ALOHA!

thursday night we arrived in maui, and went straight to the hotel. by the time we got there it was almost 11pm hawaii time, which was 2am in san diego and 5am in houston!

the two things i was most excited about going to maui for was 1. five nights of sleeping on a heavenly bed and 2. relaxing on the beach. both ended up being disappointments, but we still had a great time.

despite the heavenly bed, i had trouble getting a good night's sleep. i couldn't get comfortable, and every morning, without fail, either thach's phone or mine would ring from a phone call or text message between 5 - 7am. sleeping was over for me at that point, because every morning we also got a call around 7am, asking if we were ready to go eat breakfast. so much for sleeping in while on vacation!

we didn't spend too much time on the beach, and when we did, i wasn't relaxing. the first time, maddy cried the whole time we were there, begging to go back to the hotel. she was terrified of sand. i have no idea what prompted this fear, but i knew about it, because my mom tried to take her to freeport during memorial day and she reacted the same way.

so here's a recap of our time on maui:

riding the sugar cane train

maddy put her swim lessons to good use, showing off her kicking, face dunking and jumping in.

we went on a sunset dinner cruise, which turned out to be a little more of an adventure than we had anticipated. after the boat was an hour late due to engine problems, we finally got on and enjoyed the great view and food. unfortunately cindy and cassidy both got really seasick. then as we tried to dock, half our party made it off the boat, and the rest of us were on the stairs getting off, when we were told to get back on because the engine was having problems again. at that point, we had to be speed-rafted in... i was a little nervous, but the driver promised the baby wouldn't fall out.

here's maddy showing off her dance moves... until the singer tried to talk to her...

getting her hair braided:

- road to hana -

the VERY BLUE convertible:

one of the many waterfalls:

black sand beach:

':

red sand beach:

there's no picture here, because we never made it down to the beach. thach found a parking spot on a hill, and said "i'm not sure how i'm going to do this." next thing i know we're rolling backwards and CRASH! we hit the car behind us. HARD. there was no damage to the other car, but we left anyways.

our second attempt at going to the beach, i was prepared and armed with a bribe. i told maddy she didn't have to play in the sand. she only had to sit on the beach mat, but she couldn't cry. i told her if she didn't cry she could have a tube of mini m&m's. she happily obliged.

thach and i went on a date night to dinner and a magic show at warren & annabelle's. his family took maddy to a luau, and she came home learning how to hula and this:

so now we're home, and it's back to life, back to reality... and most unfortunately, back to the heat and humidity!