Maui!

Hawaii is beautiful (on the next day)–Blake Banks

We fly non stop 7 hours from Denver. Pretty rough! But the flight is finally over and we land in Hawaii! Gosh I was so excited to get off that plane! But… we had to sit on the tarmac for 40 mins after we landed. It was super painful because I just wanted off! But we finally do get off that tarmac and BOY are we excited to get our trip started! We hop on this super cute Christmas trolly headed to the rental car place. It can’t be as awful as the tarmac! Even if we have to wait! We waited 2 hours… for the rental car… it was horrible. But during that time I called Cadence so it was easier to pass the time! Halle likes to laugh about how when we finally climbed into our rental car me and Josh are both on the phone with our girlfriends during our family vacation! But time wasn’t the only problem for us! We were STARVING!!! We hadn’t eaten since the Denver airport because airplane food SUCKS SO BAD!!! With all the hours of waiting for cars and to get off the plane it had been 11 hours since we last ate! Our stomachs were starting to eat themselves! You could hear the grumbles from a mile away! It was so painful! But luckily through the darkness… there arose a hero! This hero was a restaurant! And its name… Zippy’s! The most perfect and delicious food I ate all trip! 11/10! This place had the greatest chicken of all time! I absolutely HOUSED a massive trio of chicken plate, and boy did it hit the spot! It doesn’t matter what anyone else says about banana bread or mac nut pancakes, Zippy’s chicken reigns supreme! The most delicious and delectable chicken ever! Paired with white rice and mac salad! Nothing ever has been so perfectly synergistic in the entirety of food! Nothing can ever compare to the magic that Zippy’s made me feel! After our glorious meal we went to Walmart to pick up groceries for our trip! We absolutely loaded the back seats and middle row of our mini van because the back was full of luggage. Then after our quick Walmart stop we checked into our hotel and took a quick walk down to the ocean to stretch our poor legs! I made the “smart” decision to do it in slides. So “smart” that halfway through our walk I got a blister on the bottom of my foot! Then we went back to the hotel and everyone watched the end of stranger things while I just sat on my phone because I had already seen it! Honestly if it wasn’t for the absolute perfection of Zippy’s this day probably would have sucked! Luckily Zippy’s hard carried and pulled out a pretty solid win for the day!

Hoapilli Hike–Tara

Maui is so interesting! I love how all the islands are so different from one another. Maui is definitely dryer and less tropical feeling. We absolutely loved the juxtaposition of the black lava rock with the white coral with the blue ocean. Jaw dropping. Our first hike was along the Hoapilli Trail.

 

And we were so pleasantly surprised at the darling baby goats we encountered along the way. We chatted with a lady who was picking up teeny tiny red shells along the beach. She told us that she was gathering 10,000 of them to make a lei. And a lei like that sells for $30,000. Crazy!! Blake and I immediately got to work looking ourselves. They should hire Blake because he found almost 20 in 30min. We gave them to our new friend and she told us that sometimes it takes as long as 20 years to finish one lei. 

After the hike we were ready for the ocean. We ate our turkey sandwiches in the car on our way to turtle bay. It was pretty windy, so we opted to let Rusty check out the water for us while the rest of us napped in the grass. Rusty did spot two turtles down in a little cove so we all went to say hello. Why are turtles so darn cute?? The. We were off to Big Beach. Blake and Rusty played with the Paddles and we read and dipped our toes in the water. The sun wasn’t too bright so none of us were wanting to get in. Little did we know, this would be the best sun we’d see for the next 5 days. We should have taken advantage!! 

On our way back to the condo we went to Gus’s shave ice. He operates the whole thing out of an old VW van. 10 stars for ambience. Like 3 stars for the shave ice. 

Family pics were up next! I didn’t think I was going to find a time when we were all together in CO before Josh left, so I scheduled some beach pics. Which are never a bad idea. Our photographer was fun, but I am still looking for my lightening in a bottle photographer who can see and correct all the small details that take a picture from good to great. The lighting was really showing off for us and we were all glad it was a little cool outside so we weren’t so sweaty and humid. Here are some outtakes:

After pics we went to Coconuts for fish tacos. They were super fresh and we all loved the mangos on top. But they were drown in coleslaw. We hunted for the perfect Maui fish tacos, but I don’t think we ever quite succeeded. 

Rusty and I were in bed so early every night (him earlier than me)—Hawaii is tiring! And that gave all the kids time to talk with their significant others in the evenings.