This time we did it right! We're back!

[mvazul]

I have seen "Dog the Bounty Hunter" enough times to know that I should watch out for criminals in Hawaii! (Should I be embarrassed to admit that I've watched that show?)

Don't be embarrassed at all - Steve and I watch it all the time!! It's a great show.

Sorry to hear about your car troubles. I hate having to put any money into our vehicles. It always seems like such a waste. How exciting to get a birthday care package. They're always fun. Sounds like your friend intended for you to open it before your birthday.

Have a great trip!

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Happy Almost Birthday! And Almost Hawaii Trip! You'll have so much fun!

Thank you!

Happy early birthday!!!

Hope you have a great time in Hawaii...lucky you!! Thats one place I've always wanted to go. maybe someday

Thank you!

Don't be embarrassed at all - Steve and I watch it all the time!! It's a great show.

Sorry to hear about your car troubles. I hate having to put any money into our vehicles. It always seems like such a waste. How exciting to get a birthday care package. They're always fun. Sounds like your friend intended for you to open it before your birthday.

Have a great trip!

Yep, those were some ill-timed car repairs right before such an expensive vacation! Oh well! That's life, I guess.

THanks!

 

[mrsksomeday]

Two Disney trips AND Hawaii, I am soooo jealous!! Great pre-trippie, can't wait to see the Hawaii pics. If you do spot any criminals, make sure Dog gives you a cut of the bounty .

I hope you all have a great vacation.

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Just got back from Maui this morning. What a fabulous trip we had! This is going to be a very busy weekend, but I will write more about the trip and post some pics when I have a minute. (I took about 1000 pics, not even kidding!)

And waiting for me when I returned were Beth, Jason, and their new baby boy! Jason had to come to Phoenix for a medical conference, so they all came along. The baby is ADORABLE and the sweetest little boy you could imagine! I work with babies quite a bit, but this one is something special! (Maybe I'm biased. ) And I get to spend all day tomorrow with them too. The fact that they were here made it so much easier to come home!

Wow, do I have a lot of DIS emails to catch up on!

I just realized that I am going to Disney World NEXT MONTH!!!!!!

Beth, Jason, and I were talking all about Disney today, getting so excited for the trip. We talked about all the things we missed last time that we absolutely NEED to fit in this time. Looking forward to another trip sure helps clear up my post-Hawaii depression!!

 

[tinkerbell87512]

Welcome home!!! Hope you had a great time. I cant wait to hear all about your Hawaii trip and see some pictures.

I'm so glad its September now because we can both say...Disney world NEXT month!

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

I am going to attempt a mini TR for our Maui trip. As I said, I took TONS of pics, but I will not bore you with all of those. I will stick to the highlights.

DH and I departed Phoenix Thursday afternoon. It was SO hot in Phoenix that day. It was a great feeling to know we would soon be in (much) better weather.

The flight was about 6 hours. We watched American Beauty on my laptop on the way there. This, we soon learned, was not the best choice for a plane ride. There was a little girl behind us who had the whole row to herself (VERY empty flight), and she kept popping her head up between our seats. Anytime there was a questionable scene on the screen, we had to cover the screen with our hands and fast forward. We also began a game of travel Scrabble. DH was winning when we stopped. We never finished that game.

Here is a picture from the plane window.

We landed at about 9 p.m. DH's grandparents picked us up at the airport and brought us to our home for the week, the Ka'anapali Beach Club. It was a very nice room with a separate dining room, kitchen, living room, bedroom, and HUGE bathroom. We were pretty sleepy due to the long flight and 3 hour time difference, so we went to sleep right away.

DAY 2

We woke up very early this day, again because of the time change. Here's a pic from our balcony

We went down and had breakfast at the hotel.

Then we went back up to the room, put on our swimsuits and hit the beach! Here's another pic from our balcony. We really had a lovely view all week.

I just love the beach. I would swim in the ocean every day of my life if given the chance. We had so much time to swim and enjoy ourselves on this vacation. We really came back completely refreshed.

I really intended for this to be a longer installment, but I have to go get ready for my day with Beth, Jason, and baby!

More later!

 

[KathyRN137]

Hey, Welcome Back!!

What a beautiful view! I'm glad you had so much fun at the beach and I can't wait to hear more!

Have fun with the baby... give those chubby little legs a squeeze for me!

Kathy

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Two Disney trips AND Hawaii, I am soooo jealous!! Great pre-trippie, can't wait to see the Hawaii pics. If you do spot any criminals, make sure Dog gives you a cut of the bounty .

I hope you all have a great vacation.

Hawaii was great! And we saw lots of those all-terrain wheelchairs on the beach. Everything seems very wheelchair accessible. So you and your fiance would be good to go!

We were on Oahu one day and our cab driver told us where Dog's office is. He said that it has never once been open when he has driven past it. He said the only time Dog works anymore is when they film a show!

Welcome home!!! Hope you had a great time. I cant wait to hear all about your Hawaii trip and see some pictures.

I'm so glad its September now because we can both say...Disney world NEXT month!

I am so thrilled that Disney is next month!

Hey, Welcome Back!!

What a beautiful view! I'm glad you had so much fun at the beach and I can't wait to hear more!

Have fun with the baby... give those chubby little legs a squeeze for me!

Kathy

The baby just left. Such a cutie. I didn't want to let him go! I told Beth and Jason that I could just baby-sit till Disney World. I don't know why, but they wouldn't go for it!

Okay, gotta work on that Maui TR!

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

We left the beach after a couple hours and took a shower.

Soon, DH's mother and sister arrived from Washington and California, respectively. We showed them around the hotel. DH's sis stayed in our suite and DH's mom stayed in his grandparents' suite.

Today was my birthday! DH gave me a Bose iPod dock, which I have been wanting FOREVER! That was a complete surprise. And he also got a 6 day parkhopper for me for Disney in October!

For my birthday, I wanted to go to Hula Grill, which is a restaurant in Lahaina on Maui.

It gets excellent reviews and it's right on the water. We made a reservation for 7:00, which was PERFECT because we were able to watch the sunset from our table. Beautiful.
Here's a view from our table

The sunset

For dinner, I had macadamia-crusted mahi mahi (the best ever) and a plantation lemonade to drink. I have no idea what was in the plantation lemonade, but it was delicious and STRONG.

DMIL gave me a beautiful charm bracelet for my birthday with all Hawaii charms on it. I love it! And DH's grandparents gave me a Hawaii photo album which will be great for my pics.

DH and me at dinner

After dinner, we walked along the beach for a while, then returned to the hotel. It was a great day and a perfect birthday!

 

[tinkerbell87512]

Wow those pictures are beautiful!!! Looks like you had an amazing time

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Today was our third day, second full day in Maui.

We went to a welcome breakfast at our resort. They presented a bunch of different activities you could sign up for, but we already had most of our activities planned out. The best part of this was that the breakfast was free. On Maui, that becomes a magical word. Everything is SO expensive in Hawaii. Everything at the restaurants is crazy expensive as well as everything at the grocery stores! I had heard this, but I don't think I was fully prepared for it. Thankfully, we had a kitchen in our suite, so we could eat most breakfasts and lunches and a couple dinners there. Anyway, back to the topic at hand!

After breakfast, we headed to what would become our favorite beach...the beach at black rock.

We drove over and DH and I immediately grabbed the snorkels and face masks and jumped in the water. The snorkeling here was amazing. We saw SO MANY fish. And a big old sea turtle! We also saw some eels (gross!) I get pretty freaked out by fish in the water (I can barely handle the snorkel pool at Typhoon Lagoon!), but this place was so beautiful, I was okay with it. I just made sure I stayed right next to DH the whole time! He would have been sacrificed to a hungry fish, I'm sorry to say!

Next, DMIL and DSIL went snorkeling.

DH and I hung out on the beach and then went to check out the pool at the Sheraton, which was right on this beach. It was a GORGEOUS pool. So gorgeous, in fact, that we decided to take a dip. I know we weren't supposed to use that pool, as we weren't Sheraton guests, but we couldn't resist!

Here's DH by the Sheraton pool.

This pool was just amazing. It wound all through the back of the resort and had waterfalls everywhere and a waterslide. Can you tell I loved it?!?

After our swim in the forbidden pool, we snorkeled a bit more. Then we returned to our own hotel.

We went to the grocery store and bought some burgers to grill for dinner. Our resort had some great grills and picnic tables that we could use and they were right on the beach!
Here's DH grilling our dinner

The sun was setting just as we were eating and I got some good pics

DH, DMIL, and I went for a walk on the beach after dinner.
Here's us

After our walk, we were pretty tired, so we returned to our room and went to sleep. Another wonderful day in Maui!

 

[MeMom]

Welcome back, you world traveler! Beautiful pictures! I know you guys had an awesome time. Hawaii is definitely somewhere I do want to go someday. I know even the pictures can't convey the real beauty. Now you just have time to get the sand out of your shoes and get ready to greet the spooks on your Disney Halloween trip!

 

[disneyaddicted]

Those pictures say it all, what an amazing vacation. I want to go!!! And you leave for disney next month. I want to go! I am really looking forward to your trip report when you get back and lots of pics from MNSSHP.

 

[zigzagzerr]

Your Hawaii trip sounds wonderful and with Disney to look forward to -- life is good, yes?

 

[pierresgirl]

Just signing onto your report and love it so far!!! You guys make such a cute couple and I love the pic of your dh at the GC. I went there in my early 20's and though it was unbelieveable! I'm only on page 1 but am going bakc to read some more!

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Wow those pictures are beautiful!!! Looks like you had an amazing time

It's hard to take bad pictures in such a beautiful place!

Welcome back, you world traveler! Beautiful pictures! I know you guys had an awesome time. Hawaii is definitely somewhere I do want to go someday. I know even the pictures can convey the real beauty. Now you just have time to get the sand out of your shoes and get ready to greet the spooks on your Disney Halloween trip!

Thanks! You are right about the pics not conveying the true beauty of the place. Just when we thought we had seen the most beautiful thing ever, we turned our heads and saw something better!

I think i'm going to head to Michael's today to see about some Halloween stuff!

Those pictures say it all, what an amazing vacation. I want to go!!! And you leave for disney next month. I want to go! I am really looking forward to your trip report when you get back and lots of pics from MNSSHP.

Believe me, there will be tons of pics from MNSSHP. You'll be sick of my pics!

Your Hawaii trip sounds wonderful and with Disney to look forward to -- life is good, yes?

You are right...life is good!

Just signing onto your report and love it so far!!! You guys make such a cute couple and I love the pic of your dh at the GC. I went there in my early 20's and though it was unbelieveable! I'm only on page 1 but am going bakc to read some more!

Thanks for reading! I agree, the Grand Canyon is unbelievable. I had no idea just how spectacular it would be. It was breath taking.

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Today was Sunday, our 4th day in Maui. The only plans we had set in stone were a luau at 5:30.

So we took our time waking up and having breakfast in the room. Then DH and I went back to our favorite beach at black rock. About an hour later, everyone else joined us. We all snorkeled some and hung out on the beach.

There were a bunch of crazy people climbing to the top of black rock and jumping off into the water.

See that big rock/cliff thing on the right hand side of the picture with the people standing on top of it? Yep, that's where people were jumping from!
Who would do such a thing? Well, let me tell you. I am the youngest of 5 children, all the rest of the children being boys. In trying to keep up with my big brothers, I did most everything they did. I am not one to shy away from danger. So I convinced DSIL to jump off with me. (I'm not sure why, but DH did not want to do this. I think he thought we were giving his mother a heart attack!) We climbed to the top with the guidance of some very sweet local girls. It was so hard to climb/walk on the rock because it was so uneven and slippery! The worst part was letting go with my hands to jump off. But it was exhilarating! I went first, then it was DSIL's turn. Thank goodness there were a bunch of locals up there who encouraged her and told her she would be fine, because she almost turned around and climbed back down! In the end, though, we both did it and we both loved it!

After swimming, snorkeling and plummeting, we went for a swim in our favorite pool (at the Sheraton of course), then headed back to our hotel.

Then we were off to the luau. We went to the Old Lahaina Luau. As soon as you walk in, they put a lei around your neck and hand you a yummy Mai Tai. They did this whole ceremony where they dug up the pig that had been cooking all day underground. I didn't watch that part!

If you ever go to Maui, this is the luau to see. It was great. Very traditional. Nothing hokey about it. The food was awesome and the performances were incredible. I do not know how those girls move their hips like that!!!

And the luau was right on the water, so we got to see the lovely sunset again!

After the luau, we headed to bed.

Tomorrow would be the drive to Hana...best pics of the trip.

 

[kindakrazy2]

Love the pics of Hawaii! We were there a couple of years ago and I loved it soooooo much. I can't wait to go back one day. I agree with you about the eels though - ick!

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Love the pics of Hawaii! We were there a couple of years ago and I loved it soooooo much. I can't wait to go back one day. I agree with you about the eels though - ick!

We're already talking about when we go back!

 

[SwansLoveDisney]

Today was Monday, day 5 of our trip.

DH and I had been planning to drive the road to Hana since we began planning the trip. The drive is 44 miles on a very narrow, winding road along the coast of Maui. It takes a very long time (3-4 hrs each way), but it is gorgeous. DH and I were certain that his grandparents would not want to be in the car that long. So we planned on renting a Jeep for the drive for DH, DMIL, DSIL, and me. A Jeep would allow us a great view of EVERYTHING!

HOWEVER...DH's grandparents decided that they wanted to come along. That meant that we had to rent a mini-van to fit all of us. I was kind of sad about this, but I knew it would still be a great time.

We picked up the mini-van at 7 a.m. and departed at 7:30. We had a CD that we played along the way that told us what to look at, when to stop and get out and explore, and the history of everything along the way. It was great and I completely recommend it.

Here are some pics of our drive...

This part was a little scary...the lady on the CD told us to drive down this side road quite a long way to see a waterfall. So we did the drive and came upon this sign...

But the lady told us we should drive till we saw the waterfall. So we kept on truckin (or mini vanning) despite the warning. And this is what we saw

Beautiful, but we were so far away from it. I'm not sure that was worth it! Especially because the locals seemed a little scary in there!

DH by a waterfall

DSIL and I swimming in a pool formed by a waterfall. It was SO COLD!!!!!

Just a pretty pic

Crashing waves

I love this pic

DH in a cave

Sadly, our drive was cut short. DH's grandparents were sick of being in the car. We made it to Hana, but went no further. About an hour past Hana is the Seven Sacred Pools, which are supposed to be amazing. We didn't make it there. There's always next time...

The drive to Hana was gorgeous. I loved it.