maui: aloha

 Our last day on Maui. 

We had a whole day to fill up before our red-eye flight back to Oregon.

I love this photo! Especially since a random person took it for us! Nice work, random lady! ;)

 We wandered around some of the resorts near Kaanapali, in search of flamingos. Found them!

 Finley found a giant snail! So big with a cool shell!

 We stopped at a lookout point for the view & could see whale spouts in the distance.

 Dad & the kids.

It was SUPER windy!

 Mama & the kids.

 I'll share another, since I'm usually behind the camera. :P

Such a memorable part of our trip: seeing Humpback Whales! Incredible!

Our family vacation to Maui was not perfect, but it was so great overall & will hold up well in our memories. I loved sharing one of my favorite places in the world with my kids. I loved chilling at the beach, watching them dig in the sand or splash in the waves. I loved walking through Lahaina, window shopping & people watching. 

We shared shave ice, local food (similar to Hawaiian Time, here in Eugene), pizza & ice cream. We bought tropical fruits from a market, drank coconut water (milk?) straight from the coconut & tasted a new fruit: cherimoya! So yummy! We also bought a papaya & pineapple to enjoy. We made smoothies & pina coladas in our condo. We swam every day, in the pool, at the beach, or both! We saw so many different birds, flowers & fish! Beautiful! We thawed out from the dreery, cold weather we had back home. ;) We didn't get sunburned!! Hooray! 

Our kids traveled well on the flight home & they each slept for a portion of the trip. Kenton & I didn't really sleep, but his parents picked us up from the airport & drove us home. It was nice to not have to be awake & alert for that 2 hour drive. Elsa napped once we returned home, but the rest of us stayed awake as long as we could. Elsa went to bed at 6:30 pm, Finn & Cedar were asleep by 7:00 pm, & Kenton & I went to sleep at 8:00 pm. We were the first to wake up at 9:00 am the next morning, followed shortly after by the boys. But we had to wake Elsa from a deep sleep at 11:30 am so that we could go to lunch! The best night of sleep ever...at least since Finley was born. :P

maui: kamaole beach III

 After whale watching, we drove down to the Kihei area in search of lunch & a new beach to explore. We were leaving the next day & figured we wouldn't make it to the beach on departure day. Hopefully that explains the absurd number of photos I took here. Our last beach day. I needed to capture it all, so I could save it for later. :)

I love this swim suit. And this girl. Such an amazing traveler!

 The waves were great for body surfing. Finn loved catching the waves!

 Nice view of Lanai.

 Kenton & I worked quickly to create sand structures for Elsa to destroy so she would ignore the boys' sand creations. ;)

 A little chilly when the sun would hide behind the clouds for a moment. :)

 The the sun came back out, I had a lot of fun taking some back lit photos!

 Running Cedar!

 Running Finley!

 Cool reflections.

 Tiny footprints.

 More fun with back lit photos.

Such a perfect day at the beach. Finn decided this was his first favorite beach! Baby Beach was his second favorite & Kapalua Bay was his third favorite. But his favorite thing about Maui: the beaches! :)

maui: pacific whale foundation cruise

There's a bit of a gap in pictures, after spending a couple days dealing with a very itchy boy. Finn had a contact dermatitis reaction of some sort that resulted in a middle of the night ER trip, a clinic visit the next day, a huge assortment of topical medications (the didn't work!), & a final Prednisone prescription that finally did the trick! Phew! We tried to venture out to see sights & eat out, but our trips were often cut short by a very uncomfortable & distraught boy. Poor guy (again!)! :[

On our second day, we took a whale watching trip with the Pacific Whale Foundation. They have a 97% success rate of finding whales!

 Waiting "patiently" to board the boat.

 Here comes our boat!

 Yay! We're on our way!

 The Lahaina wharf.

 "There she blows!"

 A dolphin fin & a whale fin in the same photo! I actually didn't notice the dolphin when I was taking the photo. It was a fun surprise when I got home & checked it out on the computer! :P

 The Humpback's humpback.

And the whale tale signals that the whale is diving down & won't resurface for a few minutes. We saw at least 5 whales in all & spotted many more whale spouts while out of the boat. So fun!