On Labor Day we woke up at 3:30 (in the morning!) to get the girls ready to catch a 6 AM flight from Yakima to Seattle. Avery was so excited to ride in an airplane. We met up with Fred's parents in Seattle and we were off to Maui! The girls did fantastic on the flight, with the exception of a little crying the last 20 minutes or so. I think that's pretty good for a 5.5-6 hour flight! I can only imagine that their ears hurt, although Avery also said she felt like throwing up. We had the little baggie ready for her but she never did. Poor thing. She also had plenty of toys, coloring books, food, and her dvd player which kept her very busy.
Fred and Ceil got a 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo in Kihei for all 8 of us (our family, Fred and Ceil, and Nik and Lilian). It worked out perfectly. We had a full kitchen and hit Costco once we got there. We went out to dinner each evening but made breakfast and lunch in our room mostly. It would have been a nightmare taking the kids out to eat at every meal. We did have a special birthday party for Fred's dad to celebrate his 70th! We BBQ'd steaks at the condo and had a great time.
Nik and Lilian rented surf boards and did a lot of surfing. Fred got to join them a couple of times and he had a blast. I mostly enjoyed the pool or the beach with the girls, Ceil and Fred. We got to do some shopping at the Grand Wailea Mall (which was amazing!) and we also went into the cute little town of Lahaina and shopped as well. On Thursday, Lilian treated me to a spa morning for my birthday at the Grand Wailea resort. It was amazing and by far the best (and largest) spa I have ever seen!
On Friday we took the girls to the aquarium. It was a really neat one, and Avery loved seeing all fish and even the sharks. She kept yelling out "Look at the big yellow fish!" or my favorite "Look at the big big shark! It won't get me!" Friday eveing Laura and Rob each had a "girls night out" and "boys night out". Ceil watched the girls for us so that I could go with Lilian to celebrate with Laura and Freddie could go with Nik and Fred to celebrate with Rob. We went to the Marriott's Mala bar/restaurant. The guys went to Tommy Bahama's.
Saturday was Laura (Fred's sister) and Rob's wedding. We met them at the Grand Wailea and had family pictures taken near a beautiful waterfall. The wedding and reception were both at Gannon's Restaurant. Their wedding was in a grassy area that overlooked the ocean, a beautiful golf course, and tons of lush tropical flowers and trees. A funny little tidbit about the Grand Wailea and Gannon's is that both of these places were filming locations in the movie "Just Go With It" with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.
We flew home on 9/11. And while I felt like I had an anxiety attack the day before we left, I did feel safe traveling that day. The reason I don't ever want to fly again on any 9/11 day is that it took FOREVER to get through security and with two little ones, it was a rough start to our trip home. There were TSA agents and policeman everywhere. That was both a little reasurring and a little scary. Once we got past security and we were at our gate, they were grabbing random people and doing hand residue checks. Fred was one of the lucky ones. They just swiped a white piece of special paper over his hands and then put it through their machine. I've flown many times and I've never seen that one before!
All and all, it was a great trip! The kids did great with the time change. I think it was Fred and I who had such a rough time re-adjusting to Pacific Standard time! But we all had a really fun family vacation!
Here are just a few pictures (in random order) from our trip -
