More October...only 2 months behind

 Here's the last of Hawaii.  For one of my favorite aunts, here's what each person's favorite thing was and they don't really all go with the pictures, sorry.

 Kenna said her favorite thing was the surfing and I do think she liked it, mostly because it was so easy for her.  I would say her favorite thing was the pool at the condo.  She begged to go swimming every day, and pretty much did swim every day.  This is a cute little girl she met, who always watched the pool for Kenna.

 Chase said his favorite thing was relaxing and playing in the waves.   He would just go all boneless and let the waves wash him around.  To be honest, it kind-of scared me, but he loved it.

 Connor said his favorite thing was the food, which is pretty much his favorite thing all the time.  This juice is called POG.   We went through 6 gallons in a week.  Con loved the fresh fruit, especially the pineapple.  He also loved a local joint called Da Kitchen.  They served the pork and rice.  I think he also loved body surfing.

 I had a hard time picking one favorite.  I'm with Kate, but I really loved all the flowers and the snorkeling.  Mike and I got to swim with a sea turtle and it was so cool.

 Mike also said that snorkeling was his favorite.  He was by far the most adventurous of us all. I admit I was a little scared every time before we got in, but after we started, I was fine.

 Kate loved it all.  She wouldn't pick one favorite.  She looks at the photo book I made all the time and hopes we can go back.

                        Here are our fabulous pumpkins.

 We got a bit of a late start on costumes this year.  Kate is supposed to look like a grandma carrying a baby on her back.  It was pretty cool.

 Kenna is taking these cheerleading lessons, so when she found this in the dress-up box, that's what she wanted to be.  Go Miners!

Best Vacation Part 2

Days 4 

Morning spent snorkeling at a beach called Kewakapu Beach.  Kenna didn't get in the water that day.  We took turns staying on the shore with her.  This was the only day the kids really played in the sand.  

 After lunch at the condo, we went on a hike called thirteen crossings.  There was a stream you crossed thirteen times.  It really was 13 too, my kids counted.  We loved seeing all the plants we don't have here in the desert.

We got to hike through a bamboo forest.

This is the pool at the end.  It had been pretty dry while we were there.  In fact, we didn't get rained on once.  The only down side was that the waterfalls were small.

These are a couple of flowers we saw I thought were cool.  The worst part of this hike:  at the end Connor thought he would take a short cut through some tall grass and walked into a barb wire fence.  Luckily, he only cut his nose a bit and hurt his ego.  

 Day 5 Snorkeling at MaKena Beach.  No pictures, but Mike and I saw a turtle.  This is Mike and I on a beach walk to watch the sunset.  Did lots of swimming at the condo pool and some shopping.

Chase loved this drink

 Day 6-Road to Hana.  After going to church (we got to see the Primary Program)  we started on the road to Hana.  My handy dandy guidebook said it wasn't about the destination, but the trip.  I used my guidebook all the time by the way.  It was so useful.  The road to Hana is the north side of Maui, more tropical and everyone said you have to drive it to see "the Hawaii of your dreams".  Plus all the waterfalls were on this road.

                                         

 The road is also know for having 600 turns and 100 one lane bridges.  It was scary and I'm not kidding.  At the bridges you would slow down to see if you could possibly see any cars coming.   Then you just pray and go.

 We stopped at this roadside start because they were supposed to have the best banana bread.  It was delicious.  It also was a little over halfway to Hana.  We had been on the road about 3 hours at this point, stopping for hikes and waterfalls on the way.  We had only traveled about  20 miles.

                                                  Had to have some real Hawaiin ices.

 This was the best waterfall on the trip.  Also small due to the dry weather.  We didn't make it to Hana.  About 5 more miles after Halfway to Hana, we were all tired of the car and a couple of us were getting carsick.  Maybe next time.

This is the Paia Fish Market where we stopped for the best dinner of the whole trip.  Fish tacos and fish and chips.  Yum

Best vacation yet..part 1

In Feb. we asked our kids if they would like to take a vacation in Oct, over fall break.  We were trying to decided whether to buy ski passes or not.  We decided to use that money and open a vacation fund.  We would decide where we were going based on how much we could save.  We put any bonuses Mike got into it and also anytime the kids wanted to eat our or go to a movie, we asked if they would rather put that money into the vacation fund.  About May, I started dreaming about Hawaii.  Due to flying buddy passes and a great deal on a condo, we make it to Maui!  Loads of pictures alert here, folks.  

 We left after school Monday, Oct 15 to fly to LAX, so we could catch an early flight to Maui.

                                                    Kate on that flight.

I had booked a hotel on Travelocity near LAX.  It was a Travel Lodge, not the nicest cause I wanted a good price, but all the reviews said it was clean, etc.  It was, but I have never seen decor like this in a hotel in my life.  I think we had the only room like this, because here is our door and none of the others looked like this.

The curtains in front of the patio door.

The wall art.  Con said the bears creeped him out.

                                                                     The bed.  Weird.

    Here we are...on the flight to Kahului, Maui.  We got there about 11:30, picked up our rental car, did some shopping at Costco and headed to our Condo in Kihei.  Of course we had to hit the beach as soon as we got unpacked.  We walked to one by our condo and the kids just played in the waves and body surfed.
Mike, Chase and the girls were asleep by 7:30 due to the time difference.  Connor and I made it until 8:30
Sunset off our patio.

DAY 2:   Here we are headed to Mokapu Beach for some snorkeling.  We didn't last long this first time.  The girls were freaked out, so we went for some boogie boarding instead at a beach called Kam III.  Look at the smiles on those faces.  It makes me laugh now that we thought those waves were ok sized for boogie boarding.  

That afternoon we headed up to a place called Ho'okipa lookout to watch the real surfers and wind surfers.  It was so fun to watch, but no picts cause they were out to far.  There were also some sea turtles playing in the surf.  Connor was so excited to see them. 

DAY 3: Surf Lessons in the am.  No pictures because we were all surfing.  We learned in the Cove across the street from our condo.  SO FUN.  Kenna was the best, but all of us got up.

That afternoon headed south to La Perouse Bay.  This is a spot were the lava flow met the ocean most recently, still many years ago.

 There were lots of tide pools.  Kate is touching a sea cucumber.  The kids didn't love our hike as it was windy and barren, but it was beautiful.  They also didn't appreciate the fact that there was no beach.

 On the way home, we stopped at Big Beach.  It was very pretty but the waves were so BIG.  These crazies were out seeing if they could stay on their feet, but check this out.

                                        It took them all out.  Look at her face, it's priceless.