Our Hawaii Trip

ALOHA!

One word can sum up our Hawaii trip - AWESOME! We spent a week on the west side of Maui soaking up the sun and eating lots of food! The island was so beautiful. I couldn’t get over how clear the water was and the beautiful beaches. We had fun relaxing and playing in the ocean. We planned 1-2 fun activities everyday,with the exception of Sunday. We went parasailing (my least favorite), snorkeling, body boarding, surfing, to a magic/comedy show (defiantly a highlight of the trip. If anyone is going to Maui go see Warren and Annabelle’s Magic show on Front St. It was really good!), massages, and shopping. The weather was perfect. The only day it rained was the day we flew in. We loved every minute of it and were sad to come home. We are trying to formulate a plan so that we can afford to go every other year. Our trip probably isn't as interesting to everyone else as it is to us so I am going to write this post more as a journal entry so I can remember what we did everyday so good luck in following it.

DAY 1

This day was a very, very long day. We woke up at 5:00 AM to catch our flight, which wasn't direct. Thanks to Deedie who woke up so early to take us to the airport! We boarded the plane and 8 long hours later we finally land in Maui. We make a quick trip to Costco to buy food and treats for the week. We way over bought on food but I tried my hardest to eat it all! Our family moto is - "Hollist's don't waste food" - so we tried really hard to eat it all. I gained 2 pounds that week but it was totally worth all the good food. We ended throwing some of it away but we ate most of it. Everything was delicious.

We finally got to our condo with a car full of food and the front desk said our place wasn't' going to be ready for another 2 hours! URG! I was so frustrated from having no sleep, on a plane all day, and chicken and fish thawing in my car! Not to mention that we arrived during the check in time but the room still wasn't ready. I think the front desk saw my frustration and gave us a room with a fabulous view of the parking lot. That's right - the lovely parking lot. Every time we went out on our patio Tyler would tease me about our view and that if I was nicer to the front desk people we could have had ocean view! At any rate, we really liked our condo and the view wasn't too bad either. We could see a bit of the ocean and hear the waves.

We did make it in time to see the sun set on the ocean. It was beautiful! I have posted a couple of pictures. I used different settings on my camera and that's why it they look different but it's the same sunset.

DAY 2

We woke up and went to visit the activities desk at our hotel so we could set up all our activities for the week. The lady there signed us up for a timeshare presentation, which saved us $300 on our activities. Totally worth it! We signed up for parasailing, massages, a luau, surfing, and 2 snorkeling cruises. The activities lady was awesome, she hooked us up with all sorts of stuff.

We bought body boards and snorkeling gear from Costco so we thought that we would go try them out while we waited to go parasailing. We rubbed on our SPF 50, that's right 50 I didn't want to get burned on our first day, and went into the ocean. We finally came out 6 hours later when it was time to go parasailing.

Parasailing was cool, not the highlight, but defiantly worth doing once. We rode tandem with a 800 foot line. The views up there were incredible and you felt so at peace.

I was a bit scared. I don't ususally like heights, let a lone dangling 800 feet with just the ocean below. At first I couldn't look down.

This is us continuing to go up to our 800 feet.

The boat driver brought us down and dipped us in the water. I had to fight back a scream. I thought the driver had lost his mind and was landing us in the water!

When we got back to our condo we realized that playing in the ocean for 6 hours was a bad idea. We were totally burnt! Ty was way worse then me but we were both hurting. We went and bought several bottles of aloe and more sunscreen to ease the pain. We relaxed and watch the sunset from our patio and ate fresh fruit. Yum!

DAY 3

Today was a day of rest and relaxation. Ty was so burned that he didn't sleep at all. When I woke up in the morning he had just went to sleep. He took some medication to help him sleep and did just that for most of the day. For me I napped, read, ate (of course), and relaxed. I had to go and visit the lady at the activities desk to rearrange our schedule because we couldn't do any outside activities for a few days. Ty felt dehydrated and sick so we rested most of Friday.

We did have a luau this night that we decided to go to. It was so fun. Mike and Tamara had a friend that actually performed in this luau and was able to hook us up with a great deal on admittance. Thanks again, Tanuvasa's! You guys are the best!

The picture on the right was the pig that was still cooking. All the food there was so good. They had several kinds of fish, pork, chicken, and steak. All of Ty's favorite food . . . . MEAT!

These next pictures are just random pictures of the luau. The dancers were amazing!

The luau was right on the water. It was beautiful. I still can't get over how clear the water was.

DAY 4

Saturday was another day to lay low and relax. We drove part of the Road to Hana and swam in the waterfalls there. Everything was so beautiful. The water was a bit cold but we had fun swinging through the waterfalls. We also stopped off on several beaches to watch the surfers, sail boarders, and kite surfers. The picture below was a beach that was really, really windy and had pretty good size waves so all the sail boarders were doing some pretty cool tricks.

These kite and board surfers had no fear. I couldn't beleive some of the stuff they were doing and how much air they caught.

These are some of the waterfalls we hiked to.

This is right before Ty jumped. Check out his muscles! I am one lucky lady!

DAY 5

Sunday we decided to take it easy. We went to Church, took a nap and a couple of walks on the beaches.

Look how burnt Ty's face was.

DAY 6

By Monday we had recovered for the most part from our painful sunburns so we decided it was time for a massage, well me at least. Ty's shoulders were still pretty red. So I scheduled a massage with Ernesto and had one of the best massages EVER! It was awesome. I love massages! I only wish they were cheaper and they lasted longer than an hour.

Ty went and had a surfing lesson. He was pretty good. The instructor was hesitant because of his height. They don't get too many 6'8" guys that want to surf. In fact most of the people there were kids. Ty was 1 of 2 adults that signed up. Oh well, he had fun and was pretty good at it.

These was Ty at his surfing lesson. I was proud that he was able to get up. He instructor said he did really well considering how tall he is.

Later that night we went to Warren and Annabelle's Magic show. It was really funny. They made Ty and I sit in the "hot seats" because Ty was too tall to fit in the normal stadium seating chairs. The "hot seats" were regular chairs at a table. The bad part was that people in the "hot seats" became part of the show. Warren pretty much made fun of Ty most of the show. Ty did well and played along. He was a good sport. I know a magic show seems like a weird thing to do in Maui but seriously it was one of our highlighted things to do. My sister and brother recommended it and I thought they were crazy but the show was really, really good.

DAY 7

Today was our last full day in Maui. We had our snorkeling cruise booked for this morning. We should have done better on our planning because we had to wake up at 5:30 AM to catch the boat and the magic show didn't get done until 1:00 AM. So we were pretty tired and maybe a little bit grouchy on our way to the boat. Although, once we were there and heading into the water we were okay. Ty was the smart one and took some Dramamine and I hardly ever get motion sickness so opted out. We had 2 dive spots and at the end of the 1 spot I got sick. You are out in the middle of the ocean and the waves were bouncing me around enough that I got sick and had to stay on the boat for the second dive. I was so bummed. The second dive was with sea turtles and that is what I was really looking forward to and I didn't get to see any up close. I did see several from the boat but it isn't the same. Ty said that he was able to swim with about 6 turtles. He said it was pretty cool to have them so close.

This was Ty swimming with the turtles.

Once we were done with that we went back to our condo took a much needed nap and got ready to hit Front St. We went and had dinner Cheeseburger in Paradise and do a little shopping. Hurley just opened up a new concept store there and since they are part of the Nike family I got 50% everything! I am such a sucker for good deals and they had some really cute stuff there.

We ended our last night there with walking the shore line and plotting how to afford to come back.

This was a sad morning because this is the day we leave. I never really did get use to the time change so I was up at about 6:30 AM most mornings, which was fine because it gave me a chance to side outside and read in the morning. It nice to relax in the cool morning and munch on fresh pineapple on our last day. Ty got burnt again on our snorkeling cruise so he didn't sleep much that night so he slept in and I had the morning to myself. Once we were both up we packed and cleaned up and left for the airport. We checked our rental car back and loaded the plane. Hawaiian Airlines has the COLDEST planes I have ever been in. I think I caught a cold from the flight. I was bundled up in my blanket for 5 hours! I had the small blanket tucked tight around me during the in flight movies. The flight felt sooo long! By the time we got home I crashed into bed and am really struggling trying to try to get back into my routine at work.

Overall, Ty & I loved Hawaii and are trying to figure out how we are going to get back soon.