Hawaii 2018

This year for Christmas we spent a week in Hawaii with Sean’s whole family. It was a blast.

Sean, Harper, and I left Friday morning the 21st and embarked on an 18 hour trip. Yes we left at 9am (4am Hawaii time) and arrived at 9pm (2am Florida time). It was a long day! Our flight from FLL to LAX was 5 1/2 hrs and then from LAX to Maui was another 5 1/2 hrs. Lucky for us Harper is a CHAMP and did really well on the flights! Needless to say, we were exhausted when we got there and our first night we all (except Harper who had slept most of the flights) slept great.

The next day we started nice and early as Harper was still on Florida time which is 7 hours ahead of Hawaii…so 4am became our wake up time! At about 6 the other kiddos were up which meant it was time for Uncle Heath, Aunt Lesley, and cousins Lily and Maddux to meet baby Harper!! And they loved her.

We then headed out for breakfast and spent the rest of the day at the pool (which was FREEZING), but the kids didn’t mind at all. We then had dinner and just hung out. Everyone was pretty tired from the trip out so a low key day was definitely called for!

The next day we got to watch a beautiful sunrise (which we got to watch everyday thanks to little Harper girl). We had a beautiful view from our patio overlooking the golf course and of course the ocean. The mornings were some of our favorite times during the trip just watching the sunrise and enjoying the nice weather and family!

Our second full day was Sunday so we headed to church with about the entire island of Maui! Seriously, so many people were there. After church we headed to a nearby craft fair to get some Hawaiian goods. It was so hot we ended up just getting some shave ice and sitting the shade. The afternoon we spent one a drive along the coast. It was beautiful!! We of course finished the day off at the pool.

Our third day in Hawaii happened to be Christmas Eve. We spent the morning hanging out at the condos and playing games because it was raining pretty good for most of the day. (Side Note: we later found out if we drove about 10 minutes south it was always sunny and beautiful. Apparently on Maui there is like an invisible line where north of the line (where we were staying) it rains a lot of the time, but just south it stays beautifully sunny majority of the time.) Anyway, it was fun to relax and play games…we even played my favorite game, Phase 10 (which no one EVER wants to play). It was good to let Harper just chill and hangout for the morning, try to get her caught up to the 7 hour time change for us from Florida.

That night we headed to a luau at a nearby resort. THIS WAS SO COOL!! First off the food…so good! And the dancing and drum work and fire twirling were really cool the watch. They had a portion too where kids could go up on stage and learn the hula so Maddux and I headed up there. Madman had fun but I had this drunk guy next to me basically grinding on me…that was not so much fun, haha! Anyway, this was definitely a highlight of the trip for me!

Christmas morning was a bit different than normal ones since we had all already celebrated before we left. But Nana, Pops, and Granna had some cute little gifts for Harper girl (she’s so lucky!!). We started the day with a beautiful morning walk, hard not to have a great view everywhere we went. Later that morning we headed down to this beautiful beach (10 minutes south in the sun 😉 and spent the morning swimming, snorkeling, and playing in the sand. Sean and I bought these new full-face snorkeling masks which were pretty awesome!! We even saw a couple sea turtles while we were out snorkeling, that was pretty cool! I may hate fish, but seeing those turtles was really a cool experience.

Harper’s favorite swim spot

The next day was again spent at the beach. We were a little better prepared for the beach with a 3-month-old and I have to say it was much more enjoyable for me and Sean. I even got to tan a little bit that morning. This beach is one of the top-rated beaches in Maui and it didn’t disappoint. We rented some boogey boards and spent the morning riding the waves (in between feedings), playing in the sand and body surfing. Lesley, Chris and I even ventured over to this rock peninsula (not sure what it’s called) to check out the waves crashing up against shore. It was crazy to see the power of the waves as they rolled in and was not a place you’d ever want to fall in! Harper, Sean, and I again headed back before everyone else to give Harper a rest from all the rays (which was okay since we live 8 miles from the beach in Florida).

Sean was super nice and let me go on a whale watching adventure with Ty, Mattie, Lesley, Maddux, Nana, Pops, and Granna while he stayed back with Harper. We headed out before the sun was up and got on the water just as the sun came up over the island. I love this time of day and being out on the water that early was so beautiful! And the whales!! It was so exciting when you saw them and actually a lot of fun searching the horizon for any sign of them. We got to see one breach which was SO COOL!!

When we got back from whale watching Sean and I switched off and he headed out with his brothers and Chris to go snorkeling at an area we were told was great for snorkeling. While they headed there the rest of us headed to the pool for a swim. The boys joined us a little later and we spent the afternoon splashing away!

We stayed in for dinner and enjoyed playing on the golf course just out back, hanging on the patio, and playing more games!

The next day was again spent at the beach and checking out the surrounding area! Just across the road from our condo was the golf course where they held the Players Championship the following week, so we went and checked it out. That night we headed into “old town” for delicious burgers and to walk around the shops down there.

The second to last day of the trip we headed to the other side of the island to hike up to all the waterfalls. Unfortunately when we got there we found out we could only hike to the first one because the trail had been washed out by all the rain from the days before! Bummer. But we stopped by this little food shack on the way back and got some DELICIOUS food, probably one of my favorite things I ate over there. One the way back we also stopped by a famous surf spot that also had some gigantic turles just chilling on the sand. There were like 40 of these turtles just chillin on the beach and they were MASSIVE! Super cool to see them so up close.

Our last morning Sean, Ty, Mattie, Chris and I headed out for a walk, which ended up being a lot longer and harder than we anticipated (my bad). But we got to see a lot of the surrounding area J. We then went for the dip in the pool one last time took some last family photos and Sean and Harper and I headed to the airport.