February 2016 - Hawaii Part 1 - MAUI

Dave and I were leaving for our trip to Hawaii early on the morning of Tuesday, February 2nd. Packing for only adults is so much easier than for a whole family but, getting everything ready, organized and prepared for them to stay home without us was a big job!

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Pat and Charlotte were so kind to be willing to move in and take over parenting 5 little ones. We have only left out of town without our kids one other time; to go to Tyler Walker's destination wedding/cruise when I was pregnant with Ashley and Andrew was 18 months old. When we left this time I cried as we walked out the door. But, within about 10 minutes I felt fine and I knew that the kids would be fine and as long as I made it home safe it would be worth it. 
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We were travelling with Ryan and Katie Rowland and Josh and Mandy Nielsen. We flew from SLC to LAX, had a short layover, then flew to Maui. We stayed in Maui a short time, from Tuesday evening until Friday morning, (so 2 full days plus one evening when we arrived and one early morning before we left). Then we took the shortest flight imaginable from Maui to Oahu. We were in Oahu from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday night (so 4 full days plus a half day when we arrived). We left on the red eye flight back to SLC early Wednesday morning. The flight home was incredibly fast, just 5 1/2 hours.  

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We rented 2 rental cars for the trip. It was a good thing too because Dave and I wanted to go and see and do everything we could while the other 2 couples wanted a more relaxing trip. We loved our trip because Dave and I did so much, often on our own, and then we met up for meals and some activities too. It really worked out perfectly. 

Gifts for the kids to open while we were gone. There was 1 bag for each day with a candy and some small toys, notes and fun little things for each child. 

TUESDAY: Arrived in Maui and drove from the airport to our condo. We saw whales jumping in the ocean along the way! Our condo was right on the ocean in Papakea, just north of Kaanapali. That night we walked around the resort, looked at the ocean and then went to bed. 

We had promised Ashley we would take a picture of every animal we saw. We didn't realize we would see so many! Our first was this chicken at the airport. 

Then this camouflaged crab outside our Maui condo

And this frog too. 

WEDNESDAY: Dave and I woke up really early (though with the time change it wasn't all that bad) to go to the Haleakala Volcano sunrise and bike ride down. We met our group and were driven in a van to the top of Haleakala. When we arrived it was still pitch black and very cold! The stars were incredible. We waited and watched as the sun slowly rose and warmed up up too. The cloud cover beneath us was so strange and amazing. It was beautiful. 

The pictures after this didn't turn out well because, well, the sun is too bright for our phone cameras. 

This man's hat was pretty awful and so funny because we felt sure he didn't know what it meant. I don't want to document what it says because it's not great but, we did fake some pictures just to take a picture of him. 

After the sunrise we hoped on our bikes and began the 23 mile ride down the mountain. The road is steep in some areas and cars are driving too and the shoulder isn't very wide. For the first several miles I felt very nervous that I'd get hit by a car so I went way too slow and Dave kindly encouraged me to go faster. After a little while I got more comfortable with it and started to go faster. We loved the tour company we went with because we didn't have to stay together at all. Dave and I were ahead of most our group and only saw a couple other bikers the whole ride down. 

Anytime a local takes your picture they make you do "Hang Loose"

A neat cemetery almost at the bottom

We got back to the bike shop and returned everything and began driving back to the condo. We called our friends to see what they were up to. They had just left the condo and were going to start a hike. So we drove straight to the trail head and met them perfectly. The hike they had picked was to the windmills. It had a beautiful view of the ocean on the west but looked an awful like the dry H rock road everywhere else. We hiked for a while but the destination wasn't very interesting to Katie, Dave and I, plus I was wearing really hot clothing from the cold bike ride so I was melting in the heat. The 3 of us went about half way and then drove back to the condo to enjoy the sun poolside. The other 3 hiked another hour to the windmills. 

Mandy, Me, Dave, Katie (covered) and Ryan

A fish in our resort's pond

Dave and I headed over to the Kaanapali beach. We loved the sun and went snorkeling at Black Rock. They were many colorful fish but, the most interesting fish to me were the hundreds of Needlefish that are silver, thin, have long noses and swim right at the surface. A little while later our friends joined us at the beach too. 

That night we all went out to dinner at a Hawaiian restaurant in Lahaina. The atmosphere was neat, the food was ok and the company was great. 

Then we walked around Lahaina. There are lots of cute shops and it reminded me of Balboa. There is a center square that's home to a huge Banyan Tree that was pretty amazing. 

THURSDAY: The Nielsen's and us spent the entire day doing the Road to Hana. We left at 9 am and were back to the condo at 7:30 pm. We had a helpful app that explained what each stop or lookout was and gave suggestions on whether or not to stop or not. We really liked it. 

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Twin Falls

Dave is always the most fun

I can't remember the names of each place. We stopped at this lookout because it had bathrooms :)

This was one of our favorite stops. The first area had neat big rocks and crashing waves. 

Then, as we drove further into the area the waves crashed hard against the giant black rocks. It was beautiful and fun. Plus we bought some delicious banana bread from a vendor here. 

We stopped for lunch at what felt like the summit. There weren't other food options besides this stop. The food was good and the weather kept being perfect.  

Wai'anapanapa State Park. We loved the black sand beaches, the arches, caves, blow hole and trees. It was a neat place to explore.

The Blowhole

A black sand cave that opens right onto the waves on one side and the beach on the other

Wailua Falls. We explored here a bit too.

Waioka Pond. This was our last stop on our way back. There are some very high cliffs and some lower cliffs for jumping. The water is fresh but, is attached to the ocean so it's actually extra, extra salty. 

Dave and Josh each jumped from the high cliff. 

I jumped from the low cliff and that was a fun little jump. I've cliff jumped plenty of times at Lake Powell in college and could only think about the fact that I have 5 kids at home. So, even though it probably would've been just fine, I didn't want to do more than my little jump. Mandy had never cliff jumped before. She did the little jump and then after a long time of standing there and thinking about it, she did the big cliff too! 

We had a great time and saw and did so much on the Road to Hana!  

We got back to the condo at 7:30 pm. We walked around the block to a street vendor and got Tepanyaki Stir Fry food. We took it back to the condo pool and ate, went in the hot tub and then went to bed.

FRIDAY: Dave and I woke early again to go Whale Watching. February is the perfect time to go and we saw so many! We were on a very small boat and could hang our feet into the ocean. We loved it!

This whale came swimming right towards our little boat and then swam right under. 

We saw lots of tails, breaching, blowing out air, a mom and calf, and two males in a scuffle. The driver put a microphone into the water and we could hear the whales too, there was so many all making different loud sounds. It was so neat. Soon they will all migrate back towards Alaska for summer. 

Maui was beautiful and fun. We loved it! After the Whale Watching Boat we drove straight to the airport and met up with our friends. We took a very quick hopper flight to Oahu and were there by lunchtime.