Sunday morning we were up bright and early because of the time change. Craig and I went to see what the gym had to offer and walk around the resort some more before heading back to the room to eat some of the food we brought/bought at Walmart. Once we were all ready we headed down to the beach. The kids played in the waves while Craig and I went for a walk. We then headed to the pool before I went back up to the room to make everyone sandwiches for lunch. We then hung around the pools for the rest of the afternoon. Craig then had to go to check in for the conference and did one class that afternoon. Once he finished we headed out to the Monkey Pod for dinner. Everything was delicious. Once we got back to the hotel Craig and I went for a walk while the kids got ready for bed. We had another early night, but that was just fine by me, I prefer to stay as close to our time zone as possible.
Monday morning we were up early. Craig and I headed to the gym before he headed to class. The kids worked on homework while we were gone. Once we were ready, the kids and I headed down to the pool. We went back and forth between the pools and beach. We played and read and ate snacks until Craig finished class. We just hung out at the resort until it was time to get ready for the Luau. It was stupid expensive but we all had a great time. The food was wonderful, the entertainment was fantastic and our waiter took some amazing pictures for us. Brooklyn finally got her pina colada she had been wanting, but I had been refusing to buy her because they cost $22 each at the resort.
Tuesday morning we skipped the gym and Craig skipped classes so we could spend the day on the road to Hana. Luckily we had been told about an app to use that guided us all along the way. It told us where to stop and the history of everything. We were gone for a good 13 hours. We stopped to watch surfers, we hiked to multiple waterfalls (over 6 miles total), saw the rainbow eucalyptus trees, ate lunch at a food truck, went to a black sand beach, hiked through a bamboo forest, walked through a lava tube, saw the 7 sacred pools, got the most delicious banana bread and watched the waves crash into the rocks. It was truly amazing and I'm so glad we took the time to do it. We saw so many beautiful things. We were starving by the time we got back and ended up just going through the chick-fil-a drive through for dinner on our way back to the resort.
Wednesday morning was much of the same. Craig went to class, I exercised, the kids did homework and then the kids and I hung at the beach and pools until Craig was done with class. After a few more hours outside we then all got showered and headed to dinner at a Thai place in Kihei. We all went for a walk when we got back to the resort and then headed to bed early.
On Thursday we were supposed to go on our snorkeling trip but it had to get rescheduled to Friday. Craig didn't have classes so we headed into Kihei to check out a beach a friend had told us about. While we were playing at Charlie's beach there was a sea turtle that was swimming just a few feet off shore. It just was swimming right around people and we just followed it in the water for a while. It was amazing to be that close to it. We then ate lunch at a yummy food truck and found the best ice cream food truck, they even had a dairy free one for Craig. We headed back to the resort for a while and got showered off before heading back to Kihei for dinner.
Friday morning we were up early to head out for our snorkeling trip. We took the catamaran out to a sunken volcano. It started to rain on us but you couldn't really tell since we were already wet and it wasn't too cold. The kids did pretty well. McKay got a mouthful of salt water when he was trying to talk to us and he may have momentarily freaked out, but other than that they did great. After we were done at the volcano we headed to turtle bay. Brooklyn was so excited for this, she loves sea turtles. We saw 4 different turtles. They fed us breakfast and lunch on the boat and the sun was shining nice and bright by the end. We also saw a ton of whales while on the boat. When we got back to the marina we decided to head up to Lahaina since we were already about halfway there. We went to BlackRock beach and the kids and Craig played in some huge waves, like take you out big waves. Once everyone was full of sand, we grabbed an early dinner at Whaler's Village before we headed back to the resort. We got packed up as much as possible before heading to bed.
Saturday morning we finished packing and headed back to the airport. We were all a little sad to leave. It was so amazing to get out of the cold and into the sunshine for a week. The kids did pretty well getting their school work done. It was fun to experience everything with the kids and seeing things through their eyes. I think we were all ready to sleep in our own beds though again. One morning when we woke up McKay some how in the middle of the night had rolled off his cushions and ended up on the tile floor underneath the sofa bed. He hadn't even realized and slept right through it. The flights back went nice and smooth and we made it back to the house after 10:00pm. It was after midnight before Craig and I got to sleep and then we were up early for church meetings the next day. The kids had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day so we had another day adjust back, but Craig was right back at work. A lot of fun memories were made, until next time Hawaii!!
