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