Mahalo

Continuing from my last post on Hawaii, I realized I hadn't followed up with the last days we spent in Maui, so I thought I'd go ahead and post about the rest of the fun we had on our amazing trip! I will go ahead and warn ya'll that this is a long post with lots of pictures, but I wanted to get it all out so I wouldn't forget any details, so bare with me if you make it to the end ha!

We got back to the room from celebrating at the cocktail hour for all of the Championship Circle Winners Wednesday night, and this note, along with a very cool ceramic of Molokini, the dormant volcano that comes up out of the ocean from across the water from our hotel. The letter announcing the Hawaiian Aloha celebratory dinner the following night. It was all so surreal at this point that we were in paradise, and we were truly having the most romantic time of our lives even though we missed our babies!

So we woke up the next morning and the weather was a bit threatening outside, but after breakfast on our walk back to the room we spotted this beautiful rainbow and I took it as a sign that it would be fine and we would still have a great day!

Yes my friends, we had plans to take Scot on a true Hawaiian Surf Safari as his gift for his 40th birthday. Due to the fact that the Hawaiian surf consisted of lots of lava rocks and reef, Scot felt better going with a guide to let him know the best places to surf, and the sand bottom beaches. His wife also felt much better knowing, especially since I was terrified to begin with at the thought of Scot surfing the Hawaiian waters which looked treacherous!

We had the coolest local Hawaiian guy who was a college aged kid (I can say kid now since I'm approaching 30), and he was so fun to talk to! I think he was really impressed with Scot and was excited to take him to some cool surf spots that he often surfed. The dreary weather wasn't going to get us down! We went to a few different spots before settling on the best beach for Scot's comfort level. I was excited to see him in action!

 After checking out the surf at a few beaches, and seeing that some of them were a bit more crowded with surfers, Scot opted with going to a more secluded beach and grabbed his rental board, signed his accident waiver (yikes!), and we all headed down the path to the beach. Originally I'd planned to take a few pictures, get some good video, and then lay out and read some while I enjoyed seeing my sexy husband surf his heart out! The weather however went from bad to worse and so I ended up filming him on video huddled in his coat, my beach towels, and trying to hide from the rain the best I could without getting all of the cameras wet. Unfortunately I didn't get as much film or video as I'd have liked, but he still had a great time out in the waters of Maui and it will always be a memorable trip!

 At one point I was able to walk over to one side of the beach that has these amazing lava rocks and tide pools with tons of fish swimming about them. It got a little creepy by myself and my mind started playing tricks on me, so I decided I didn't want to see any scary creatures or sharks, so I made my way back to my beach towel and took some more pictures from there. It still baffles me that all of the islands were made many years ago from volcanoes!

 A few hours later, Scot was done surfing and we chowed down on lunch before heading back to our hotel. Our surf safari guide was cool enough to take us to some great local surf shops where we bought some souveneirs for my brother and friends of Scots who surf too. We even got Ryder a cute surf tshirt and he was very excited once we told him it was a shirt from the place Daddy surfed!

After we got back and showered (and warmed up from the cold and rain), we headed back out to go shopping for more souveneirs and get some cute kitschy gifts to bring back home. This is where we found our Christmas ornament, Hawaiian outfits and doll for Brynley, knick knacks for Ryder including a snow globe and Ukelele, a picture frame, shirts, bracelets and a few other cute things.

 This huge humpback whale in the middle of town represented all of the Northern Pacific Humpback whales that venture down to Hawaii, mainly Maui, and find rest there to mate and have their babies in the warm waters. This is also the reason that Scot's company had the trip planned in March, so that we could enjoy the most of whale season during our vacation. I was so excited for our whale watching tour the next morning, but first we had a very fun awards dinner planned to celebrate Scot and his winnings for the past year and all of his hard work and accomplishments!

 Here we are dressed for dinner with the beautiful sunset and scenery behind us! We actually saw a few wedding proceedings while we were at our hotel and around which made the trip all the more romantic! I can only imagine having a wedding here!

 After taking a few pictures, we made our way into the area where the awards dinner was held. Unfortunately due to the weather, we had the ceremony inside rather than out on the hotel grounds with the ocean view as planned. Fresh Mai Tais in hand and watching these sweet hula dancers dance, it didn't matter where we were! Plenty of drinks to go around, we had the best dinner and show, watching the hula dancers and band perform.

 A champagne toast for my man!

 Scot with the President and Vice President in his division, and the awesome award he won!

 We got done with dinner and headed back to the room to get plenty of sleep for our next day ahead on our whale watch! I loved how each night the room had a different theme to go with the events of the next day. A Whale shaped chocolate and champagne to celebrate!

The next morning (Friday), we got up, worked out, had breakfast, and then headed down to the beach in front of the hotel. I'm not gonna lie. I was bummed yet again not to see any sun, but decided to make the best of things and went snorkeling with Scot. The older (and more aware) I get of the ocean waters, I am always hesitant to snorkel because I get so scared seeing just what's underwater. My biggest fear is seeing a huge fish of shark! Where we were staying was full of sea turtles and I was actually excited about getting to see one. I put my fears aside, prayed for peace, and went in the ocean with Scot, following him closely so I wouldn't freak out too much!

 I did pretty well, but as we got further and further out in the ocean I almost panicked after seeing one too many huge fish and made my way back to land! I got a little scared because the current took us right out to sea, but I was fighting my way back to shore much harder! I finally made it to land and watched later as Scot struggled too! I was glad I wasn't the only one who had trouble getting back haha, and decided I may not go snorkeling for awhile now!

We suited up after our snorkel adventure that morning, and headed to the next hotel where we would depart by catamaran for our whale watching adventure. But not before a photo op by our hotel of course! Naturally I am usually the one behind the camera so I love any chance to get one with Scot!

Before it was time to depart, we drove around the island a bit and checked out the Makena Beach area. How cool is it to see the island just coming up out of the ocean like this??

We were hungry at this point, and weren't really sure how much time we'd have before making it to our catamaran, so we saw this food truck and had to stop for tacos. If I were more of a fish and seafood lover, I would have been brave and would've tried the fish or shrimp tacos, but I'm borderline vegan so I stuck with the veggie nachos instead! For a middle-of-nowhere food truck, it wasn't bad, and it was enough to tie us over until we ate lunch later.

Scot was brave and ordered the shrimp taco and said it was really good!

We drove over to this black sand beach and this was where the last lava flow was. I'm not really sure what I was looking at in the first picture, maybe checking to make sure no rocks were tumbling haha! This is where I took a big lava rock to bring home for Ryder! Surprisingly when I picked up the rock they were very light!

Driving further out, there were just miles and miles of lava rock on either side of the road for as far as you could see! It really started to feel as if we were on a different planet!

We finally got to the very end of the island (literally) and came to the Ahihi-Kinau National Park, where the water was literally the bluest waters I'd ever seen! Against the black rocks it was just breathtaking! We got out and got some really cool pictures and goofed off a bit too!

This is probably my favorite picture, just because it was so cool to be sitting on lava rock and imagining that once upon a time the volcano had erupted and the lava had once flowed way on top all the way to the Pacific ocean! It was so quiet here and we hung out for a bit before heading back towards the hotels to catch our ride to go whale watching.

Our cool tour guide who knew a lot about the island and a lot about the whales! If you look closely you can actually see Molokini, the dormant volcano, behind the boat way out in the distance. This is a big tourist attraction where a lot of people go scuba diving and snorkeling around it.

I didn't have the best lens on my camera, but got to see a lot of the whales put their fins in the air. The waters were just full of baby humpback whales who'd just been born, and their Mamas! We also got to see lots of sea turtles and a few stingrays pop up! Luckily no sharks though.

We got back to the hotel, got cleaned up and headed down the path that took you from one hotel to the next, and made our way to dinner. I just loved the tiki torches that would get lit each night along with a Hawaiian ceremony.

I couldn't have planned this if I tried! A cool Hawaiian dude sitting on the boat, playing the ukelele!

Dinner at Molokini Bistro

Saturday morning, before departing, we worked out at the amazing gym, then decided since it was our last day there, to go ahead and splurge! So splurge I did, as you can see! Chocolate croissants, waffles with coconut syrup, fresh omelets from the omelet station prepared just for me, and fresh sliced pineapple and strawberries. Kona coffee and fresh squeezed orange and pineapple juice. AMAZING! I'm still fighting the pounds I gained from this cheat day because after coming home, I thought I could still eat this way haha.

After our feast for Kings, we headed to the awesome pool one last time to get some sun before we had to check out. I loved this hotel and just couldn't get enough of this view. Scot and I have taken a few cruises before and stayed in plenty of hotels, but never at an all inclusive before. Not that the Four Seasons was all inclusive, but they made you feel like a King and Queen and it made us realize we'd love to try staying at an all inclusive resort sometime rather than going from island to island.

After much sadness (well, I was so ready to see my babies but sad to leave Hawaii), we packed our bags and got ready so that we could see come of the other side of Maui, West Maui, as we made our way to the airport eventually. Our flight didn't leave until 10 that night so we had a lot of time to kill!

Scot had his heart set on a true Hawaiian meal the whole time we were in Maui. We had it the very first night we were there, but it was a fast food type of place and he wanted to eat at an actual restaurant. We made our way to Lahaina and had lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate. Terryiaki beef for him, roasted chicken for me, each with a scoop of pasta salad and rice. And drinks of course!

From there we drove further west and stopped to look over the cliffs at the surfers catching some waves! It was crazy to see the only way you could get down from the cliffs were to make your way down a narrow path, along with your board, to the ocean below.

Hang Ten!

All the cars were the surfers down below! They all fight for the best wave and I've heard it can get pretty cut throat when the waves are really good and it can get pretty crowded!

We made our way to the Nakalele Blowhole. Nakalele Point is the most northern point in Maui.

The blowhole is created when the pounding surf undercuts and wears away a shoreline lava shelf. A hole in the lava shelf causes a geyser-like effect which can reach over 100 feet when air and water are forced upwards through the hole.
While it may seen tempting to approach the blowhole for a great photo opportunity, don't do it. People have been killed as they get sucked back into the hole by the retreating water at this and other blowholes in Hawaii.
(excerpt taken from www.goHawaiiabout.com)

After seeing a few crosses, we got a little freaked out, and it didn't help in the fact that the wind was crazy and it was freezing at this point!

Some cool Jurassic Park looking rocks that came up out of the ocean! There wasn't much road between us and the sea cliffs, so we took these pictures and headed back into Lahaina.

 After doing some more shopping, we got really hungry, and rather than find our way to some random place, we settled on Cheeseburger in Paradise. Again, we wish we'd gone someplace much tastier, but the view was amazing and the sunset even better! Plus we got a few more Mai Tais to help pass the time before making it to the airport.

 Back home, we were exhausted from the 6 hour time difference, plus the Daylight Savings Time that had just occured the night before, and I may have only gotten 2 hours of total sleep on the flight home. We chugged coffee and somehow managed to function so that we could see our babies, who we'd missed terribly while we were away! Ryder was so excited to see his Hawaiian goodies!

It was so good to see these two sweet faces and it was decided after we got home that we would be adding Ryder and Brynley to our Mexican and Caribbean cruise next March as we celebrate my 30th birthday. I just don't want to be away for more than 3 nights anymore!

It was truly the best vacation and I loved looking back at these fun pictures! But it's also great being back home with my sweet babes, and we hope to one day make it back to Hawaii as a family of four!