with no luck. I know they hid it from us.

We went on the Seven Sacred Pools. Holy heck. The road got worse. It was kind of a joke. They charge you $10 and then you have to walk *way* too far to get to the water from the “parking lot”. Once again the water was cold. Paul only went in up to his tenders and I watched from a rock. After walking out I started calling them the Seven Sucky pools. I was hot and gross after walking on the hot dirty path. It was pretty there though.

He never went further than this.

We then had the decision of going back home the way we came or driving all the way around the other side of the island. There are a few miles of unpaved road going the other way so we opted to go back through Hana. We also decided to just drive straight through with no stops. I had gotten hot, sweaty, had sun block grease on my face and I smelled a little gamey at that point. I wanted to get home and get in the shower. It took us over two hours. It’s interesting, I can ride on a catamaran racing over ocean swells/waves like a speed boat and feel fine but you put me in a car on the road back from Hana with no stops and I turn as green as the foliage. I never got sick but I had a headache that was really bad and I wanted to be off that road even though it was gorgeous.

When we got back into Kahului we opted for drive-thru fast food so we could get back to the hotel as quickly as possible. When we got back home we started packing. I’m thinking that we will be able to get everything home but it’s going to be interesting. We found that we can drop off our luggage up to six hours before the flight so that is the plan since we don’t leave until 9:00pm and we have to be out of the hotel by 11:30 am. We want to go back to Lahaina today and get some more pizza and dang it I want another snow cone. It will be great to get home but there is also going to be so much that I will miss about Hawaii.

Look guys, I got a huge fry! (It's always about the food with me.)

Day 6

We are so tired that I am just going to give you the super short version of the day.

Today we left very early for our snorkeling excursion. We didn’t get to go to Molokini crater because of heavy winds but we did get to see whales. I guess you win some and you lose some. We hit some major rough water on our way back from the island of Lanai. It was a hoot. I am still rocking from being on the boat. After our return we went back to Lahaina for dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise, watched the sunset and then went back to our resort. We took Paul’s sisters advice and walked down the beach walk to Lailani’s for Hula pie. Tomorrow we are determined to make it to Hana.

This is what you look for to see where the whales are. It's the spray from their blow holes.

This is at our hotel before we headed out for dessert.

Outside of a resort along the beach walk.

Shame on me for letting the Westin's statue get away with such things.

Day 5

Today was…interesting. Once again we were going to try and do the road to Hana but it was closed because of the storm that rolled across the state overnight. We decided to go to Wailuku and check out some of the things there. We stopped at a mall where they we holding a farmers market. They were selling fruit, veggies and some “baked goods”. We bought these

and have been affectionately referring to them as little fried balls of heaven since eating the first one. They are dense with grease and oh so good. We have each had one stick and still have these two to go. You can practically wring the oil out of them. Notice that the label has grease stains. Yum!

After that we did some more shopping and checked out how the locals live. In other words we went far away from the resorts. We got lunch at a little hole in the wall Mexican place that was pretty tasty. From there we went to ‘Iao Valley to see the ‘Iao Needle. It was very pretty and lush. My pictures don’t really seem to have done it justice.

We started heading back for Ka’anapali and I suggested that we should take a picture by the fields of sugar cane. The whole “land bridge” between east and west Maui is sugar. The guide books says that there is 37,000 acres of it. Impressive!

We drove up a private drive that goes into the field, stopped by the gate, and got out, set up the tri-pod and snapped a few pictures of us standing right in front of the sugar field. We went up very close to it. Standing just a foot or so away from the plants. Paul even suggested running through the field to see how quickly you could get lost. I didn’t like the sound of that so I went to get a close up picture and saw this.

Hole-E crap. I started getting itchy and started freaking out. I had Paul do a quick spider check and he was getting nervous had me look over him too. He then realized that there were a lot of these things. We were horrified. I can’t tell you how large they were. At least 2” and we saw four, one was right behind where we were standing. The whole way back in the car we were jumpy and itchy. I told him that I bet I could get him to mess himself if I started screaming then yelled spider and pointed at him. He didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did. I giggled about that for a long time but never acted on my evil idea. After all that suffering we didn’t even get a good picture.

We decided to see where our tour leaves tomorrow and I fell in love with this guy.

And thought this was cool too.

This evening we walked around the resorts and visited the Hyatt. They have cool birds in their lobby (a lot of them were already put away for the night) and a pretty view from their grounds.

They also had beautiful flowers

and cool little pineapples growing.
The had a huge wall of bouganvilla.

We watched the sunset, got dinner and then got our stuff ready for our snorkeling excursion tomorrow.