Maui Part 3

On Monday morning, we toured the north west side of Maui. We stopped at Honolua Bay and followed all of the people who were coming in the water from a snorkeling tour boat to find the turtles. It was our favorite snorkeling yet!

Next stop was Nakalele Blowhole:


Then the Olivine Pools


The Maui blue book author said that Julia's had the best banana bread in the world. We took a terrifying one way road on the side of a cliff to get to it but I'm wondering if the blue book guy has ever tried Mormon's baking because I have had waaaay better banana bread. lol

We got home in the afternoon and relaxed at our condo before heading out in the evening to Kimo's for dinner and to try the Hula Pie!

Afterwards, we enjoyed this gorgeous sunset in Lahaina before going to Warren and Annabell's magic show - another thing that the Maui blue book told us to do that we probably would have never chosen to do without the recommendation ;) We liked it a lot!

We enjoyed the sunrise one last time (turns out even without kids we are still morning people ;) before heading to Hana for our last two nights in Maui.

I'm going into detail about every mile marker on the road to Hana so if we ever go back, I know where each water fall is - after seeing so many, it was hard to keep them all straight! We loved the rainbow eucalyptus trees - sad that they were graffitied!

The first water falls we stopped at were the Four Falls of Na'Ili'ili-Haele at mile marker 6.6. We were the only ones there! We only hiked to the first two because we have so much more to see that day.


We got to hike through some bamboo on this hike too!

We quickly stopped at Haipua'ena Falls at mile marker 11.5 - the flowers on the walk to the falls were my favorite part!


At mile marker 13.25 we went to Punalau Falls. There weren't many people there because we had to hike on dry stream boulders the entire way. It was gorgeous! When we turned the corner and saw the falls, it took my breath away because I wasn't expecting it to be so tall!






We stopped quickly at Chings Pond at mile marker 17. It was pretty, and also pretty crowded so we moved on quickly.
We also stopped quickly at Wailua Valley State Wayside before mile marker 19 for the gorgeous mountain side and ocean views.


Another quick and beautiful stop off the side of the road between mile marker 19 and 20 - Three Bears Falls

We stopped at mile marker 21.2 to and walked the hunters road called Wailua Iki for about ten minutes to some falls and the views here were some of my favorite.




We stopped at Pua'a Ka'a State Park between mile markers 22 and 23 to see the waterfalls, but thanks to my crazy thorough research, I knew that there was a secret waterfall up above the crowded one. We hiked a little past it, I had my blue book open and my Shaka app open on my phone and as we hiked to figure out which way to go, Spencer said I looked like Dora the Explorer! haha It paid off because we had this place to ourselves!


We stopped at mile marker 23 to go through a cave right off the side of the road!

Right around mile marker 25 we stopped really quick to see Makapipi Falls - you can only see it from this vantage point!

I *think* this picture is at Hanawa falls at mile marker 24 but I can't be sure.

At this point, we were suuuuper tired but had about another hour to kill before we could check in to our VRBO. We stopped at some food trucks (I really liked the Thai food truck in Hana!) then crashed at our VRBO. Literally we got in bed at 5 pm and didn't get out of bed until the morning. We were exhausted but it was one of the funnest days of my life!!! Hana exceeded my expectations! I loved it so much and we still had another day and a half to go! I loved the view from our kitchen window!

2 1/2 Kate!

Our baby girl is two and a half!!! She is the girliest girly girl, but holds her own with her big brothers. She always asks us to play “puppies and make up” in her “roon” and changes her outfits (that are mostly princess dress ups) a millions times a day. Diet Mountain Dew is her “juice” of choice 🤦🏻‍♀️ (all thanks to Spencer 🙄😆) and she loves playing with her friends, swim lessons, dance class, riding her scooter, and hiking. We sure love this sweet and sassy girl!

Maui Part 2

On Saturday morning we took a snorkeling tour to Molokini Crater and "turtle town." We saw lots of different fish and turtles at Makena Bay :)





Turns out Spencer takes way more pictures of me under water than above water! haha



We stopped at Leoda's Kitchen and Pie Shop on the way home (another trip favorite!) - we got the key lime pie and banana cream pie and they were so good!

That evening we went to the Old Lahaina Luau - we loved it and are still dreaming about and craving the Pina Coladas!




The next morning we had a slow morning after two busy ones. Around 2 pm, we headed upcountry to Haleakala Crater. (10,000 feet above sea level) We stopped at Leoda's again for pie because it was that good. This time we tried the chocolate mac pie.

It was foggy and cloudy most of the time, but that was part of what made it so cool! We hiked up in the clouds :)

Maui Part 1

Last week we got home from our first childless vacation since having kids and had such a great time! In almost 10 years of marriage, we had only spent two separate childless nights apart together so we were sooo ready for it. Finances and later PTO and logistics kept us from getting away for far too long and I'm so glad we finally pulled it off! I flew with the kids to Utah on a Monday to drop them off at my parent's house, flew back to Arizona on a Wednesday, then flew with Spencer to Hawaii on a Thursday! (6 travel days for 6 vacation days... no wonder we don't do this very often!) These posts will have a lot of detail because I want to remember everything for when we go back again... cuz we've got to go back!!! I'm a go-go-go person on vacation and Spencer made it clear that he wanted plenty of time to do nothing and relax on the beach. Turns out kids are time suckers - we were surprised at how much we did and still had plenty of time to take naps, eat all the yummy food, and relax at the beach by our condo. Spencer even wanted to do the "optional" activities I had on our touring plan because it felt like we had so much extra time without having to take care of our cute but demanding kids! haha
First childless flight alone together since 2010!

We arrived in Maui at around 6:30 pm and were tired and starving. We stopped to eat at Da Kitchen before driving to our condo (I started out strong in the food pics department but then quickly realized that I'm a horrible food photographer ;). We ate at so many yummy recommended restaurants in Hawaii and ordered whatever Yelp told us to :) We got the fried spam musibi (a local fav we wanted to try) and kalbi ribs and loved them both!


We went to bed early (since it was 3 hours later Arizona time) all excited to sleep in since we didn't have kids with us but ended up waking up at 4:30 am the next morning ;) Our first day in Hawaii was supposed to be our grocery shopping and relax day but we were so excited to be there and not adjusted to the time change that it ended up being a marathon day! haha We went to a 24/7 Safeway to get a few groceries while it was still dark and left when it was still dark ;) When the sun finally came out, we were greeted by a cute little sea turtle swimming right outside our condo :) Then we went for a walk, stopped at the farmers market, started running and ended up running for five miles because we found the Kaanapali board walk and followed it to Black Rock! (Spencer said he got more cardio on this vacation than he has in the last few months! haha) Once we got back to our condo, we drove back to Black Rock to snorkel! The snorkeling didn't disappoint! We saw at least 5 sea turtles and two were just out in the waves swimming with the people at the beach. It was so much fun!
View from our condo :)


Morning run:

Black rock:

Sea turtles!!! (You may think this is a lot of sea turtle pictures but you have no idea how many I deleted :)








We grabbed lunch to go on the way home and ate lunch out on our patio. At this point it was ONLY 12:30!! Jet lag, man!

We relaxed, took naps and were ready after a few hours to go out to dinner. We went to Star Noodle that had one of my favorite foods to the vacation - their steamed pork buns were TO DIE FOR!!!!

They also gave us complimentary malasadas because service was slow but we didn't even notice the bad service because we weren't wrestling kids ;)

We explored and shopped in Lahaina afterwards before calling it a night after our fun first-day-in-Maui-marathon day :)