Maui 2009

Aaaahhh vacation! My family went on a week long vacation to Maui last week. It was splendid. My grandma decided that she wanted to do a nice family vacation one last time since she is getting old....she's 89! So our vacation started out on Sunday May 3 at the Salt Lake Airport. My family met up at the gate to start the fun. 

As you can tell in all these photos, we LOVE the sunsets! They are incredibly beautiful and so different every night. So I am sorry if I bore you with the sunsets. The first day we dropped our stuff off at the house and hit the beach. We went to Big Beach first where Steve and my brother Brett did some boogie boarding. Jana and I attempted to do it but our swimsuits were not suitable for it. We were going to make Big Beach a nude beach. Of course the first day I forgot to put sunscreen on my face so I got burnt! 

We did a snorkel cruise to Molokini Crater and Turtle Town with the entire family. My poor grandma got seasick on the way out to Molokini. She got better when she finally listened to me and one of the boat crew on drinking some water with ginger in it. Although she did not get in the water, she eventually enjoyed a little bit of the cruise. As soon as Jana and I got in the water to start the snorkeling adventure, we stuck our faces in the water and there right below us was a SHARK!!! It was so EXCITING! Everyone but poor Steve saw the shark. It was a white reef shark, I believe.  At Turtle Town, I only saw one turtle. On the cruise back to the marina, we enjoyed lots of beer and Mai-Tai's! 

On Friday, Jan, Jana, Steve and I did the drive to Hana. It's an amazing drive to the town of Hana. Incredible how fast the locals drive this 2 lane road. It is full of blind turns, one-way bridges and narrow roads. I drove due to the fact that I get carsick on that type of drive and it worked...no sickness! It was very beautiful but long. It's about 55 miles from the airport but it takes you about 3-4 hours to drive it because there are so many places to stop and the craziness of the road in general. Check out the tree in the picture below. It has red, green and brown type of bark. It was so beautiful but I don't know what kind it was. 

Once again, we visited the beach where we were married, Secret Cove. My grandma wanted to see it, unfortunately it's not a beach to swim on. But we enjoyed the beautiful ocean and lava rock. There were lots of urchins on the rocks. 

Yet another reason I want to live in Hawaii....the FLOWERS! They are so incredibly beautiful and vibrant in color. Everywhere you go there is bright pink flowers, and yellow hibiscus line the streets as though they were rose bushes. These flowers were in the yard of the place we stayed. I love plumeria and the various colors they come in.

This was our last day on the island so we had to get a real GROUP picture. After we cleared out of the house, we split up into two groups. The young ones- Steve, Brett, Jana and me. The old ones- Mom, Dad, Jan, Meryl, and Grandma. We did lots of shopping in the little outdoor shopping areas. Then around 1:30 we headed over to Hot Rod Ink for some artwork on our bodies. My cousin Jana had a Bird of Paradise tattooed on her inner left arm. And I had plumeria and turtles on my foot. It hurt like hell! But it is so cute.

The rest of these are put together from multiple peoples cameras. Enjoy!

And last but not least, I have really been researching the Travel Nurse companies. I really would like to do an assignment over there and find out if I could live there. It is such a hard decision because Steve wouldn't be able to come with me since he doesn't have that much vacation time built up. But most assignments are 13 weeks long and you can extend them if they need you to. I think that would give me an idea of whether I would like it or not. I will have to really decide if I can be away from friends and family for 13 weeks or not. I love Maui!