Ali'i Kula Lavender Farm

A beautiful drive up towards Haleakala National Park brought us to a really neat Lavender farm. It certainly wasn't anything exciting; just really pretty. The drive got a little steep and I actually felt a little bit light headed, but that could have been because I was trying to take pictures while driving and look at our guide book. The kids slept through it all. It smelled so fresh and was about 10-15 degrees cooler up there. If you stood close to the fields of lavender you could hear a slight buzz from all of the bees. I think on one of the pictures you can actually see them. We would have loved to do the full drive up to the summit but it was over 10,000 feet up and consisted of one lane switchback roads. Given the success of the Superferry, I didn't really want a repeat in my car! Another thing to add to the list of must sees minus kids! Are you all tired of our journal of the Maui trip yet?

Prayers For Family & Friends

We hope that all of our friends and family have found safe haven out of Gustav's path. We will continue to watch closely. Love from all of us.

Driving Around

The following pictures were taken while driving around the area where we stayed so some of them are not the best, but beautiful anyhow. Some of the gardens were pretty amazing.

The Third Wheel

At some point in our lives, haven't we all been one of these birds? I love capturing funny pictures like this.

Who Needs Sunscreen?

I think we only spent one day at the beach while we were on vacation, but that's okay with me since we live 5 minutes from the beach anyhow and typically try and go once a week. It's so much work loading the kids up with sunscreen, keeping Dayton from throwing sand at people, keeping Saige from walking straight into the water, keeping them hydrated...only to spend just as much work washing the sand and sunscreen off! And of course, who can resist a nap at the beach?

A Morning Walk

On one of our free mornings, we took a walk along the beach path. It was quite a long walk (well anything seems long pushing a stroller and a go at my own pace toddler in tow) but nice nonetheless. The neat thing about the path is that it went in front of all the resorts in that area, so it allowed guests from other resorts to pick and choose restaurants they wanted to go to. It was neat to walk along and see all the posted menus. We saw these impressive houses that were part of a resort and thought what a beautiful place to vacation...we later looked into those and found out they only rent monthly at an impressive price of 17,000$ *choke choke* First off, who can take a months vacation and secondly, who has 17,000 to spend? Well, I suppose if you can take a month of vacation, it probably means you can also afford it.

A Princess By The Pool

Saige was impossible to watch by the pool unless we stuck her in the floating crab. She has ZERO fear of the water. The wading pool was up to her chest and you had to hold her hand or else she easily lost her balance and sort of floated away. Did I mention anywhere that all the pools were saltwater? Of course all she wanted to do was shove my hand away...I suppose in a round about way, I'm trying to say we didn't get too many shots of Saige in the pool. She did however, enjoy her poolside naps each day and confiscating my sunglasses. To conclude the poolside stories..our books, magazines and daily newspapers remained unread and on the table. I couldn't quite figure out why they provided adult sized lounge chairs by the kiddie pool since there most definitely wasn't any lounging going on! Perhaps next time we can outfit them in life jackets and toss them into the pool to fend for themselves while we enjoy an evian facial spritz and poolside massage.

A Pool For Princes

So...back to vacation stories and pictures...below is a shot of the kiddie pool area at the resort. There was a wading area attached for the really little ones, a slide, kiddie toys, cabanas that closed off for wee ones napping and poolside services that offered playpens for naps! We spent a lot of time at the pool. Dayton had a couple of "friends" to play with but mostly he spent his time taking their toys and throwing them into the bigger kid pool or splashing them. Go figure. Dayton saw all the other kids wearing swimmies so he wanted some too - the ones I had bought before vacation were too big for him so Daddy & Dayton went and bought some smaller ones. He reminded me of that kid in "A Christmas Story" wearing the snowsuit. He did great with them and was for the most part, independent in the water while wearing them. He didn't particularly care for Daddy's "one tug" removal though. Of course, the nervous nellie that I am, I was right close to him anyhow. There were people that would come by and offer a spritzing of Evian water on your face if you felt a little hot...they also came by with trays of cold cloths AND freshly baked mini muffins and chunks of pineapple. Dayton caught on quickly to poolside lunch service and would ask for his own menu when the ladies came by...he was too funny...he would open it up and pretend to read and say "oh yes, I want pizbah (pizza) and nemons (lemonade) pwease." Or he would say "oh yes, I want toast pwease." It cracked me up. As you can see from the photo, had Saige been able, she also would have ordered herself a pizbah.

Around & About

I would have loved to have taken more pictures in and around the resort but it seemed like every time I tried to take a picture, by the time I was done, one of the kids was missing! They are so darn fast! As I mentioned before, the flowers were freshly cut and changed and arranged differently every single day. The funny thing was...I never saw a worker changing them so they must do it in the middle of the night. In the lobby area they had local artists selling their works and that was really neat because it was also different each day. We saw a couple of pieces that we loved, but as you can imagine they were super expensive. We also managed to get ONE family picture while we were there. I think it might be the first family picture since Saige was 2 months old.

Our Room & First Meal Out

So our room was beautiful...well until we arrived! They had the kids name spelled out in sponges in the bathroom, personalized toiletries for little ones, bath toys, they each had a stuffed whale, there were fresh baked goods on our table...ah, finally our vacation had started. Dayton LOVED having his own big bed and actually stayed in it all night - of course he wanted one of us to sleep in it with him, but that worked out okay anyway since Saige ended up sharing a bed with me! The crib was pretty, but not very functional since it only had one setting and it was too deep for me to put her down while sleeping. I had to sort of drop her in there and she would wake up and scream, so I resorted to co-sleeping for the week (which was awful because she had to sleep ON me). But anyhow, we freshened up a bit and went out to eat. Everyone was starving and we even took a couple of pictures after our expensive but delicious meal!

The Four Seasons Wailea

We stayed at the Four Seasons in Wailea (more resort pictures will follow) and it truly was a beautiful place. We were greeted with lei's as you can see from Dayton's shells. While Daddy checked in, Saige explored and Dayton of course went straight to the water fountain to do a hula dance. I think he was just happy to be done with the spit up bag. (which he still talks about today) The flower arrangements were fresh and changed everyday and the grounds were immaculate. After check in we all decided to get changed and have something to eat. To be continued...

The SuperFerry

Ah..the SuperFerry...or should I say "Super-puker-Ferry?" It was very nice - sofas, coffee tables, comfy seats, a restaurant, nice bathrooms, a play area for kids, a gift shop...more luxurious than what I expected. Or was it? Scott took dramamine. The kids couldn't take anything. I wore seabands and took some ginger chews. 30 minutes into the 4 hour ride Dayton threw up all over himself. He's never been sick before (at least not since he was wee little) so it kind of scared him. Mostly he was upset about his clothes being all "bose" (gross). I didn't really have much warning so round 2 got all over the seats. I sure hope those poor workers on the boat get paid well! I got him changed into outfit #2 and he sat on my lap throwing up into a bag the remaining 3 hours. I felt so bad for him. Saige also threw up all over Daddy...several times. I'd take baby puke over toddler puke anyday..but that is neither here nor there. Both of them would sleep for short bouts and then wake up and puke. I wasn't doing so hot myself, but held myself together because what else was I going to do? The waters were pretty rough and I watched the beautiful scenery pass by....waves, boats that looked like ants and the workers walking up and down the aisles with their red hazardous waste bags for all the pukers. Apparently the beautiful scenery was on the other side of the boat. So much for taking some nice pictures. Instead, Scott was nice enough to get a shot of me holding Dayton's barf bag. Oh, and did I mention that Scott actually threw out both of the kids outfits? You cannot imagine how incredibly happy I was to see us docking. We got into the car (smelly and all) and drove off the boat feeling 100% better. I think we had our discussion about me flying the kids home after vacation instead of taking the ferry back, before we actually drove off the boat. What a start to the vacation! To be continued...

The Day We Left For Maui

So I thought I would start to post some pictures from our family vacation to Maui - for storytelling purposes I am going to post them in order. So here we go... Our alarm went off at 4am since we needed to be at the port to board the car on the ferry 90 minutes before departure. As you know (those with little ones) it is a challenge to get out the door on time for anything especially at 4am! We decided to get everything ready and let the kids sleep until the car was ready to pull out of the garage. It took a couple of pokes and prods to get Dayton up. He kept rolling over and hiding his head under my pillow. After a few mentions of the "boat" he decided to wake up. Saige on the other hand did NOT like the pokes and prods and was intent on screaming the whole time. (Don't forget that both kids had colds) Saige eventually stopped screaming in the car. I managed to snap a happy picture of Dayton and he wanted me to snap a picture of his travelling buddy. (Dora, not Saige) I decided not to take a picture of Saige since she had finally calmed down and I didn't think she would appreciate the flash in her eyes. Scott didn't want me to take a picture of him. We had hoped the kids would fall back to sleep in the car on the way to port, but that didn't happen. If only we knew what was about to transpire. To be continued...

Happy Birthday Great Grammie!

Even though I know you won't see this, we all just wanted to wish you a wonderful Birthday Great Grammie! Wish we were closer to celebrate with you and eat some cake! We love you and miss you! YaYa and or Auntie D, could you please pass on the message?Great Grammie with Saige.
Great Grammie with Dayton.

Post Vacation Mayhem

These are NOT pictures from vacation but I thought I should post something just to let you all know that we are home, healhty, alive and getting back into routine. When I get a chance (not likely this week as our schedule is soooo busy) I will sit down and upload some vacation pictures and post some funny stories. So the pictures I've included are just of a family day at the beach last month and Dayton's new favorite place to rest/nap. I think he likes the hot cement on his body and the shade from the grill on his head. Such a strange little bug... Oh and just in case you think I actually let him nap there...I don't.