Last spring or late winter, my mom called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to Maui for Thanksgiving Break. My brothers were spending the holiday with their in-laws and I was alone (this was pre-Tim) and so after some frequent flier mile shuffling, the trip was planned. I would fly from Bloomington, IL to Kahului, HI and spend a week in paradise. Of course, I should probably mention that Tim was invited but had to work...bummer for him.
On November 21, my mom's 50th birthday, I arrived at the Bloomington airport at 5am. I flew to Atlanta, hung out there for awhile, flew to LA, hung out there for awhile, and then flew to Maui. Needless to say, it was a very long travel day. However, as soon as I walked out the door of the gate (Maui's concourse is outside) I started grinning. I was in my happy place. I love Hawaii! I met my parents, called Tim to let him know I arrived safely, grabbed my parents, stopped at McDonald's for a Big Mac, and then headed to Papakea.
Sunday morning, I woke up at 2am starving, and then tried to sorta fall asleep. I got up and went to sit on the balcony and watch the sunrise and the ocean. Here's the evidence. Well, there was evidence, but apparently all of my photos were erased during the security x-ray. I'm totally sad about that... I guess I'll have to rely on my phone pictures...not sure about the quality.
We woke up and had fresh pineapple and then headed to church. It was a conference, so we actually got to hear L. Tom Perry and President Thomas S. Monson speak, which was cool. It probably would have been much cooler if I wasn't jetlagged and struggling to stay awake. Apparently, I had a booger the whole time too...my mom mentioned it after 2 hours. Nice, huh... At one point, I got up to walk around and realized you could see the ocean from the foyer...how cool is that. I don't remember what we did on Sunday afternoon...yeah...no idea...
Monday, we woke up early, headed to the Farmer's Market, bought lots of yummy goodness, went for a walk, went to Whaler's Village, had lunch at Leilani's, and drove around. We also headed to the Maui Ocean Center and made arrangements to go whale watching for Thanksgiving. We spent some time by the pool and ate great food.
On Tuesday, my dad headed to the Maui Invitational, my mom and I did lots of shopping and wedding planning discussions. I actually bought a necklace for the wedding so that was my productive moment.
On Wednesday, we went back to the Farmer's market, walked around Front Street, ate at Leilani's again. I was totally digging the fish tacos. It seems like we did something else, but I don't recall what it was. I was in my completely relaxed mode that required absolutely no thinking. Probably that's the point of vacation. I was in flower heaven, but I'll only share one of the photos. This lady was selling these bunches of tropicals at the farmer's market.
If there's any chance of having something like this at the wedding party, I'm totally hoping that can happen.
My parents enjoyed the shuffleboard so much that my mom actually did the splits. She stepped on one of the shuffles? (no idea what the sliding things are called) and she went down. I totally missed it or we would have some video to share with the world.
On Thanksgiving day, we headed to Lahaina for our whale watching cruise. I took 4 Bonine because I absolutely didn't want to get seasick. No need for me to barf over the side of a boat. We had maybe the greatest whale watch ever. We saw 3 whales breach, lots of tail slapping, several blows, and it was so incredibly amazing that I actually got tears in my eyes. Because my parents are friendly (I'm not...ask anyone who knows me), they talked the guy with the nice $5000 camera setup for the pics. Here they are!
After the whale watching, we ate at Leilani's again, celebrated Thanksgiving with some hula pie, and then went back to the condo for naps.
Friday morning, my dad woke up at 2am to go deep sea fishing and got to barf off the side of the boat for a really long time. He actually came home with barf on his shirt. Note to self...avoid experiences where you barf into the wind onto your shirt. My mom and I hung around the condo and relaxed. Apparently, whale watching is exhausting because she took a couple of naps. We ended up at a place called LuLu's where I had a Magnum PI burger and garlic french fries that were so awesome. Probably Tim wouldn't have wanted to kiss me after that meal, but they were so good, they'll probably be showing up at the Hansen household.
On Saturday, I was sad. I didn't want to leave Maui. How could anyone want to leave all of this?
We went down to Lahaina and rode in the ReefDancer, a yellow submarine, and I finally saw a sea turtle. We also saw all sorts of cool stuff...like eels and sea urchins and tons of tropical fish. Here's a shot of the octopus.
Then, we had a delicious lunch of coconut fish and chips. Yep, food is still an important part of the Hansen family vacation. Then, we headed to the Maui Ocean Center to check out the aquarium. All of my cool pictures were on my camera (still sad the pictures are gone), but I did get one cool picture of the sea turtles.
We watched the sharks get fed and I've decided that perhaps one day I'll outgrow my irrational fear of sharks and be okay with being in the ocean. After the aquarium, it was off to the airport. My parents headed to Honolulu and I began my long trek back to Bloomington. I was at the airport in Maui at 4pm and didn't get back home until 6pm on Sunday. Oh and just to prove I was actually in Maui, here's the one picture of me that I have.
That was at Honolua bay where there were tons of surfers down below. You probably can't seem them in the picture, but they were hiking down the cliffs with surfboards to enjoy all of the great surf.
It was an awesome trip and I've already told Tim that we have to go back because I certainly didn't get to do everything that I wanted to while I was there. How fun will it be to go back to my happy place with my husband...I never thought I'd be typing that sentence. :)
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