I LOVE vacations continued, yet again...

It had been years since our last family trip. I believe the last one was to Grand Cayman in 2003. So my dad came up with the brilliant idea to go on another one! We chose Maui. It was beautiful.

March 31st, 2010- We arrived in Maui, picked up our rental car and headed to our condo. We stayed at the Sands of Kahana. It was a nice, spacious place. We decided to head downstairs to the condo's bar/restaurant and have our first drinks in Maui. I had a mediocre mai-tai. After that we went to a restaurant called Sansei, it was really good! There was about an hour wait so we sat at the bar and had some drinks and my brother made friends w/ the bartender, well kind of, I think it was love/hate. She was really sarcastic and liked to give him a hard time. She called him 'Texas' the whole time. And upon leaving the bar to walk back to our table I knocked over the barstool next to me, not because of the alcohol, but because that's just the type of thing I do. I don't think many people noticed though.:) Onto the food! Cole and I split a couple of things... the Matsuhisa Style Miso Butterfish(probably the best thing I ate the entire trip) and Panko Crusted Ahi Sashimi Sushi Roll, also very good. We wanted to go back to that restaurant before we had to leave, but there were just so many other places to try we never got the chance. We then headed back to the condo and hung out on the lanai for awhile.

April 1st- We headed to the town of Lahaina. If you've been to Maui, you've been to Lahaina. It's the main sight-seeing touristy town there. Lots of restaurants and shopping. We walked around a little and then had lunch at Lahaina Oyster Company. I had yet another mai tai because it was only like $3. You can't pass that up! For lunch I had a cup of clam chowder and some sort of ahi tuna wrap. It sounded good on the menu, but it did not translate well. Something about very lightly seared tuna not being served with arugula or wasabi or atleast sesame seeds isn't right. My fault for ordering it. Oh well, they had good fries! We then went on a whale watching excursion. It was really neat. We thought we might see a whale or two. By the end of the 2 hours we had seen about 10 and gotten pretty close to them. And we all became humpback whale experts. If you ask me something about a humpback whale there's probably like an 80% chance I will know the answer. Before going, there was maybe a .5% chance. After that we walked around some more and then went back to the condo and hung out. Most of the time at the condo consisted of us sitting on the lanai, looking out over the beautiful ocean or looking down below, people watching and now that we were whale experts and knew what to look for, we did alot of that too. We had a telescope that made it pretty cool. For dinner that night we went back to Lahaina and ate at a place called Kimo's. It was good, and the atmosphere was wonderful. We were just above the water on a big torch lit patio. I had garlic, lemon, and sweet basil glazed Opah(a type of white fish). For dessert we had a hula pie, it was basically layers of ice cream and oreo cookie crust topped with a mountain of whip cream. Good, not great.

April 2nd- The next day we planned on doing the Road to Hana. We left around 9 or so, so we got a little later start than we had wanted. We ended up stopping at Mama's Fish House in Paia. They weren't open just yet so we had to wait about 20 minutes and by the time lunch was over and done with we had spent a couple of hours there so we decided not to do the Road to Hana that day. Of course I have to tell you what I ate. Food is my favorite afterall. I ordered soup and an appetizer. I had the polynesian lobster soup with coconut, spinach and breadfruit crisp. It was tasty. Then I had blue prawns in tahitian vanilla bean and coconut milk sauce. Good, but I liked the soup better. My brother had their Maui onion soup and said it was awesome. For dessert we had to try the infamous black pearl dessert. It was chocolate mousse and liliko’i cream in a pastry seashell. It looked much prettier than it tasted. I still ate alot of it though. Once we left Mama's we decided to go to Iao Valley. It was neat to just walk around and see all the scenery and read the markers along the way. That night we made our way to Whaler's Village and walked around there. It was pretty much an outdoor mall that had restaurants/bars right by the water. We sat at the bar at a place called Leilani's. I'm the only one who ate. I had some sort of pork sandwich. It was decent. I will say that my dad now wonders how I stay thin with how much I eat. I do eat alot of small meals throughout the day, but in Hawaii I splurged a little and had alot of big meals throughout the day. :)

April 3rd- Me, Cole, my mom and dad woke up and decided to go eat at this restaurant I really wanted to try. It was literally a Gazebo, hence the name The Gazebo Restaurant. They are a breakfast/lunch place, but are known for their breakfast. We got ALOT of food! Cole and I split an omelette and an order of macadamia nut pancakes w/ coconut syrup and whipped cream. Probably the best pancakes I have ever eaten. So light and fluffy. Once we left there we went back to the condo and were shocked to see that my brother was up and moving. We just knew he would still be asleep. So me, him and Cole decided to make it a bar hopping day. My dad dropped us off at Whaler's Village and we walked over to the Westin to a bar called Tropica. I had read about this bar on tripadvisor.com. They said Freddie, the bartender was awesome. Anyways, they were not yet open. So we decided to wait it out and go to the restaurant at the Westin. It was poolside so we had fun watching everybody and pointing out pretty girls. I'll just say that I have WAY better taste than my brother and Cole. Probably because I'm a girl and we are just pickier. Although I don't know how much that says about me since Cole married me. Hmm... Anyways, we each had a drink there and our waiter was awful. I ordered an awesome drink... it was a frozen creamy chocolate banana drink. I looked at the bill once it came and mine was priced at the non-alcoholic version. So I think I got gypped. I paid $8 for a milkshake and wasted alot of calories on a stupid non-alcoholic drink. Not that I'm a lush, but c'mon it's vacation. My brother said he thought it tasted too good to be alcoholic. It really was good. We then headed over to Hula Grill and stayed there a couple of hours. They were having happy hour specials on mai-tais. I don't think I'll have another mai-tai for a very long time, they were good, I just had SO many. Finally we made it over to Tropica and we were not disappointed! It was a great bar. The bartenders there were the best I've had anywhere. The one guy Freddie, really took pride in what he did and had created most of the drinks on the menu. I could just ask him about a drink and he would make each of us a taster. And when I say taster, it was basically a small wine glass, so really quite a bit. It was also funny to find out that he was a real-estate appraiser, which is what my dad, brother and Cole do. So they had alot to talk about. We stayed there most of the day. A lady came around selling leis and we spent $60 on 3 of them. Mine was pretty, but way too fragrant. It smelled good at first, but it kind of started giving me a headache because it smelled so sweet. Luckily my parents came and met up with us, so I passed my lei onto my mom. After that we went and ate at a place called Mala Ocean Tavern. We had some really good hamburgers. Then back to the condo we went!

April 4th- We decided it was time to do the Road to Hana. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't super excited about this. It didn't really sound like a whole lot of fun to be trapped in the car for a good 6 hours. We got a pretty early start and off we were. We bought a CD that helped let you know what to be looking at and explaining the different sights you were seeing when you passed them. If you've never done the road to Hana, let me explain a little. It's basically this looong, winding, narrow road on the side of a cliff that you head up. There are alot of places to stop along the way. They have alot of fruit stands, places to get banana bread, waterfalls, etc... It was fun, but it was also a little rainy, which I know is very common. We were told over and over that we needed to drive all the way around, so that we could see the other side of Maui. Most people go up the road and back down the way they came. Well, we decided to go ahead and go around. It was BEAUTIFUL! The water was gorgeous and the views were breath-taking. We even saw some whales. It was REALLY scary though. These roads were much more narrow than the ones we had previously been on. You know it's a bad sign when the person driving the car(my dad) is going "oh lordy, oh lordy" while driving. Cole said his emotions were on a rollercoaster. He said he would look out the window at how pretty it was and then freak out about how close to the edge of the cliff we were. We had a good time laughing at his expense. I'm glad we did this, but I think my dad got a few more gray hairs from it. On the way back to the condo, the brakes in our van started acting up. The steering wheel started shaking uncontollably. It was because of all of the hills and my dad constantly having to kind of ride the brakes. Luckily we were close to the rental car place so we just went and changed out cars. After that, we went back to the condo and relaxed for a bit. We then headed into Lahaina and walked around and went to a couple of bars. For dinner we(me, Cole, and Josh) went to Lahaina Coolers and I ate this really good Evil Jungle Pasta dish. Afterwards I headed back to the condo with my parents while Cole and Josh stayed out late. Around 1am I am sound asleep and hear giggling and scratching at my window. It was Cole and my brother. They were trying to scare me and then asked me to let them in because they didn't have a working key. They then proceed to come in my room and giggle and laugh like little kids. I was so irritated, I kicked them out. Then they decide to go out on the lanai and throw pieces of toilet paper dipped in water(basically giant spit wads) onto the grill below. Cole cleaned it up though. And then they go and sit on the beach and have security called on them for being too loud. How old are they, 25 and 31. You wouldn't have known it. Oh well, they were having a good time I guess.

April 5- This was our day to go out on a boat and snorkel. It was an all day affair. We weren't on the water more than 5 minutes when we saw a whale breach. That was pretty neat. They served us lunch and we basically just hung out and looked at the pretty views. It was on The Trilogy boat, which we later found out was where an episode of the Bachelorette took place(Jillian's season). Cole was so funny, he didn't understand why all of the crew, mainly guys, had to be so good-looking. He was like "why do they all have to look like models?" Haha. My brother insured him it was only fair, considering all of the girls they had been getting to see the whole trip. It was my turn to have eye candy. I agreed. :) We went over to another island and set up camp basically. We snorkled as we pleased. Cole and I went out on our own, and my parents did the same. My brother didn't snorkel. After that, we had a small dinner of BBQ chicken, noodles, and peas made by the boat crew. We then headed back. We saw some more whales and they put this kind of gadget on the floor of the boat that amplified the whales "talking/singing." They also did this the first day we went whale watching. I forgot to mention that, but it was really cool. We then walked around Lahaina some more and decided to go to a restaurant called 'Cool Cats' it was the most reasonably priced place we had been, it was a cool little set up. You were basically overlooking the town. There was a guy there doing cover songs and he was REALLY good. We enjoyed listening to him ALOT. We then headed back to the condo, for our final night.

April 6- We got up and packed and headed to town to have lunch and kill some time before heading to the airport. We had lunch at 'Cool Cats' where we had been the previous night. Afterwards we stumbled upon a jewelry store where you pick your own oyster and whatever pearl it has inside of it, you make into jewelry. I got one that had a gold pearl in it and Cole got me a necklace. It definitely wasn't cheap so I appreciated it! Since we had spent so much money they let me pick another oyster and of course(they do this on purpose) I got an oyster that had 2 pearls in it. How convenient, now I needed matching earrings to go with my necklace. I fell for it, and my parents were nice enough to get the earrings for me. :) After Josh searched and searched and finally found Brock a great souvenir(a sharktooth necklace) we were airport bound. All in all, Maui was great! We had a wonderful time and saw so many neat things. Now I just hope we don't wait so long for our next family trip!