Paradisio Ho'o Kumu

ALOHA!! The title of this post translates to "Paradise Found." Yes, we found paradise for sure.



I have so many pictures and stories to share from our vacation in Hawaii that I don't know where to start! I definitely will not be able to cover everything in one post.



Graem and I love to travel. One of the perks of Graem's (former) job is that he earned airline miles, hotel points and Amex points from all of his traveling. We hoard the miles and points until we've stockpiled enough for a great trip!



For our first anniversary, we took a trip to Napa Valley and San Francisco. The following year we took a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Then we started having babies, which reined us in for trips within driving distance (although we did make it out to Montana when Mason was 13 months old). Here we are, 2 sons later, and for the first time since December 2006 I am neither "with child" nor nursing a baby. So...yeah...it was high time for a big trip!



Our good friends Jason and Deborah went with us to the wonderful land of pineapples, waterfalls, luaus, volcanoes, leis, coconuts and mai tais!







We spent the first part of our trip on the island of Maui, at the very lush Grand Wailea Resort. The view from our lanai...



And some other shots from our "home sweet home" on Maui.







One night we went to the luau at our resort. Check out the roasted pig!







We spent the latter half of our trip on the island of Kauai. It was so different in so many ways than Maui! I loved them both so much, but for different reasons. I think my favorite island was Kauai, but my favorite accommodations were on Maui. Although, no matter where we would have stayed on Kauai it would have seemed shabby coming from the Grand Wailea! Don't get me wrong, The Sheraton Kauai Resort was definitely a nice place to stay and the view couldn't have been better. You could almost taste the salt water as it splashed against the rocks right outside of our lanai.



The pineapple was unlike any other pineapple I've ever tasted. Amazingly delicious! Just a typical roadside fruit stand:



The banana bread was pretty good too.



Okay, this was really random. The first morning that we were in Maui we woke up super early due to jet lag. So we took off in our rental Jeep on the Road to Hana, a drive that loops around the southern half of Maui and takes a long time (it ended up taking us over 12 hours so I'm glad we got an early start)! We were just getting on the road when we spotted these parrots on the side of the road. Their owner was charging people to get photographed with them as a fundraiser for some movie he's working on that the parrots "star" in. He used our cameras for the pictures, which was nice, except that the picture of me was out of focus.





The picture of Graem is hilarious!





He used Deborah's camera to take their pictures, but I snapped some of them with my camera also.





More gorgeous views...





What a wonderful trip. We spent plenty of time seeing the sights, but also plenty of time just doing this:



Here is Graem enjoying a true Hawaiian cocktail at Duke's Canoe Club on Kauai.



A close up of the Mai Tai glass:



And a statue of Duke Kahanamoku, the famous surfer that the restaurant is named for:



It goes without saying that we missed the boys terribly. It was longest that we've been away from them -- ever! I wish I could have captured their faces when they spotted us at the airport on Sunday afternoon. I actually convinced myself that they might not remember me! They did, of course, although I know they had a great time at the farm with Grandaddy and Bebe and everyone else up there (thanks, yall! Actually, a very BIG mahalo!).

More posts to come...I have many more pictures -- lots of beaches, waterfalls, sunsets, surfing and chickens. Yes, chickens!!

Mahalo, Hawaii! We had a great time and I hope to visit you again one day!