Aloha!

We made it! Brian & I made it to Maui! We had an absolute BLAST! It was so great to just get away and spend time just the two of us with no responsibilities, no stress, no need to get up early or be anywhere at any certain time. We sat by the pool and the beach and just chilled, we also had some adventure! I will warn you I have uploaded TONS of pictures! I mean, I like looking at other people's vacation pictures so I'm assuming you will too and why wouldn't you want to see pictures of beautiful Maui? Plus, I am a year behind on printing pictures and putting them into photo albums, so this is the closest I'm gonna get!

Now, if you know me, you know that I often have unrealistic expectations or fantasies. Probably from all of the crappy TV I watch. Well, my vision of arriving in Hawaii was getting off the plane (in a fabulous outfit!) and being given a flower lei and maybe a mai tai. That's how they do it on TV so why wouldn't it happen to me? Well, it didn't. I was sooo bummed! There was always the hotel. We check in, no flower lei. The bell hop takes us up to our room and we get leid! Not with a flower lei, more like a shell necklace. Good enough for me!

FINALLY in Hawaii! Looking a little tired after a 2 hour drive from Tucson to Phoenix, a 6 hour flight to Maui and 45 minute drive to the Hyatt Regency.

But, before we even made it to the hotel we had to stop at COSTCO! I'm not kidding, it's literally 2 minutes from the airport and Brian saw it and made a quick detour. The way he feels about Costco is the way I feel about Target.

Day One:

Breakfast view. I can get used to this!

Mango Mojito poolside! This is how I spent most of my days. Rough I know!

Don't you want ALL of your drinks to come with flowers? That's WAY better than an umbrella!

This was random. The Hyatt has a penguin family in their lobby! They are so adorable and live in their pen 24 hours a day. Every time we passed by them I thought how much Jaxon would have liked this.

Day Two:

Snorkeling Molokini Bay and Turtle Town!

Our gear

Almost there!

Ready to dive in!

Our first stop was Molokini Crater. The guides said there was a 250 foot visibility and they weren't lying! It was amazing how far we could see! We have been snorkeling in the Caribbean before and thought it was pretty cool, but nothing compared to this. I have never seen so many fish before, and the water was SO clear.

After about half an hour, Brian decided to go back to the boat to warm up. I said I would stay out for a bit longer. Sounds like the beginning of a 48 Hours Mysteries episode doesn't it? Well, I did have that thought as he swam back to the boat and I stayed in the open ocean BY MYSELF. A few minutes later I see a SHARK!! Not kidding! A real-life, 5-foot, Reaf Shark! Crazy. No I did not swim the opposite direction, I actually followed it to I could take a picture. Now, in case you didn't know, Brian LOVES sharks! He knows everything there is to know about all sharks and his dream is to actually swim with them. So imagine how he was going to feel when he found out his non-shark loving wife saw a shark while he was on the boat. I had a few thoughts: wave my arms over my head to get his attention to come back in the water or yell "BRIAN! THERE'S A SHARK! COME QUICK!" or say nothing at all to him so he didn't feel bad. I quickly decided options 1 and 2 were bad ideas since the guides specifically said to only wave your arms in the air when you were in trouble and yelling "SHARK!" while in the ocean wouldn't have been the smartest thing to do with other people around. So I swam back to the boat and quietly told Brian about my sighting. Which he did not believe at first. Then other people came back on talking about the shark they also saw. Needless to say, Brian was bummed I swam with sharks and he didn't. And yes, I will say from now on that I swam with sharks. It may have only been 1 about 30 feet away, but when you are in the same water and within sight of a shark I think you earn the right to exaggerate a bit!

Our next stop was Turtle Town. Not as exciting as seeing sharks, but we did see about 3 sea turtles swimming. Again, we have earned the right to say we have swam with sea turtles. I will say, that Brian didn't stray too far from me this time in hopes I would be lucky enough to spot another shark.

Sea Turtles or "Hona" as the Hawaiians call them, from the boat

Coming up for air. How cute is he?
Us
While on the boat we did a tour of Celebrity Houses!

This is David Bowie's house.

I think the guide said his house has all glass walls.

Here is Michael Jordan's house. The one on the right.

The reason Michael Jordan bought this house was because he wanted to be neigbors with his BFF....

Tiger Woods!
Tiger's house is the one with the red tiled roof.

The story of Tiger's house is that he built a driving range into the ocean. Nike makes him special golf balls that float so the local kids go out a few times and collect them for Tiger. Every now and again, Tiger will sign the balls and the kids will sell them on Ebay!

That night we went to Bubba Gump's for dinner.

In the hotel lobby

That day I also forgot to reapply the sunscreen. I mean, I'm Puerto Rican, I don't burn I tan. Yeah, I was wrong!

I became a little Puerto Rican lobster!

Day Three:
Our third day was a "relaxing" day. We hung on the beach with some mango mojitos before the big luau.

The luau was another one of those fantasies. I was picturing it to be on a sandy beach with flowers everywhere, waitresses in coconut bras & grass skirts and of course a flower lei. Well, guess what? I was wrong again. Granted I could have bought a flower lei for $10. I settled for the shell necklace and "free" mai tais they served us.

A sail boat sailing by as we wait to go in.

Ok, so let me tell you about this picture. I was feeling particularly sassy in this outfit. It was short and the shoes were about 4 inches tall. This made my legs look LOOONG (long for me) which NEVER happens in my world. So I had to throw a sassy little pose. But.... after the picture was taken we notice that this sassy short dress was see-through!! Yes, that is my beige bra and black undies showing through! I still like the picture though.Day Four: My FAVORITE Day!


This is the day we went ZIPLINING! Yes, me who is scared of driving on the ABQ freeway went ziplineing. Not only did I go, it was MY idea! I have seen people do it on The Bachelorette and The Amazing Race and it always looked so fun. So I did a little research and ran into the place where Jillian, The Bachelorette ziplined on one of her dates... Kapalua Adventures. This just so happens to also be a pretty nice golf course that Brian & his friend Brooks played a few years ago.


Waiting to get started.

Brian wishing he were here to play golf instead of zipline, not because he was scared, but because he would chose golf over anything else!

Does she not look like Vienna from Jake's season of The Bachelor?
Harnessed and ready to go!

The pictures with the borders are the ones that our guide Jaime took.

Jaime, our guide

This is the bus that took us up to the West Maui Mountains.
The group.

The kid next to me was 12 years old and went BY HIMSELF! His dad dropped him off and the boy went up the mountain!

My first zipline.

I was scared to death. I seriously thought I was going to poop my pants! I have never been so scared in my life!

Feeling good after having finished the bunny slope zipline! Hiking to line #2.

Climbing the steps to the top of the tower while holding my trolley (the thing that we zipped on) The trolley is calibrated to your specific weight so you have to carry it around from line to line and remember the number assigned to you. If you use someone elses trolley you'd be in BIG trouble! I still remember my number: 9, Brian was 57.

Ready to go again!

Much more relaxed huh?

Here comes Brian!

Here I come! My tennis shoe is on the left of the picture.

This is how they got us down each time

Two of The ziplines: There are two showing, one vertical one horizontal

The longest zipline we did. It was over 1800 feet long with a 250 foot drop!As a perk to using Kapalua Adventures, we got to putt on their greens for free! Boy, was Brian excited!

Please take note of his form...Now take a look at mine. No wonder I am no golfer and this little game didn't last long!

Thursday was also my favorite day because while at Kapalua we stopped at the gift shop and I bought the CUTEST hat EVER!

Day Five:

On Friday we decided to go snorkeling again, but this time on our own. We had been told that Honolua Bay was a great place to do some snorkeling so he hopped in the rental car and headed that way!

To get to Honolua Bay you have to walk through the woods. Not kidding. I so did not expect a mile long walk through forestry!

Honolua Bay from up above.

Beautiful!

We snorkeled past these boats. It is so peaceful and beautiful, we couldn't stop swimming!

This house was on the hill overlooking the bay. Can you imagine waking up to that every. single. day?? How wonderful!

Brian overlooking the bay.

Oh No! My cute hat almost blew away!

Brian is trying to discreetly hold onto Cute Hat.

A Hawaiian sunset from our hotel balcony

Off to dinner

Day 6: Last Day :(

We had a red eye flight so were able to enjoy out last day at the resort with mango mojitos, Captain Morgan's & Coke and catching the last bit of Hawaiian sun!

Do we look tanner?

Mahalo for reading my Hawaiian post! Hope you enjoyed the beautiful pictures of Maui. If you ever get the chance, take a vacay there. I will go again in a heartbeat!