Tuesday

Today we woke up to go on the famous "Drive to Hana," a city on the east side of Maui. We left at 8 am and got breakfast at Charley's in Pai'a. Check out this blueberry pancake. (yes it had blueberries inside too and no he didn't finish it.) I had biscuits and gravy.
We headed out and saw some wonderful sights. I love seeing the beach and water. I was surprised though about how much of the drive was in the greenery. I was expecting to be on the edge of the water - we weren't. There were though, a lot of pull outs. There are just too many pics to put on so I will choose a couple.




At the end we had lunch at Maui Ranch Restaurant. After lunch we saw things falling out of the palm trees and realized that they were actually trimming the trees. Who would have thought. I'm just glad we moved our car. The stuff falling was really heavy and they didn't seem to care. The first video is a guy climbing up and stopped 1/2 way to fix his belt and just sat there so I moved onto the other guy chopping with his machete. That is the 2nd clip.

Monday

Early! We got up at 1:45 a.m. to get ready for the Haleakala Crater sunrise experience. We left the room at 2:30 and drove 2 hours to the Haleakala Crater summit. 10,023 ft. That was another winding road that lasted a long time, not sure if there were cliffs or what. We got to the top summit and got a parking spot and found out that sunrise wasn't even until 6:18 am - 2 hours?! What?! We were told that if we left by 3:00 we would probably miss it and didn't understand that until about 5:00 am when all of a sudden a flood of people start coming to park at the summit. Well, after awhile they were being turned away for no parking. They had to go back down about 1/3 mile at the visitor center.
At the summit was an enclosure that you could see it from. Thank goodness, because it was freezing and very windy and we didn't bring our warm clothes (I don't remember why). It was probably in the 30s and we were in shorts and t-shirts. N took off the bed sheet and brought 2 beach towels. Thank you!
At about 5:15 we saw light and thought it was city lights but when it got brighter we figured, SUN. We went up to the building and hung out and watched it slowly come up. The clouds made it so beautiful to peek over. It finally peeked out over the clouds at about 6:18 am. I was in and out a bunch of times taking pics of the different stages. Funny how fast people cleared out afterward. I'm putting a slideshow of the sunrise, hope it works.



After that we drove down and in the light could see how beautiful the scenery and the hills were to our left and right - no cliffs. One of the package deals was to be driven to the top and bike down. Glad we didn't do that. Here is a pic of others that did it.

After we came down we went for another drive. This time we stopped at the Kula Lodge for breakfast. Steak and eggs for me (yes, I was hungry) and N had a belgian waffle with strawberries and coconut syrup - yum.
After breakfast off to Tedeschi Winery down south. We thought, we've never been to one, let's see some grapes. Saw no grapes. The little building had wine tasting (yeah, don't worry) and then a tour. Then we headed home for a nap before our dinner cruise.

The dinner cruise was beautiful, wonderful sunset, yummy food, good company :) It lasted about 2 hours. We drove out, ate, listened to some music, looked at the city lights on the way back, and finally lost my dinner.

Sunday

***Sunday morning we went to sacrament. The ward building reminded us of something we saw in our missions. Small and no air- just ceiling fans. A small and intimate ward. Funny though, after sacrament how quickly it cleared out - the back half must have been visitors. We sat in the back. ***After that we listened to a thing at the Marriott to get free tickets for a show. Interesting, but a little too long. ***Then we ran around trying to plan things for the week. A dinner cruise - but was full for the night, so put that for Monday night. ***Had lunch at Pioneer Inn - pretty good. Filling. ***After lunch we decided to go for a nice Sunday drive. We went to go find the Worldmark property and see what we were missing - NOTHING!! It was ugly! We were so glad that we were not staying there. So Neal had heard that the drive north was nice so we took it. We weren't sure how far we were going to go but happened to come upon a place on the map that talks about people stacking stones but it not meaning anything. Well, we found it. Picture below. It was hilarious, like some sort of rock cemetery. These pics don't do it justice.
So we stacked our own and kept driving and kept driving. We read something on the map about a one lane road but hadn't found it so thought it didn't exist anymore. WRONG!! We found it and drove it. 8 miles. Not that long right? WRONG. 8 miles at 5-15 miles an hour is NOT cool. It took forever. And it started getting dark, even worse. I was getting freaked out, cuz I couldn't see what was over the edge - a cliff or grass and flat - don't know and don't want to go back and find out. This road was literally only wide enough to fit our car. Aaack!

So we're finally back into town and think we need dinner we were still full, but needed to eat and we were in the mood for something light. We looked for salads but ended up getting individual pizzas from Safeway. Yuck! Went to bed since we were doing the Sunrise at the crater the next morning. I was asleep by 8:30 :)

Saturday

Today we went to Front Street in Lahaina to have lunch at Moose McGillycuddys. It was good. We just had burgers. Thanks to Ralph and Chandra for the tip.
As we were looking at the shops on the little street we ran into this fair thing. people were selling photos and jewelry and stuff. N was cute and bought me a lei. While there we figured out that we were actually beneath the Banyan Tree that mom suggested to see. From one area comes like 12 trunks and spreads out all over.

Maui

We arrived in Maui last night about 7:30. (First Class is the only way to fly!) It was dark so as we drove along the coast line we knew the ocean was there but couldn't see how beautiful it was. We arrived at our resort and were very excited about how wonderful it was. You can see this view off our balcony. It has this pretty Koi pond. (Drew I figured you'd appreciate that :)

Hey Kids! Here is the kids' pool. The pirate ship has slides and fun things for you to play on. (Boys, the plane ride might be worth it to play in the fun place.)


I will bring some sand home from our beach. Isn't it beautiful. It is at the edge of the property so we can almost see it from our room!!!!

I'm still surprised at how small the sand area is to the water. I'm used to the eastern beaches from growing up.
Can you hear the waves?

Steamboat

Went to a neat falls today - Fish Creek Falls
Woke to snow - beautiful in the mountains!
Look towards the back and can see the falls- took these pics with N's cell phone. Great pics!


view the other way

When Life Gives you Lemons...

Or mom and dad do.

N was getting lemons and cucumbers mixed up so dad bought a lemon at the store to have the boys try it and taste the difference and this is the result.
We're so mean sometimes. hee hee!
(I forgot to turn the camera the right way for the first half - oops. but the 2nd half is fine)