Maui - The other Hawaii

WARNING...Super Long Post Ahead!

We got to take a family trip to Maui this last weekend. We meant to go over Columbus Day weekend but silly me got the dates wrong and booked it for the weekend after. It meant that we missed out on a lot of things, including the Primary Program at church, but we did have a nice relaxing vacation.

Our flight left at 6:30 am on Friday. This is the first time Miss Fabulous got to sit in an airplane seat without her car seat. She's still so little that the seat belt almost didn't cinch tight enough.

Getting ready to land on Maui. You can see the sugar cane fields and the cloud from the burning...making the sugar ready to harvest. MF kept calling Maui "the other Hawaii".

MF with her luggage. This is about the point where she started asking if we could go home. We just had to stop here for breakfast! I had never been to a Crispy Creme (yeah...I know they're K's) before and the HOT light was on so we stopped and got a few doughnuts.

After KK we headed out to travel the Road to Hana, a well known scenic drive on the north eastern side of Maui. Just past Hana is the Seven Sacred Pools (anyone remember IQ?). Our plan was to spend the day roaming around on trails and eventually ending at the SSP and then turning around and heading to the hotel...on the opposite side of the island. That was the plan...but about 7 miles into the winding Road to Hana we were all feeling a little (okay a lot) sick and ended up turning around and heading back to Kahului. We stopped at a little shop and MF painted a plate (which we picked up on Monday) and we decided to head to the hotel early.
We were sitting in traffic (around noon?) and saw a sign for miniature golf so we decided to stop. We all had fun putting around on both courses and just before we were done with the last one a man walked up to John and said they had an extra ticket for a ride on something and handed John the ticket. So we let Miss Fabulous pick a ride and she chose: Bumper Boats! She had a little trouble getting the boat to go in the intended direction but no trouble at all with the squirt gun part! She seemed to have fun, although she was soaked when she got done! We headed out to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening relaxing!
This is where we ate breakfast every morning! There were swans swimming around and it was just peaceful and beautiful...and the buffet was yummy too!
The penguins. We had to stop there every day to say "hi" to the funny little birds.
The view of the pool and the ocean beyond.
The second day we headed into Lahaina to walk around and to see the Banyan Tree Park. This is ONE tree. It covers the entire park. This day they had an "art in the park" kind of thing going on and a nice elderly lady gave MF a necklace. MF~spoiled by people everywhere.

Another picture of the tree.
We have pictures of John or myself sitting on the bench at various Bubba Gumps (although we rarely eat there) so we decided it was MF's turn!
This was a cute shop with adorable, brightly colored paintings and the books that the paintings are from. We ended up getting a set of the books and a mouse pad for MF (it has mice on it!).

After walking around Lahaina we headed to the Whaler's Wharf to walk around there and check out the museum. This used to be a big whaling port and the museum had lots of information even though it was really small.
Miss Fabulous getting hit by a wave. She was supposed to stay out of the water, but what kid can?

After being soaked, MF played in the sand...a lovely combination. You can see the little necklace the lady gave her in Lahaina.

There is a place called Dragon's Teeth that was formed back when Maui last erupted. It looked pretty cool in the book we had so we headed out to see it. It just so happened that the LPGA tournament was happening right near there and the road was closed (you have to walk around the golf course to get to it).
We drove a little further up the road an found this place...where we decided to go snorkeling.


Me towing MF around. She wouldn't wear her mask (no surprise there) but she did really well swimming around while we looked at the fish.

Walking down to see the blow hole.
The waves were amazing, crashing all over the rocks and causing the water to come up through a hole in the rock...thus the blow hole!
On Monday we went to the Aquarium. It was an amazing place! So clean and so many animals and fish!
One of the enormous tanks with many reef fish and lots of coral!

Another tank. The fish were huge and we got to watch them feed the fish and sting rays.
In the tunnel. I think I could have stayed and watched all the different fish all day but we had a few more stops before we headed back to the airport.
We went out to the Iao Valley to see the Iao Needle. It was a beautiful place although packed with a lot of people.MF cannot not pick flowers. I've tried to explain to her that we need to leave the flowers so other people can enjoy them too but so far it hasn't quite sunk in.

Wanna see the sugar cane?
Do you see it? Yeah...I meant to stop and take a picture at some point but never did so I tried to get a picture on the way to the airport but you see how well that turned out. Over all we enjoyed our trip. Looking back it seems like it was a combination of driving and eating (Melting Pot anyone?) with a few stops here and there. Miss Fabulous was so excited to go home hopefully she will enjoy home a little more? Maybe next time we'll let her stay at a friend's house.