HAWAII - the greatest place ever

 We made it here, and it only took 14 years!  If anyone were to ever ask me or Taylor our favorite place to vacation we would both say, "Hawaii."  However, for some reason (time, money, kids) we have not ever made it here together. 

 Well, for Christmas Taylor book us trips and we thought it would be a great baby moon before life gets super crazy with 6 kiddos.  I'm so glad we did.  It really is the greatest place ever!!

 We spent a lot of the time on the beach just relaxing.  I loved to watch Taylor battle the waves, and was completely content to walk the shore line or bask in the sun while he got his energy out.

 The first night there we hit the luau at our resort.  A great way to kick off the vacation.

 It's kind of like a mini PCC experience, they do demonstrations of breaking open a coconut, show you hawaiian games, and the fun part is eating yummy hawaiian food.

 We ate this pig and it was SUPER yummy.

 The sunsets are just so amazing over the ocean... so we have a lot of pictures.  Beware.

 The fire dancers were my favorite part of the Luau.  It was pretty amazing what they can do.

 The next day we woke up before dawn to start our trek on the road to Hana.  This was a perfect day of weather, waterfalls, hikes and scenery..  I loved hiking and watching how many waterfalls Taylor would jump into...

 There he goes for the first dip of the day...

The next stop was quite the hike, we never really found the waterfall that was on the map, but we hiked through some cool sugar cane and met a couple new friends.

 This was a cool stop we made off the side of the road.  We saw some local kids jumping off a bridge and so Taylor joined in.  After we were done we saw the signs that said no swimming.  oops.  That's what we get for copying locals I guess.

 It's so hard to capture the beauty by photograph (especially me as the photographer and my phone as the tool) but everywhere you look is pure serenity.

 Before the dip above and Taylor getting out to the waterfall below.

 Behold the master of water holes.  This is his happy place for sure!

 A couple hiking pictures and another waterfall with my Cute Hubby swimming into it!

 Another cool stop on the road to hana was the black sand beach.  Pretty amazing that it really is pure black.  Some good waves here too.

The last hike was 5 miles round trip and was definitely the prettiest hike we did.  How cool is this tree that is made up of hundreds of smaller trees grown close together.

 I got some cool video of this bamboo forest, I'll have to see if I can post it.  But as we walked down the alley of bamboo it was dark and you could hear the wind causing the trees to crackle.  Pretty neat.

 We made it to the top and got a picture... unfortunately, there was no swimming allowed at this waterfall.  I told Taylor I was staying dry through all the waterfalls on the way so I could swim at the last one.  How lucky was I that there was NO SWIMMING!!  hahah.  I didn't even plan it, but I got to stay dry all day. :)

 Snorkeling and Whale watching were definitely highlights.  We were in prime whale season and we got some COOL views of whales super close to our boat.  The turtles and fish were pretty fun to swim around with too.  The only downfall was that I was about 5 degrees too cold in the water and I couldn't stop shivering!!!

At one point, the whales crossed in front of us and we could actually hear them breathing. 

 Lets not downplay how awesome our resort was.  I had my fill of pinacoladas and pool fries.  The view from the serenity pool was quite fantastic as well.

 They had these little cabanas right on the edge of the resort property and it was perfect to order Sushi and watch the sunset.

 We definitely should have invested in a selfie stick before we came, but oh well... Weird close up shots are fun to remember, right??

 Saturday night we got tickets to the Warren and Annabell Magic show.  SO FUN!! we got chosen to sit up front and we basically got ripped on the whole evening, but Taylor and I were both laughing so hard all night.  It was pretty cool magic intermixed with comedy and all CLEAN FUN HUMOR.  I would so recommend this to anyone going to Maui!

 Church was relaxing and fun.  We ran into 2 different families living in Hawaii that had some connection to one of us.  Small world, especially in the church.

 Our last day, we rented paddleboards and explored the ocean again.  Taylor did a lot of snorkleing and the turtles were very friendly to him. I just tried really hard to stay on the board so I didn't have to climb up on it again.  It was like watching a beached whale every time I fell off!!  I have to say, it was harder than I thought to keep my balance!!

 Well, back to the kiddos and real life.  It was such a perfect vacation, I'm almost ready to add another baby to the mix now. :)  Thanks to my mom and Taylor's parents who manned the homestead while we were away.  It's nice to not have to worry about our kids while we were away.  Good Bye Hawaii... we'll be back.  We'll be back!!