Mele Kalikimaka

Wow. I have failed at blogging. But, as a wise monkey once said "It doesn't matta, it's in da past!"

We went to Hawai'i!!!! Neither Andrew nor I had ever been. We decided since my parents were in Jordan and his were in Japan that Christmas would be a good time to go. So, early in the year we made preparations. Andrew booked his family's condo on maui. We applied for a credit card and got 50,000 free miles (paid for our plane tickets) and I started working out. I made a goal towards the beginning of the year to lose 30 lbs. (I know that sounds like a lot, but I still hadn't lost much from pregnancy).
Sidenote: From running and doing INSANITY, I lost 20, and would have lost the rest, but I forgot to take the INSANITY DVDs with me to hawaii. So I ended up sitting on my can eating chocolate covered macadamia nuts instead. But heck, I was on vacation.

We spent Christmas with Andrew's sister's family (Mardi and Rob and their 9 kids). We had a blast. And they made it really feel like Christmas for us. We even went caroling. They were so generous to us, even let us take their car for awhile (which was a huge help since rentals are like $100/day). We loved getting to know their family and they were so cute with William. He loved playing with all the kids, although he is a horrible sharer. They want us to move to Maui. That would be the life :)

Instead of giving you a play by play of hawai'i. I'll just post pictures. Here are several thousand words :)


Watching planes with his friend Casper


Making his last minute phone calls before take off (note to self: an 18 month old is way to big and squirmy to be a lap child)


Leis from Mardi and Rob :) And groceries from costco piled high on top of our luggage.


First LDS chapel on Maui


Still can't handle so much sunshine


On the freezing Mt. Haleakala, waiting for the sunrise.


Too cloudy to see the sunrise, but miraculously the clouds parted for a moment to show us this.


Went back to the van to find a flat tire. Quite a struggle trying to dislodge the spare. And when the boys finally fixed it, we ran back to the viewpoint to see this beautiful sight...




Andrew trying his hand at skimboarding. He got pretty good.



Will playing a little ball on the deck christmas morning in his Christmas pjs (yes, I lugged Christmas pjs to hawaii for me, andrew, and will. I had to keep at least one Christmas tradition this year)


Newest lava outcrop on Maui


Our fancy dinner at the Pineapple Grill where I ordered a scrumptious virgin pineapple mojito :)


Battle wound from the biggest wave of the day throwing me into the sand


This is all one tree. It takes up the whole block. The roots grow down from the branches and into the ground.


Learning how to tie my "miracle dress" before buying it. This thing can make 8 dresses/skirts.


Whale watching! My favorite part of the trip was trying to spot these amazing animals.


Andrew's giant sea turtle. Unfortunately, we never saw a real sea turtle :(




Will trying to master the art of whale watching


What is Christmas vacation without a little football. Will puts his fist in the air and cheers "Go, Go, Go" every time a game comes on.




William didn't like the sand. He cried every time we tried to put him down.


I got obsessed with "The Help" on the trip. For 2 days, this is what I looked like.






The last 3 are my favorites :)

We loved Hawai'i. It was so nice to get away for awhile.