Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Finally, the Hawaii post. I know I promised this post a while ago, but blogspot hates me. I have attempted several times to get these pictures loaded, only to get multiple error messages resulting in me cursing and banging my head against the computer keyboard. Well, the blogspot gods finally smiled on me, and I got the pictures loaded. So without further ado...

Back in September, Jake and I took a slightly belated 5th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii. Our anniversary was in March, but because of work, we weren't able to get there until September. We (mostly me) had been planning this trip since Micah was born (dreaming of Hawaii got me through many colicky nights when Jake was out of town for weeks at a time). It was fabulous and exactly what this pregnant girl needed.

We stayed in Maui for a week. I had been having some major anxiety about leaving the kids for a week (although they were the most capable of hands with Jake's wonderful mother and sister...thank you again Laraine and Hollie! We owe you big time!!!), and when I am anxious about one thing, I get anxious about everything else. Which resulted in a minor panic attack on the airplane. Not at all embarrassing. I swear I get more and more neurotic and weird the older I get. Or maybe its just the pregnancy hormones. Yeah, I'm going with that. Anyway, our first stop after arriving in Maui was here:

What can I say? We love Costco.

This was the view out our room. Beautiful. I loved waking up to this every morning. So peaceful and gorgeous.

We drove the Road to Hana. We stopped at several places along the way, swimming, hiking, eating, hanging out on various beaches.

The water in all these waterfalls and pools was pretty chilly. Jake was brave and went swimming in all of them. I only went in the water in a few of them.
This is a black sand beach. It was stunning. A long time ago, when there was lava being flung into the water, it turned into rock upon hitting the water, and that's how these black sand beaches are formed. Or something like that. I had a few embarrassing moments here. It looks peaceful enough from here, but the waves were pretty strong. Also, most of the "sand" is actually rocks. Smooth and round. The waves were pounding, and while trying to come in from the water, I could not grip the bottom with my feet. Jake had on water shoes, so he had no problem getting a grip, but I kept getting knocked over on my butt, or hands and knees. Jake kept trying to pull me up, but I just could not. I was laughing so hard (as were several people on the beach. Can you blame them? I mean, I was laughing at other people when they couldn't stand up.). Can you imagine the sight? A 7 month pregnant lady who keeps getting knocked over by the waves in 3 feet of water? It was awesome.
This is the view from the other side:
I am intrigued by banyan trees. This was on the walk down to some pools off the Hana highway.
We did some snorkeling:


These are from the Luau:

More snorkeling pictures. One of the days we were out, we saw two sea turtles and a bunch of eagle rays. My two favorite animals.
This picture is kind of blurry, because its from far away, but thats a turtle swimming next to Jake.

This is the Nakele blowhole. It was pretty awesome. The water comes in from a hole on the side of a lava formation, goes through a tube, and then shoots up out of this hole, the water sometimes spraying as high as 70 feet. We got completely soaked.

Okay, I loved this so much, I even put up the world's most unflattering picture of myself just to show you how cute it was. The lava rock in the area has been eaten by seawater, making really crazy jagged formations. It looked like we were on a different planet. And this hole was formed somewhere along the way. Awww. I love it.


We had a great trip, lots of relaxing, eating delicious food, lounging, getting massages, eating shave ice, watching surfers, seeing sights, and generally enjoying our time off. It was such a nice vacation. We can't wait to go back!