Mele Kalikimaka

Shane and I decided to go to Hawaii the week before Christmas. I had some more time I needed to take off before the end of the year and we both wanted to go somewhere and get out of Utah for a bit...so Hawaii it was. We had both been to Hawaii before but neither of us had been to Maui, so that is where we headed. We were there for 6 nights and to say we had a fabulous time would really be an understatement. There are going to be a lot of pictures, I'll try to just use the best ones but feel free to scroll through any you don't want to look at.

Day 1
We got in really late the first night. We had found a little one bedroom condo right on the beach and hoped it was a good choice. When we got there the first night, I could hear the waves crashing from our living room...I was pretty excited but went to bed. The next morning I woke up to this...



This picture was taken from our lanai with my cell phone, no zooming. I was sooo excited! I jumped into my bathing suit and headed down to the pool which overlooked the ocean. The ocean came right up to the wall of where the pool was so there was no sand to lay on there, which was a little sad, but I didn't even care. Here's what I looked at every morning while at the pool/ocean right outside our place.



So as I sat there the first morning, I had my book and I was all prepared to read and relax. As I started the first page, I happened to look up and out to the ocean and low and behold, there was a whale that I could clearly see from where I was sitting. I almost started screaming I was so excited. I didn't have my camera and not sure I would've gotten a good picture of it, but it was so fun to watch. You could see the tops of their backs and then a few times I saw their tail fly up in the air. Needless to say I didn't get one page read that morning, and in all I saw 5 different whales for the couple hours I was down there.

That afternoon we went exploring to the north end of West Maui. We saw a few different beaches, hiked to a blow hole, and checked out the Ritz Carlton while laying in one of their hammocks. The blow hole was pretty cool to see. It wouldn't do anything for a while and then would blow pretty big.









That night we came back to our condo and watched the sunset. The tradition at the place we were staying is that every night at sunset everyone blows their conch shells to announce sunset. I tried doing it, but was horrible, Shane did a great job.





Later that night, Shane re-enacted our day right in the comfort of home. So you don't really have to go to Hawaii to experience some of the things we did, you just need a bottle of water.

The blowhole re-enactment




The conch shell re-enactment


Day 2
After sitting at the pool/beach for the morning and seeing no whales, we decided to go whale watching. We lucked out and booked a trip that usually holds 110 people and only had 60 on our boat, so we had lots of room and we had a great trip and saw several whales. Twice we saw 2 whales together playing and splashing around. It was super fun and I loved seeing them closer up. It was hard to get good, clear, pictures, when you are trying to focus, hold the camera at the exact spot waiting for the whale to pop up and take it at the right time all while the boat is rocking back and forth. I got a few good ones I think.

Why is Shane looking at me, and why I am taking a picture of Shane, when the people behind us seem to be taking a picture of some whales?








Day 3
Thursday we headed down to South Maui to check out the beaches and area over there. We laid on the beach for a while and then drove around. We checked out the Grand Wailea resort...beautiful, and just enjoyed the area down there.



That night we decided instead of paying $100 each for a luau, that we would have our own luau at the condo. So we had teriyaki chicken, rice and fresh pineapple and listened to some hawaiian music all while watching the sunset. After dinner we went over to the boardwalk at Kaanapali beach and low and behold we came across some fire dancers just finishing a luau and we were able to get a good view of their finale, which was an excellent way to end our luau night.



Day 4
Friday we stayed around the area and just decided to head over to Kaanapli beach and just lay around and and play in the sand. I decided to make 'Frosty the sandman' and I have to say I think he turned out pretty good. Lots of people walked by and were looking at it smiling. I knew they wanted a picture of it but no one dared ask while we were there.







That night (after the pretty sunset below...I love watching the sun set!) we decided to go on a Hawaiian Christmas Lights tour. I decided that the houses in Maui, either had no lights, or they went all out, and I mean a ton of lights. Several houses could've been featured on Lampoons Christmas Vacation.

We saw this cute little display of Santa in a bathing suit being pulled by dolphins instead of reindeer.





They lit up the famous Lahaina Banyan tree (pictured in the daytime we saw a different day. The lights, which in no way compare to the lights at Temple square, we wished they would've done it that way, but still fun.) It's all one tree in the picture and you can't get the whole tree in one picture.





Day 5
Today we ventured out and drove the famous 'Road to Hana.' For those who don't know what that is, it's a very long, windy road but has a lot of waterfalls, beaches and beautiful scenery. It takes ALL day to drive it though. You can only go about 15 mph and many bridges are only one lane so you have to stop and wait for cars approaching you before going over the bridge. We left our condo at 7am and got home about 430 that afternoon. Here are some of the highlights from our day trip of the Road to Hana.

There was a storm rolling in (luckily it only rained on our way home) but the surf along the beaches was huge and so incredible to watch. I could've watched it all day. The pictures don't do it justice.







We saw tall waterfalls, big waterfalls, a black sand beach, red sand beach, a lava tube and then 7 sacred pools (of which there are not 7, it's a made up name, but still a really cool spot to check out.)













Day 6
The last day we were there, we packed up and left our beautiful condo on the beach. For our last day there we decided to drive up to Haleakala Crater. You start at sea level and go up to 10,000 feet to the summit. You start at 80 degrees and when we got up there it was 45. You start below the clouds and soon you are even with them and then above them. At the top there is this beautiful valley, which they call a crater but technically it isn't a real crater. Anyways, it was beautiful to look at and the views of the island were incredible.









After we came down we went and got some dinner and sat and watched some boogie boarders and surfers ride some pretty decent waves. I was impressed and some of these kids were pretty young. We enjoyed our last sunset and then headed to the airport for our long red-eye flight home of which I slept very little.





One additional comment...every single morning I (Shane luckily enough usually slept through it) was woken up by a loud rooster. It was so annoying. So I did some research only to find out that Maui has a rooster 'situation' that has gotten out of control. Low and behold on the road to Hana we saw several roosters just wandering around. Just a random fact I thought you might want to know about.



Are you seriously still reading this? If anyone is still reading this then I am sorry this has been so long, hopefully you at least enjoyed the pictures. Just know I have probably triple of what I actually posted so it was hard to just pick these ones.

Hawaii really was amazing, relaxing, fun, fabulous, incredible, beautiful and just down right what a real vacation should be all about.