It got really hot, really fast that morning into the early afternoon, and we had to leave the beach ASAP.  The kids started to show signs of burning which actually wound up not being sunburn at all actually.  It was just the kids having water on their skin with their suits over it, making that part of their skin look paler than the rest which made it appear as though they were getting burned.  But we left the beach.  It took forever and a day to wrangle up the kids, get everyone de-sanded and dressed in dry clothes so they could sit in their car seats  Before this day, I had no idea that my brother actually HATES the beach.  Never knew that.  Noted!

So we headed home, but on the way home we stopped at this store and I bought some fun little things for LylaBean and Lexi, because they are new babies and needed to be given a Hawaiian thing (Cass, you’ll get Lexi’s this weekend).  So i did a little shopping and then we headed home.  Later on in the afternoon after the kids had napped and were full of energy again, just before dinner, I filled up the baby pool for them to play in.  They had a blast.

Li’l Foot LOVED the baby pool. (yes, that is the color of my brother’s house in the background of this next picture!)

She also loved when we turned the shower head on to rinse them off, because we wound up giving them their baths right in the baby pool too.  Fun was had by all.

Can you stand that buddha belly? Seriously?

And she loved to have the shower rain down on her tush…heehee

We didn’t plan very well apparently though, because the bath came BEFORE the butterfly cake decorating!?!?!

My niece loves butterflies. What can I say?  She LOVED helping mommy decorate her cake. (The middle piece that is the body of the butterfly is a twinkie…heehee

The following are pictures from her cake decorating adventures…My niece helped! A lot!

More icing here mommy…

You missed a spot here mommy…

This piece needs to be tasted for quality control testing…

We need to then test the smooshability of the icing by rubbing it all over our face mommy…

And then I’ll need to rub it in between my hands to make sure it’s just the right consistency…

And then more taste testing…

Mmmmmm…mmmmmmm…mmmmm…delicious…

The artists of this fine work of confection…

The piece de resistance…The confection…

Dinner was eaten, and the confection was ready to be consumed…

Only what’s that?  In the corner?  Oh Nooooooooooooooes…it’s the big older brother looming on the sidelines threatening to blow out his little sister’s candles for her and put a hole in the butterfly wing…

There’s the big “2″

By the way, how did my niece get to be TWO already?  This is just insane.

Ohhhhhhhh noesssssssssss…here comes big brother’s hand, swooping in for the kill, watch oooooooout!!!

Phew…big brother’s wrath was averted…narrowly…but averted…

Mmmmmm…the ultimate test…lick the icing off the bottom of the candle…

Blowing the candles out on her cake…

Ohhhhh….wait…what’s this…big brother is back for round 1,543,976…ding.ding.

Alas she takes back full ownership of HER cake by hovering a bit too close to the 2 candle and nearly cinges her eyebrows off…

Hey, wait…didn’t she alredy blow that out…how’d that candle get lit again?

It’s like ground hog day…all over again…

Except maybe with more intensity…

Do it with feeling this time Lil….

Whew…that was a tough birthday cake blow out fest!!!  Fun for the whole family…Oh wait, what’s this?  Could it be?  Why, yes, yes it is…Li’l Foot is clear across the other side of the table.

She was strapped in the whole time and never had a chance of stealing her cousins birthday thunder!!! “What cake?” she says through crumb encrusted lips!

nomnomnom

Oh look, niece and nephew enjoying their cake too!

Can we do this every day?

Yup, the cake was perfect…it’s potential for maximum smooshability and smearability was exact!!!

And delicious…

Oh, but wait…presents!!!

Wheeeeeeeeee…presents and cousins…fun!!!

Oooo…Ouch…Suddenly my knees hurt…in the OMG please get me to that knee replacement specialist kind of way…

I make you glamorous cousin Lil…

Oh wait…shhhh…she’s opening my gift now…

oooo ooo ooooo, she likes it…there’s a smile…

Happy Birthday to my niece…ummmm…3 months ago.  That was a fun day.  A good time.  And I am so happy we were there to celebrate her birthday with her.  These are memories I am so happy I caught on camera.  There’s video too.  I’ll have to make videos of Hawaii a separate post altogether.  That one should be fun.

Guess what, the next day we venture off on our OWN!!!  Just our little family.  We do some fun things.  Sorry it took so long to get this day up, but with the crazy November we had and NaBloPoMo…and then the start of a crazy December, it’s been rough.  I’ll try not to let a month and a half pass by before I post day 7.

And one of my fovrite “stink eye” ictures of her yet…

My little sassy pants…

Gazing up at the last few stars in the breaking morning sky…

Here are some of the scenes from the cabin deck…

And this is the view of the empty Captain Morgan bottle…

Care of my brother and LFD…but mostly my brother…

And here is my SIL and my niece and nephew…

This shot just cracks me up.  We (meaning all of us) didn’t go anywhere without our BPA free Camelbak water bottles!  From left to right…the odd ball one is my brother’s which was fazed out by the end of our trip, and then my nephew’s, then my SIL’s and the my niece’s and then LFD’s and then mine and the LF’s.  We didn’t plan them to be all be different colors, that’s just the way it all worked out.

And then we got some really cute pictures of the three kids together…

And then we got to packing up…

That there in the orange is my nephew…as I plopped down on the air mattress to get the air out, he went bouncing off the side of the mattress, it was hysterical…

As we were pulling out of the cabin driveway, I looked up out of the car window and snapped this picture through the trees…

and this one…

But this one is my favorite of this mist filled sunbeam moment…

It just makes me feel so good and so loved!  I can’t even try to explain it!

On the way down the mountain we came across more cows…

And about half way down, we stopped at this area where people bring out there remote controlled airplanes and I was able to snap a couple pictures to make a panorama to show you the view from up here…

It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but you get the point of beauty!

Li’l Foot slept through this stop…

And I was able to snap a picture of my brother and his beautiful family…

I don’t have many pictures of the experience this time, but fr dinner this day we went to Sansei’s Sushi Restaurant, in Kihei (pronounced: key hay).  The. Best. Sushi. place. ever. in. the. history. of. ever.  These are the 3 shots I did get…

THAT? Oh, well, THAT is fried ice cream!!!  So not only is it the best sushi place ever, but it has the best fried ice cream ever too!!!  It really is heaven!  Yes, that’s whipped cream on my nephew’s finger.  He had a blast with the fried ice cream too!

So, not too much to report for day 5, but an early morning, a beautiful sunrise facing the wrong direction, a very empty bottle of Captain Morgan, and lots of sushi and fried ice cream!

We made some breakfast and made an early-ish start for our day of hiking.  It was a little chilly when we left the cabin, but nothing too bad, so I didn’t bother wearing anything but a tank top.  I’d be moving around and warm up fast anyway.  And I did!  The hike for the day was going to be a long one.  WE were making our out to the trail that would take us 6 miles round trip.  It was going to be a big loop.  Here’s the map so you can see again the trails and the route we would take this time…

(If you’re looking at a clock for directional purposes) Basically we were hiking from the white square down the blue trail towards 7 o’clock and all the way down to where the dark green trail comes in and then up toward 3 o’clock until we hit the other blue trail and head toward 12 o’clock and then back out via the peach trailtoward 9 o’clock.  Did you follow all that?  Did I get you lost in the redwood forest?  No?  Okay good, I would want to lose any of my readers in the middle of Maui!!!

There’s the crew hiking into the forest at the very start of the hike…

Don’t worry, we didn’t forget my nephew…he’s up there with my SIL, but my brother’s moon is blocking your view of him.

Here’s LFD and LF at the beginning of the hike…

Here’s my brother and my niece…

And here’s my SIL and nephew…

It was pretty much at this point that LFD and LF blazed the trail ahead of us.  They took off and we went at my nephew’s pace.  Man that kid was a trooper…he hiked pretty much by himself without any of us picking him up at all the entire day.  I was really impressed.

I stopped along the way to take some interesting pictures of details of this side of the forest…

Like this…

That log was laying there, having been burned in the fire and it just intrigued me.  It was sooooo smoothe and looked so cool.

I loved the ferns in the forest…they are always some of the greenest life within Polipoli because they are so close to the ground and soak up all the moisture…

And these little white ferns were so delicate and there were little tufts of them everywhere…

This tree stump was pretty cool.  To me I immediately thought of a shamrock on steroid because of all the roundy edges of it…just like a shamrock…

I happened upon this pine cone while I was walking by myself at one point and it looked like an animal.  My first thought was it looked like a hedgehog and I HAD to get a picture for my mom because she collects them.  Bu then the more I tried to take a picture of it, the worse my pictures came ut and the less it started to look like a hedgehog to me and more like a weasel or a ferret…

I don’t know why, for some reason my camera just wouldn’t take a picture of that thing!!!  Grrrrr!!!

I loved how the end of this stump was all cracked and dried from the fire that burned it.  It just looks like all life was sucked out of it…

And I love taking pictures of things that require some depth perception.  And I love how the NIkon blurs out either the foreground or the background so smoothly, in such a way that I never got from taking depth pictures with my Sony.

I bet you can’t wait for us to get out of the burned up redwood forest because here’s another uprooted tree that was badly burned and destroyed in the fire…

I’m sure this fern is not supposed to look like this which tells me it too was burned in the fire, yet it still clings to the log/ground it formed around and has not decayed…

You find some of the most interesting things in the middle of the forest!

Here’s my nephew reading his compass!!!

Just after I took this picture he decided he wanted to hike with my brother and SIL, so I hiked by myself for a little while.  LFD was no where to be found by this point he was so far ahead of us.  It was at this point that I was walking by myself that I heard a rustling in the woods.  And if you follow me on twitter, you know that I looked deep into the woods and literally saw three little pigs running up the hill in the direction of my brother and his family.  So I yelled, “ummmmm…hey…ummmm…pigs…running…toward….you!!!!”  I felt like I couldn’t talk because I was so taken back by seeing them in the first place.  Imagine walking by yourself in the forest and turning to see three wild boars taking off up the hill!!! Crazy!!!  I didn’t get any pictures of them unfortunately, but they were there, I swear.  My brother and his family can vouch for me.  Though they thought I was kidding at first in order to make them speed up and hike faster.

We did finally catch up to LFD & LF…

The kid had passed out.  This was nap # 1 of the day mind you!!!  There will be another one coming later in the hike!!!

We all kind of rested at this point and I snapped this loving picture of my SIL and niece…

According to the sign behind her we had only gone one mile so far.

I wonder if this was a fungus on the plant or if it was some sort of weird plant that had a growth naturally…

Kind of weird right?

Oh, this was really awesome…but the picture doesn’t do the actual feeling of being there any justice.  As we were hiking I snapped this picture and the mist was rolling in, so it was eerie and cool.  It would get a little lighter and then the mist would discipate and the air would clear and it would roll back in between the trees…

From this picture it seems like that was just a tiny tree in this next picture but I just fit the entire tree into my view finder all the way zoomed out and it was so intersting a subject I had to take its picture…

I have no idea where we are at this point…bu the sign says it’s 5 more miles to the cave which you saw on day 3′s post!!!

Fall foliage does not occur in Hawaii of course, but when you do find a fallen leaf, it turns pretty colors just like here in the northeast…

I tried to find these flowers on google but couldn’t.  They were soooo pretty and among all the other stuff that was burned they stuck out…There was a whole big bush of them!!!

When I looked up from taking the picture of those flowers, LFD was on the other side of the switchback from me and it was misty…

At one point a couple was hiking and caught up to us, we stopped them and asked them if they wouldn’t mind taking our picture for us…

And again LFD got ahead of us and when he stopped we did finally catch up to him…

As you can see, he’s doing a fine job of holding down that tree stump!

Over the course of the next 3 or 4 miles we sang songs, munched on the G.O.R.P. (trail mix) I packed to have just in case any of us got hungry.  Thank goodness I did bring it because we scarfed that stuff down.  My niece took a couple of M&M’s at this point and held onto them for the entire duration of the rest of the hike and wouldn’t let them go for anything.  More about that later!!!

We did finally make it to that lookout where LFD proposed to me, again!  And got some really nice pictures.  One of which will forever be one of my favorite pictures of us as the Li’l Foot Family!  Check it out!

Or this one too..

Do you see how red my face is?  I was a HOT MESS!!!  We were doing some hard hiking, and it was right toward the end of getting to this clearing that Li’l Foot was getting antsy and had enough of riding in the backpack and having her walk was barely any better if not worse.  It was good we got to this spot when we did so everyone could stretch their legs and just relax.

I snapped this picture of LF’s head while we were stopped…

Pigtails always kill me!

My little munchkin inspecting the ground…

Here’s my brother and my niece resting…

LFD decided to mess with my nephew and hang his little hat in the tree branch…

My nephew was about to start hiking again when LFD reminded him about his hat and then he coulnd’t find it!!!  heehee

So here’s the sign just near the overlook we rested at…

Another one and a half miles to go!!!

I didn’t take many pictures on our way back to the cabin from here because you saw all that in my day 3 post!  But I did take a couple…

Like my brother’s family hiking…this is the only time my nephew didn’t walk!

And LFD took one of me because when we started hiking again, LF wanted me so I got to carry her on my back in the pack.

As you can see, I’m really boring!  She fell asleep very soon after starting to hike again!  LFD said she fell asleep in pretty much the same spot on on the trail on Day 3.

And remember how I mentioned M&M’s really do melt in your hand!  Wellmy niece is proof of that…

Do you see the blue?  No, not her hat!  Nope, not her backpack!  See it…right theree on her thumb?  Wait, let me get her to open up her hand and show you!!!

It doesn’t look as bad in the picture as it was in real life.  But I guess the whole M&M didn’t melt through to the chocolate, so maybe they consider that “not melting in your hand” or something!  I don’t know.  All I know is I was responsible for grabbing a baby wipe to clean her and the M&M residue up!!!

We made  some burritos for dinner that night.  The kids went to bed and we again didn’t have a lantern because of me!  But I had my head lamp strapped to my head.  The one I used to knit Lyla’s baby blanket at night in bed!

After the kids went down, we adults convinced LFD to play 21.  He’s not a game player.  In fact he hates playing games.  With the exception of Cranium.  But by some miracle we got him to play 21 (maybe it was the skunked Heineken he was drinking that did it, I don’t know.  And once we all had enough of 21 my brother asked if we wanted to play Trumps.  Somehow LFD agreed to that too.  Definitely the skunked Heineken talking now.  Trumps is a really cool game.  It’s a lot like Hearts.  My brother plays it at the fire station with the guys.  I’ll spare you the blow by blow instructions on how to play.

Needless to say, take 4 adults, add beer, and cards and you get some pretty funny stuff!!!  At one point that night we were playing cards and my nephew from the bedroom screams like you can not imagine out of the blue.  I jumped and being a mother my heart sunk and my eyes welled up and my adrenaline got going.  He was fine.  I guess he fell off the bed (the bottom bunk) and as he fell he screamed out.  You can not even imagine the silence that he cut with that scream.  It was so scary!!!

And then there were the s’mores we made by heating them on the wood stove.  That as fun…and mmmm mmm mmm yummy!!!!

And did I mention that skunked beer hubbie had?  Yes?  Okay, well if skunked beer didn’t smell terribly good going down, take it from me, the burps from skunked beer don’t smell any better!!!  They seriously curled my eye brows!!!  And LFD can’t just burp and blow it in the opposite direction, he’s an equal opportunity burper…he likes to share it!!!  There were minutes at a time that he brought the card playing to a screeching halt because our eyes watered up and we couldn’t see through the burp!!!

My brother and LFD shared almost an entire bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum after the beer was gone.  Good times!

By far though, the funniest part of the night (and some may be offended by this but it was hysterical to us)…LFD went to the bathroom first out of all of us that night after having had a couple beers.  The bathroom was right off the common area.  He went in, shut the door and started to pee.  I got the bright idea to summon my brother and SIL up to join me and bust into the bathroom on him!  So we did!  And he stood there, peeing over the bowl and we dutifully surrounded him around the bowl and saluted him as he peed!  When he finished, we unsaluted him and walked out.  This went on ALL night!  Any one of us got up to pee and the whole entourage would get up too.  At one point my brother got up for his second round of peeing and we stayed sitting at the table.  You could tell that he was upset that we didn’t get up for him not only when he came out but he was in the bathroom and you could hear him holding back finishing peeing to give us time to get in there, and when we didn’t go in, he gave up and ran out of pee.  Hey, a family that pees together, stays together, isn’t that the saying?  It was all in good clean fun!

We ended the evening with some star gazing on the deck of the cabin.  So many stars in Hawaii!  So beautiful!!!

So, there you have it…Day 4 of our trip to Hawaii!!!  Yeesh..only 10 days left!!!  What will I blog about after those are over?

Friday morning we woke up and started getting ready.  We packed and waited for my brother to get home from the fire house.  By the time we got our act together it was about 2 in the afternoon.  A lot goes into preparing a camping trip for 4 adults and 3 kids under the age of 4.  I was responsible for checking the lantern to make sure the batteries worked.  I pulled it out from under the kitchen sink and a cockroach squirmed out.  I freaked out, squealed and flailed my arms, and ran the box outside on the lanai (front porch).  When I opened the box outside more cockroaches emerged.  Fun times!  I checked to make sure the lantern worked.  It did.  And I put it back in the box.  Once the trucks were packed up we were off…to the grocery store.

We went to the grocery store to pick up the essentials and planned out our meals for the duration.  There are no stores up at Polipoli.  Nowhere even close.  I enjoy the pre-camping shopping trips.

On the way up to Polipoli it’s some windy roads, and really requires a SUV of some sort.  Pavement turns to deep rut plagued dirt road.  More fun times!!!  Along the drive looking back into the valley of Maui is so beautiful.  You see the valley buzzing with activity in Kahului below and you are driving up the side of a volcano in such peace and quiet, it’s truly awe inspiring.

On the way up to Polipoli, we drove through the clouds and I couldn’t help but take pictures out the window of the car.

Check it out…it’s mistifying, right?

And here’s another one…

And another…Jack Ball on the antenna wanted to get in on the action…

Annnnnnnnnd still more…

And just one more of my favorite…

Also along the ride were cows.  On the road there are cow guards across the road preventing the cows from leaving their designated area, other than that they have free range to roam wherever they want to.  Like these guys…

And they can be further away from the road like this…

Or if they’re closer to the road it’s important when driving to not scare them or they’ll charge right into your car…

LF checked out the cows too…

As we arrived in the camping area and opened the gate to the cabin, we saw the cabin through the trees…

Here it is close(r) up…

Once we arrived at the cabin, you can see LF enjoyed relaxing while we made some lunch…

LF and her cousin played on the top bunk…

Uncle started a fire and gave LF a lesson in tough love when it came time to make sure she didn’t step foot near the hot stove…And yes, it gets cold in Polipoli.  It was probably in the 40′s I would guess.  Not so much during the day, although it’s not terribly warm during the day like the rest of the island, but it does get cold at night…

And then we went on a hike through Polipoli redwood forest…this is the camp grounds there…

…and just so you don’t get lost along the way…here’s the Polipoli map…

We hiked out on the peach color line to the right of where it says “You are here”…I think we wound up hiking just over a mile or so…here is the beginning of the trail…

You can see on the bottom of the trees how burned they are.  When we hiked here in 2001, the forest was dense with brush, you wouldn’t have been able to see through the forest like it that picture above.

Here’s my brother and his family…

And here they are hiking…

I had LF on my back…here’s LFD hiking ahead of me…

A spider web…

This kind of gives you an idea of how consuming and big the forest feels while you’re walking through it…

Through the mist at the top of that picture is all forest.  Amazing!

And this gives you a feel of how charred the forest is after being burned. They say it was a cigarette that started the fire. How they determine that, I have no idea.

And this just shows you how the reforestation is going…death of one tree and life given to a new one.  It will take hundreds of years for that little sapling to grow to be the size of the one that is next to it that was cut down after being burned the life out of…

And, whether you want to find it or not, there is beauty in death…I wished I had a wide angle lens for my camera so you could truly take in the scene at this point in our hike.  In a 180 degree view this picture portrays what you would’ve seen…

This was part of the trail going through the area above…

You can really see how everything was so burned, yet there are signs of new life all around.  It will take many many years to even remotely be what it used to be.

This tree was totally burned, but still stands…

These two people melt my heart…is puddle on floor…send mop!

Moss grows like wild fire (no pun intended) in Polipoli…it’s so wet in Polipoli, it’s the perfect breeding ground for moss…

There were many opportunities to take some really artistic shots through the forest on our hike…

All the beautiful little signs of life…

And taking pictures just to show you the type of hike it was, and the unique trail we hiked on…

And how small I felt in the forest…

How mistifying the forest at Polipoli can be…

And how fragile the ecosystem is…

And no matter where we are…how sassy LF can be…

This is the very spot that LFD proposed to me in January of 2001…

Hey, wait…who’s that extra little person in the picture…she wasn’t there the last time…let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Oh, and I forgot, not far into the hike, my niece got cold and my brother headed back tothe cabin with her…we conitnued on with my SIL and my nephew…

Here’s part of the view from the spot where he proposed to me…

Down under the place where LFD proposed to me, is a cave, which we also visited while we were there in 2001.  It’s cold and dark and I don’t go far in there, beacause I’m a little afraid of what might live in there, but we set the camera up to take a self timer picture of all of us…

We decided we better high tail it out of the forest…it was going to get adkr very fast at this point…

Here’s me and my nephew on the way back…

And here’s LF ont he way back…

A flower in the forest…

Log…

Some ashen bark…

We did make it back to the cabin just before sunset…but not by long…

That is Kahului in the very far off distance below…

Some tall pine trees in the sunset outside the cabin…

When we arrived back at the cabin, LFD had gone ahead of me and my SIL and nephew.  He was back at the cabin abut 10 minutes before us.  He had LF on his back and in backpack…We came back to fine this…

OUT COLD!!!

Well, a brief interlude…it was riiiiiiiiiiiiiight about this time…the sun was going down, dinner was being prepared, things were settling down for the night…we decided at this point we better get some flashlights out and grab that lantern I so diligently took backfrom the cockroaches from under the kitchen sink that morning at the house.  My brother fired up(read: turned on the power switch) and a dull light (read: an ant’s flashlight would put out more light than this thing did) illuminated the cabin.  It was pathetic.  So, ok, the batteries? Not so much!  They were going dead!!!  In my defense, they only told me to make sure it worked, they did not tell me to make sure it would put out the light of a thousand suns, okay?  Pfffft!!!!

That evening we huddled around the fire and cooked a family recipe (tallerini) for dinner and then celebrated my SIL’s birthday…she made her own cupcakes before leaving the house that morning!!!

Everyone helped blow out the candles…aren’t they cute?

Here’s my niece taking control of her cupcake…at first all dainty and stuff…

And then the cupcake monster came out…

(and that would be my brother in the background pouring  the families evening glass of milk (I swear the way they go through milk, they should just take one of those cows back to their house from the side of the road up there!!!).

And here’s LF eating hers…

And I leave you with one more shot of LF before the end of the night…

And one more shot of her falling asleep in my arms around the fire place…

No, I didn’t make her go to sleep in her sneakers, but it was tampting.  It was super cold!!!  She was layered with clothes at this point!!!  And there were extra blankets in her bed to keep her warm.  At this point she still wasn’t in the sleeping groove yet from the jet lag, but it was ok…I loved snuggling with her when it was cold at night in bed.

We didn’t stay up terribly late that night, we were cold and knew we had a full day of more hiking ahead of us on Saturday.  So here you have it.  Day 3 of our vacation.  How am I doing so far?  Am I giving you enough detail?  Too much detail?  Do you want more pictures?  Less pictures?  If you do want to see the whole Hawaii set of pictures, I’m uploading them to Flickr as I write these posts.  Feel free to take a look through as we go…

I’ll try my best to get day 4 up in the next day or two.  Thanks for reading…hope I didn’t bore you!!!

The first day after we arrive in Hawaii is always a lazy day.  We are always so pooped from traveling the day before that we do nothing except hang out and do nothing.  Throughout day 2, Li’l Foot hung out with the kids in my SIL’s *care center that she runs out of her home.  Those kids are super lucky…they have some great activities throughout the day.  Li’l Foot had a great time.

Here is Li’l Foot first thing the morning of our 2nd day…

And here she is telling me she wants something or other, maybe food? maybe to go outside? I don’t remember, but she looked super cute in her “supaaaahhhh staaaaaahhhhh” get up.  Ask Li’l Foot to do “supaaaahhhh staaaaahhhh” like daddy has taught her to do with jazz hands and you’ll melt on the floor.

I decided I should call my friend who was taking care of Guinness, our dog.  When I called she was in the middle of cleaning up after him.  Apparently he decided it was appropriate to walk into the living room, look my friend square in the face, lift his leg and pee on her upholstered chair!  Nice, right?  The reason Li’l Foot is sleeping on my lap was because she was down for a nap and she woke up in the middle of it, screaming and was inconsolable.  She eventually did settle back down, and then I was afraid to put her down for fear she might wake up again and be even more miserable.

Are you bored yet?  I am!  I want to go take a nap, I’m boring my own self!

But we’re almost to the end of day 2 and then things get interesting.  Night time of day 2 we watched my nephew for just a little while, so my SIL could take her mom to the airport.  She took my niece with her to send off Grammi.  My nephew and Li’l Foot had a good time one on one.  It was nice.  But we were so tired.  The minute my SIL got home, LFD and I made tracks to our bed!!!  We were exhausted!

We searched for geckos…do you see one?

The kids posed on the rocking chairs out on the lanai (deck/porch…Hawaiian style)…

And then it was bedtime…awww, my sweet sleeping angel!!!

And that about covers day 2.  See?  I told you…boring!!! I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading now.  All I can say is I promise it will get better.

Anyway, day one of vacation was spent traveling.  Not many pictures were taken, but I did get some good ones from the airplane and I need to show you just how bad I got chocolate milked by a toddler who was insistent that she could handle a big girl cup all by herself.  Why yes, yes I am in fact talking about my own toddler.  That strong-willed, thick, little punk! Eh hemmm…I mean sweet little smoosh face…

Here are a few pictures as we were approaching the Hawaiian islands. In the far off distance in this one you can see the tippy tops of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.  We’ve been tehre before, actually the year LFD proposed to me, and at that time you could still hike out on the lava flow.  Now it’s so active you can’t get anywhere near the flow.  The peaks of those volcanoes are off the left hand side of the horizon, kind of two little moscitoe bites.  The land you see just under the center point of the picture is Maui.  That is the area known as Hana.  You’ll hear more about that on Day 9 (I think).  Hana is the eastern most part of the island of Maui.

This is just one of those shots I had to take.  The weather in Hawaii varies.  One island it couls be totally sunny, another could be partly cloudy, there could be trade winds coming down from the north, and there could be a spot of rain during the day or it could be raining all day.  It depends on where you are.  This is just tufts of clouds over the deep blue ocean.  Yes, that’s right, this was taken from my seat on the plane, looking down to the ocean through the clouds.

The picture below was taken in the airport in Honolulu.  We had to take the Wiki Wiki bus from the domestic/international terminal to the inter-island terminal.  You should hear LFD spur Li’l Foot into saying Wiki Wiki…it’s the cutest darn thing.  If you notice on the left side of the picture to the left of Li’l Foot who yes, was still in her pj’s top, is a brown spot on my shirt.  THAT would be the chocolate milk of which I spoke of.  It was not fun, but I think I took it rather well, and it came out so no harm.  I made Li’l Foot wear that pf top through the whole trip because when I tried to change her, she got that one dirty too.  I was going to change her in the Honolulu airport so that she was presentable when we arrived to greet my family in Maui, but hey, I had to be covered in chocolate milk…SO DID SHE!!!  Hmph!!!

Here’s us.  Our first official family picture on vacation.  And see there on the top right of my shirt just next to where Li’l Foot is standing…those brown spots?  That’s also chocolate milk stains too!  In any case, LFD and I enjoyed a couple of Longboard beers and Li’l Foot enjoyed her glass of P.O.G. (passion~orange~guava juice).  So yummy, you can make it yourself by finding all three juices in the international foods section of your grocery store.  Goya makes all of them.  It’s really yummy, you should try it some time when you’re bored.

In Li’l Foot’s drink was a marachino cherry.  My dad was totally watching and proud of this moment.  He loved marachino cherries and that’s where I got my love for them I’m sure.  I don’t eat them often, but when I do I can’t help think of my dad.  Li’l Foot enjoyed her first experience with them as you can tell.

Notice how dirty her shirt is:

She really did enjoy her POG as well!

The first day was uneventful.  The flights?…long!  The people?…mostly all good!  Li’l Foot slept on every one of the flights for various amounts of time.  I can’t imagine being a little person and going through 6 time changes.  It really did take Li’l Foot until Sunday to adjust her sleep schedule to the time changes.

When we finally arrived in Maui, my brother and my nephew were there waiting for us.  It was wonderful to finally be on the ground.  When we arrived at my brother’s house, Li’l Foot thought she’d died and gone to heaven…holy moley the toys they have!!!  Wow!  Just wow!

Cass says I will have 1274

Danielle-Lee says I will have 1260

WiNy say I will have 1200

jenny says I will have 999

Dawn says I will have 811

Today was pretty uneventful.  Yesterday we didn’t get to the Maui Jim store before it closed.  Which, who closes a sunglass store before 4 o’clock in the afternoon.  I guess surfers in Maui!!!  So we got up pretty early today and got ready to go, had a quick beakfast here before leaving which consisted of leftovers from The Gazebo yesterday.  We headed over to the other side to go to the Maui Jim store.  I had only intended to get my pair of sunglasses I bought maybe the second trip I came here repaired.  I had dropped them on the ground outside Pocklock‘s house one day and one of the lens cracked really badly.

When we got to the store, I filled out the paper, handed them my sunglasses and asked them to fix them.  A few minutes later a woman came out from the back, called me over and told me that pair of sunglasses were dicontinued.  But…if i wanted to, sincethey couldn’t fix them, I could trade them in for new ones at a mere fraction of the cost.  Maui Jim’s are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.  So for only $60 I was able to buy a new pair of sunglasses.  It was while I was checking out the pairs they had to offer that I really wished all of you had fit in my suitcase, because I really could’ve used your opinion on which ones to buy.  I kept trying to think of a way to get you involved   I just couldn’t decide.  i was not prepared for picking out a new pair of sunglasses.  That wasn’t my intent for going there so I wasn’t in that mind set.  I think I wound up choosing a really nice pair though. They are called Makaha.  But I didn’t get them in black, they are in tortoise with rose lenses.  I love their rose lenses.  All my sunglasses from them have been rose lenses.  When I get home I’m shipping my other glasses back to my brother because I don’t like them at all anymore, so he’ll trade them in for me, and get these instead.  LFD is doing the same with the sunglasses I bought him when we first came here in 1998 too.

Thi afternoon we met my brother back at the house after we were done and he had gotten off from work at the firehouse.  Then we went down into Kahului to the harbor and picked up his sailing canoe from the barge and brought it to the beach where they store them.  My brother had a race over in Kauai a couple weeks ago and had the canoe shipped back over here.  The season is over, so now they get to re-rig it and play around with it and make it go faster before next season starts!

Tomorrow we are taking a little excursion to Hana.  I am wondering how Li’l Foot will do in the car for all that time, but we’ve loaded up on snacks and stuff, so hopefully it is a nice ride.  It’s a lot of scenery and winding narrow roads.  I can’t wait to show you these pictures.  Breathtaking…truly breathtaking!!!  The waterfalls alone are amazing.  And we’ll hopefully make it as far as Waianapanapa state park so I can get some black sand from the beach there and also to Oheo gulch (a.k.a 7 sacred pools).  Well tomorrow will be a long day.  I doubt you’ll hear from me until Friday probably.  Hope you’re all well.

Yesterday my brother had off from working at the firehouse.  He’s been off since Friday.  We figured we’d go to the beach for the first time yesterday since we got here.  Li’l Foot was not sure what to make of it.  She loves the water, don’t get me wrong, but the sand under her feet…excuse me, the HOT as hell sand under her feet was a little bit of a turn off.  She didn’t mind it really, but she’d rather haveher water shoes on.  We went to a beach I had not been to before.  I’llhave to check on that with my brother and make sure I label \my pictures appropriately.  It was a beach out in Wailea.  My brother, my niece and nephew, LF and LFD were the ones who went to the beach.  My SIL had to work.

We were only at the beach for what seemeda very short time.  Too short if I’m being honest.  Going to the beach to me is staying a few hours.  I think we were only there for an hour or so.  LF and her cousin were hungry so when we got out of the water to have a snack my brother took a bandaid off of my nieces legand noticed it was considerably lighter under the bandaid.  He started to worry she was getting too much sun.  So we packed everything up and hightailed out of there.  Later after further inspection I realized she hadn’t gotten more sun, but that the bandaid was wet and shen a bandaid stays wet on skin it makes the skin underneath stay lighter than the rest of the skin (know what I mean?).  I was bummed we had to leave so soon, but I guess it’s a good thing we did because for some reason the lotion I had on my back that LFD applied did SQUAT, and I got a little burned. 

After the beach we went to a store where I bought various things, including some board shorts for LF.  I can’t wait for her to wear them. I figure if I can’t find a pair of board shorts that fit me, thenI’ll just deck my kid out in them.  Oh, I tried looking for a pair today in the Crazy Shirts store.  They had one cute pair.  The sales guy at the store walked over and asked me what size I’m looking for? WHA?  I couldn’t believe he actually approached me and said that.  Even when I walked away from him and said I was fine and didn’t need his help, LFD walked over to me and said that guy had no manners, you never ask a woman her size!!!  Ya think? Sheesh!!!

We wound up at Costco to get some things for dinner, etc.  Yesterday was my niece’s birthday, so we had a nice salmon dinner.  And hold onto your hat folks..My HUSBAND had salmon..AND. LIKED. IT.  I willbe taking this salmon recipe home and cooking it once a week so that we can add fish to our repertoire of fish he’ll eat.  It will be added to the list which includes…ummmm…canned tuna fish…and…ummmm…canned tuna fish!!!  Oh and shellfish, but that totally doesn’t count!!!  LF and my niece conked out in the back seat of the truck while I stayed with them and LFD and my brother went inside and shopped.  Dinner was fabulous.  The butterfly cake my SIL baked was adorable.

Anyway, today…Today the Li’l Foot family were on our own.  We were so excited to have a day to spend together.  My brother went to work at the firehouse today and my SIL worked and the kids were with her of course.  We were up and out early.  I don’t remember exactly what time we left the house this morning, but we drove over to the “other side” to breakfast and putter around over there for a few hours.  We started off going to breakfast at The Gazebo Restaurant in Napili.  It’s a favorite of ours.  It’ not overly expensive although it is more expensive in the last few yearsthan from 1998 when we first went there.  The restaurant is literally a giant gazebo, complete with open sides.  There’s maybe 15 tables total, and they are only open fromabout 7 a.m. or so until 2 p.m.  I had a popeye omelette which is stardard for me when I go there.  LF had some macadamia pancakes which we shared with her and LFD had a fried rice platter. (It still baffles me how someone can eat rice for breakfast, it’s just not something I would think to do.)  There was a line to get seated, but it’s always well worth the wait.  While we waited I took LF down to the shoreline and we stuck our toes in the sand and water.  I got some really cute pictures (remind me to show them to you  !!  When we came back up fromthe shore hubbie was 2nd in line waiting.  We were seated at the BEST TABLE in the place.  Some areas of the restaurant have some leuvered windows, the table we sat at, did not have those leuvered windows, jut wide open scenic views of the channel and Molokai and the passing boats.  It was awesome!!!  The birds that stalk people for dropped crumbs kept LF entertained and LF kept the other customers entertained.  It’s truly a vicious circle of entertainment.  LF kept saying “birdie?” and the other customers kept saying how cute she was and they ooohed and aaahed.  I took LF to the bathroom (she told me she had to go…progress people…progress) where she pooped on the potty.  Well right outside the door was a table of 4 older people, tow men, two women.  They sung happy birthday to Tom at their table and while they did that, I was being seranaded by LF as she then sung Happy Birthdday to Tom too.  She’s just too much.

After breakfast, we went to Honolua Bay to go to the beach.  I had only ever been on snorkel trips up there via boat trip.  Getting there on foot is fine, but the beach, I never realized, isn’t really a “pretty” sandy beach but the view is really nice and we were able to use our mask to see the fishies under the water.  LF like this beach way better then yesterday. I think yesterday she was also a little overwhlemed by the waves too.  In Honolua Bay there aren’t any big waves at all.  It’s super calm.

We visited my brother at his firehouse on the way back down the coast.  LF had fallen asleep in the car, so she wasn’t really in the mood for sitting in the big fire engine for photo ops, but I got what I could.  Most importantly I got a picture of my big brother in front of the engine which I’m excited to frame.

We headed down to Kaanapali Beach where we roamed around Whaler’s Village shopping center.  And then headed to the Cannery Mall for more shopping but mostly for some lunch.  We had wanted to go to this new Fondue restaurant called The Melting Pot, but found out it’s only opened for dinner.  Oh well, next time.

We headed back towards my brother’s house, making one more pit stop at WalMart to buy an iPod charger because we couldn’t find ours at home before we left.  And hubbie wanted to buy a pair of goggles for LF to try in the water.  I still think she won’t get the point of them and she’ll wind up drinking more water than seeing anything, but he insisted on trying, so whatever…pick my battles, right mom?

Tomorrow we have a relatively relaxing day…or so I think.  We have to get back to the the “other side” to the Maui Jim store to fix my sunglasses, which we didn’t have enough time to do today.  I hope you’re all well, and I miss you (you know who you are!!!)!!!

We arrived there on Friday night. We settled in and had lunch on Friday afternoon after going up the winding and bumpy roads to get there.  The paperwork for the place specifies an SUV type vehicle is a must. That’s just how the road is.  It’s super bumpy and windy and muddy with HUGE pot holes.  On that way up we saw a ton of cows.  We also passed the lavender farm.  The smells up in the forest are amazing.  The view from the cabin was breathtaking.  We were so high up on the side of the volcano mountainside we were at most times, above the clouds.  And if wew weren’t above the clouds there was mist rolling through the trees.  It really would just roll through, one second it was sunny, the next the mist was making a really cool effect among the giant trees.

Friday after lunch we went for a hike.  It was 2 miles…one mile out and one mile back. This happened to be the same hike that LFD proposed to me on.  It was such a trip down memory lane.  We got to the end and took a picture at the lookout where he popped the question to me.  We also climbed down and took pictures int he cave below where he proposed to me.  I can’t wait to show youthe pictures of all that.  It was cool though.  This time it wasn’t just “us” in the picture, we had a little one there too and she was the best addition to that picture!!!  Who’d have thought after 7 & 1/2 years we’d go back to that same spot and have our little girl to take a picture with us.

For dinner on Friday night we had tallerini, a family recipe.  No family gathering would be complete without having tallerini for dinner.

Saturday morning we woke up and made pancakes.  Then headed out for another hike.  This time we took on the Loop.  It is a 5 mile hike.  Mind you we did these hikes with a two year old, a four year old and LF.  Three children 4 and younger.  The backpacks were our best friends for purposes of the toddlers and my nephew held up so well hiking the whole time.  He was a trooperand insisted on hiking himself.  The hikes always amaze me.  There’s always something new to discover.  We smelled the eucalyptus trees and that was AMAZING.  At one point I was walking by myself.  Lfd had gone ahead with LF asleep in the backpack and my brother and his family were about 50 yards behind me.  I heard a rustling inthe woods and looked off the beaten path to see three little wild boars running through the woods up the hill towards where my brither was.  So i yelled to them that they were coming.  They thought I was kidding until they saw them with their own two eyes.  It was really cool.

We made it through the loop and back to the place where hubbie propsed to to me again, because that part of the trail is part of the Loop hike we did.  We hiked for about 5 hours or so.  Themoment we arrived back at the cabin it started to drizzle lightly.  We had some lunch back at the cabin.  The afternoon wore on and we relaxed for the most part. 

For dinner we had some burritos.  There was no power at the cabin so we ate early and we had the wood burning stove to keep us warm-ish.  There was running water and hot water and a full bathroom with a shower.  Last night after the kids had gone to bed we made smores and drank some eh…hem…beverages…and palyed cards.  And shocker…we got hubbie to play cards.  He doesn’t play ANYTHING…well, except he’ll play Cranium, but that’s it.  My brother taught us how to play Trumps.  It was a really good time with lots of laughs.  Remind me to tell you about the time last night when ever anyone went to the bathroom we all brought our flashlights in and helped light the room for each other…family are such good people, aren’t they!!!   Good time…good, good times!!!  Heehee!!!

Today after coming down the mountain we’ve been relaxing.  Watching the Yankee game.  And now it’s time to go to San Sei’s. The bestest sushi restaurant ever!!!