Holidays

Halloween

Halloween in Maui is a pretty big deal. Everyone goes to great measures to come up with super creative and original costumes. I felt the pressure. Usually I grab some dance wear and frizz my hair claiming I'm from the 80's. 

Every year.

Kinda lame.

So I actually went out and bought things for my costume this year. I had 2 costumes. The night before Halloween my work put on a costume contest and all of the employees were required to dress up. I went out and bought a shiny matching top and skirt from the thrift store and borrowed about 20 pieces of jewlery from my girlfriend who has an endless supply of accessories. Ergo:

I was a belly dancer. Centered around my coin skirt I brought from the mainland. I cut the top (as you can tell it is very uneven) but you can't tell at first glance I hope, and used the bulk of the shirt as my headband. For the picture on the right, a lady asked me if I would take a picture with her husband, haha. She came back recently with them all printed up so that's how I have this photo.

It was fun to see so many people come in dressed up, but ultimately it was really bad for the servers. We had a keiki contest (kids) from 4-6pm and then the adult contest starting at 6:30pm. So once the contest began, those people sitting at my tables wanted to stay to watch the presentation of all the costumes because the tables were front row to all the action and everyone else stood behind the tables (in the waiter's way). So I couldn't get new tables sat for 2-3 hours. One table was there for 4 hours (but at least they kept ordering more drinks to keep my sales moving).

For the Keiki contest, the first and second place went to employee's kids, probably because a portion of their scores were judged on crowd's applause. But Seanna's baby got first , he was a little hobo :)

The Keiki contest prizes were gift certificates to Walmart. The adult contest prizes were awesome! third place (which went to my friends who were survivors from the show Survivor) was a one night stay at the Sheraton, The second place went to some zombies I believe, which were two tickets to go para sailing off Ka'anapali Beach. And the first place prize were 2 seats on a door-less helicopter tour of the neighboring island Molokai which went to a leprechaun and his pot of gold!

 Lahaina Street is the place to be on Halloween in Maui. This year was the first time in years that they marked off traffic and opened Front Street for Halloween. Front Street is where the bars and nightlife are on the West side of Maui.There are a bunch of house parties at the end of the street and long long lines to get into the bars on front street. People just line the sides of the street with their cameras to snap photos of crazy/cool costumes. 

For the actaul Halloween night, Jon and I were actually off work together! I've always loved seeing couples costumes on Halloween so Jon and I decided to be original and be....

Lucy and Ricky Riccardo!

Ursula from Little Mermaid and a gold digger!

 The most original costume I'd seen! A circus strongman!

The picture didn't do it justice, he had high wasted black shorts with high laced-up shoes also!

Early Holidays

We went home to Sacramento last week to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas early because it is too busy on the island to ask for time off, and really expensive to fly in and out of Maui during the holidays. We flew a red eye out Wednesday night. It was the worst flight ever. we got about 15 minutes of sleep over the 5.5 hour flight. So once we got in town, we passed out at Jon's parents house for a couple hours.

::Sacramento::
What we missed and didn't miss...

                   Missed                                       Didn’t Miss 

Family                                                                The higher populated city

The endless options to eat out at                                        Traffic

Beautiful autumn trees                                          Ugly beat down streets

Comfort of a fire and hot shower                                     The cold

Our first kittens we raised                      Being woken up at night by them

In-n-Out                                                              The long line at In-n-Out

Victoria’s Secret                                       Traffic at the mall on a sale day

 Boots                                              Squeezing into skinny jeans every day

We had a great time catching up with family and friends. One night we had a Thanksgiving dinner with Christmas and birthday presents at my parent's house. And the next night we had thanksgiving dinner at Jon's parent's house. We were there for 4 full days plus the days of travel and Jon golfed a total of 3 days! He got his fix. So here is a photo journey of our time in Sac:

Sienna's Birthday

My present to Chloe

Trying out the dress I got her and sister

Hawaiian brand nuts

Playing a few minute to win it games

Sienna wanted to join in :)

After our sisters and mama girls night. Missing Christie and mom in the pic tho!

"Sister sister!! Never know how much I missed ya..." A line from the show Sister Sister we watched growing up

My kitties didn't recognize me when I visited back in March. But this time I spent more time with them, and as shown in this picture, Fergie remembered me through my scent. She and Kona love climbing and kneading in my hair

Magic Carpet ride uncle Jonny!!

:)

Jon getting a cozy search at the airport

So that was our trip home. And as a plus, Jonny brought his bike home with him!!! His treasured hobby was put on hold once we moved to Maui because there were some major charges to ship his bike. But we found out its actually much cheaper to get it broken down and take in on the plane ride home with us as his check in baggage. Only $50! Fed Ex was charging $300!!
 We just got home from picking it up from the bike shop who put it back together. I snapped a shot of my baby riding it home :)

That's the low down on our lives as of late! Thanksgiving and on is considered our busy season again. There's a little break in early December but Christmas and New Years get pretty crazy! Then busy until after Easter just about. We are looking fore ward to the extra income for these next couple of months!

If you scroll down, the next few blog entries are videos from Kauai. I can't upload too many videos in one blog so they are all spread out. Take a look!

Maui No Ka Oi

Sea Caves along the Na Pali in Kauai

Exploring into the sea caves along the Na Pali

Our guide on the Zodiac mentions in the video that this cave is called the "Oh WOW" cave, due to what every one proclaims once they enter it. Of course the video doesn't do it justice, it's a huge sea cave with an open top.

Zodiac views of Na Pali in Kauai!

Views of Na Pali from the Zodiac

Dolphins in Kauai

Dolphins! Dolphins!

It's best to expand this video into full screen to see the dolphin's fins. There are about 5 or 6 dolphins. Press the arrows in the bottom right corner to make the video bigger.

A school of dolphins further out

And to show HOW close they were to us!!

Close school of dolphins that I tried to catch a shot of underwater. You can see their tail for like a second

Real shot I took underwater!

Spouting Horn on Kauai

Spouting Horn

The blowhole on Kauai

Kauai Golfing Video

This was at the Kukui'ula Golf Course where we got our bargain $8 for 100 balls and 2 clubs at the driving range

Proof that my man can hit a ball :)



Oh my! Oh my! Kauai!

And now for a little taste of the Islands

Our lunch after a 3 mile walk. Ak-mak and Tahini Hummus

Boardwalk at Ironwoods along the Kapalua Coastal Trail

  

My table gave me this gorgeous flower for my hair, they gave me a hair pin and explained in depth how to put it in. And what is even sweeter, they were grown men. Hehe 

My first shot at surfing since I moved here. The old wives tale of "wait 2 hours before swimming after you eat" fell true. My girlfriend Ryan and I ate a huge greasy breakfast and went surfing. The waves we huge, and I was paddling most of the time to no avail because I'm not very good at it yet. I got nauseous from the waves and laying on my stomach for so long! Haha, next round we decided to get breakfast afterwards

Jonny running the Xterra. The world championship triathalon is held in Maui. They also offered a 5k sponsored by my employer Hula Grill, in which Jon ran. Lance Armstrong did the triathalon

This is his "Shoots, that was a hard race" finish line pose.
The 5k went up hill with an extreme incline, with branches to dodge and trees to jump over.

I thought I'd throw in a picture of a drugged up kitty after getting fixed.



So.. it was my birthday on October 23. My girlfriend Cassidy (Moments of Bliss photographer) brought me a handmade plumeria lei from the flowers in her yard. And a few presents. There is so much Aloha in this state. I worked a double on my birthday though. But it's okay....

BECAUSE...

We went to KAUAI to celebrate 2 days later :) :)



Stoked for Kauai



We flew out on Wednesday morning and flew back Friday night. And somehow we squished A LOT into our trip! Up at 5am to drive to the other side of the island to the airport on Wednesday, we were pumped (i.e. photo on the left). It was nice to have a short flight, being used to the 5-6 hour flight to the mainland. Once we arrived we headed to one of my T.S. restaurant family, Duke's Beach House by the airport in Lihue. Unfortunately they didn't open for another hour. So, we figure we'd drive to the other T.S. restaurant Keoki's Paradise in Koloa. Unfortunately they opened 30 minutes even later than Duke's! Haha. Starved, we meandered through the nearby mall. There I chatted with an activity director and booked an excursion for the next day, but we'll get to that... Keoki's was okay, but we were starved so it worked for us.

Then we drove on down to Poipu, nicknamed "Sunny Poipu," to explore



The Tree Tunnel down to Koloa



Spouting Horn down South

Standard view while driving on Kauai, the whole time.

There were many craft fairs around the island.
 It's mostly all the same stuff, and the same stuff I can get on Maui so we didn't buy anything



We explored the EXTREMELY nice Hyatt and walked along Shipwreck Beach. This is the cliff from the movie Six Days Seven Nights that Harrison Ford and Anne Heche jumped off of to escape the pirates.

 My friend let me borrow his Kauai Revealed book, which is a great guide book written for each of the islands. We read about a super cheap golf course not far from where we were. So we headed to Kukui'ola Golf Course and rented 2 golf clubs and 100 balls for $8 and played around on the driving range. We shot toward the ocean!! It was REALLY far away, but nothing blocked our view of the ocean so we imagined trying to hit towards it. Ya, Jon was much better than I at that goal. ::husband bragging alert:: he hit it PAST the driving range! I've hit a few balls at the ugly Sacramento driving range, but I still had no idea what I was doing. But I improved through our time there.



Barfeoot and shirtless at the driving range. Only in Hawaii



Award-winning swing right there...

Messin' around...

PALM TREE FORREST!!!



So my wonderful auntie does PR for Hanalei Colony Resort and got a sweet discount/or comp for a room (not sure what went down exactly). BUT what I do know, is that she bought us the Premium Ocean Suite for our 3 day stay!!! It is breath-taking in Hanalei. Every person I'd talk to was stoked for our stay in Hanalei becuase it is the most beautiful place on the island and to some, all of Hawaii! Technically Hanalei Colony Resort was actually right outside of Hanalei, in Haena but still had the gorgeous views. This picture to the right was THE picture that broke the camera... Out of excitement for the the gorgeous room, we attempted an excited jumping picture, setting the camera up on the bar propped by a towel. And after landing, the thud of our jump caused the camera to fall foreward, to the ground, landing on the lense :( Bye bye nice camera we were going to use to document this goregous island.. :/

NO worries, we had our HD video camera that also takes pictures and my cell phone camera to get us by the rest of the trip!

We made pasta that night, played scrabble, and drank a
delicious rare bottle of  Voga Sparkling Pinot Grigio we found at the Koloa Wine Shop.

The next day was a very early morning as well. We were staying at the top of the island in Haena and had to be down in Port Allen past Poipu at 7am. So we were up at 4:45am! We drove down in the dark and took a 10 minute nap before having to check in.

Check in to what you say?

oh, just the most amazing excursion I have been on in my life!!!

We took a Zodiac tour to the Na Pali coast, the most beautiful part of Kauai. These cliffs are where countless Hollywood movies and shows were filmed.



On the Zodiac

School of dolphins 2 feet away from me!

So I stuck my camera underwater and snapped a few shots in hopes of getting a good shot. I kinda did...

yes, I took this picture

We jumped out to cool off



Gorgeous views of the Na Pali



The "oh WOW" Cave, nicknamed by what people exclaim every time the zodiac zooms in. It is Completely open on top but a small opening from the front

This was a closed in dark cave we took the zodiac into as far back as the darkness went! Apperently during the summer the cave dead ends into a white sandy beach, but during the winter it is a dark wet mess. haha

Opening that Harrison Ford and Anne Heche run through in Six Days Seven Nights. Further back is where the "Foutain of Youth" was filmed in the Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Then we went snorkeling in a beautiful untouched beach spot so there were so many fish  of all sizes and colors with endless reef to explore!

 



We saw some sea turtles along the tour as well! But I figured I couldn't beat the other photos I have of turtles with us underwater with them (a few blogs ago). The tour guide would stop every few cliffs and point out waterfalls, movie scenes, ancient history, check out caves, etc. Jon and I both get motion sick and just kind of hoped for the best before getting on the zodiac. When we were going fast, we were totally fine. It was only when the captain would stop to point things out that we'd start feeling sick. Jon almost threw up. It didn't help that we hadn't eaten much at all. He was on the verge when I mentioned it to the captain and the whole zodiac tour banded together to get Jon some help. Pills, sea bands, water, ginger. The ginger is what settled his stomach. It was pretty amazing going from dry heaving to being okay.The captain helped out by positioning Jon's seat undereath one of the waterfalls streaming down from a sea cave we had just exited.  Eventually we landed at Nualolo Kai Beach where the first Hawaiians had landed 800 years ago. We saw their living quarters and heard stories of their lives and bliss. Then went snorkling after they provided lunch. On the way back we were riding against the waves instead of with. I would describe it as how one would go on a tube at the back of a boat and ride the waves, getting air, that's how it was for us. It was like a rollercoaster, I loved it! But it definitely took it out of us. My butt hurt from bopping up and down in my seat, my hands were sore from clinging onto the handles for dear life, my whole body was sore trying to position my body correctly and the shock of hitting so many bumps in uncomfortable positions. On the way back I thought about our experience and realized that it was the coolest thing I have ever done. Then God threw this in there:



A halo around the sun. So cool. It just validated what an awesome adventure we had just had 



 Needless to say after a 6 1/2 hour excursion (in which we were up at 4:45am for) we were tiiiiiired. BUT we figured while we were down South we should stop by the beautiful Waimea Canyon. There are many many trails that go into the Canyon or from the canyon down to the Na Pali. But we were too tired to go on a hike. We'll have to do it next time... The Waimea Canyon was gorgeous. Like a green Grand Canyon. We took our binoculars and spotted a few billy goats! Crazy how they can climb the steep cliffs.



I fell asleep along the way back to our resort (1.5-2 hours away)

That night we soaked in the resort's hot tub. It was our first time in a hot tub in years! Odd that the first time was in Hawaii... But Haena is up North so it is cooler at night. Our bodies were already feeling the Zodiac tour stress. Hitting waves on the way back from the tour was almost like our whole body repeatedly got a small form of whiplash! The hot tub was a great end to a great day :)

The next day we got to sleep in and experience our beautiful premium ocean suite in all it's sunny beautiful day-time glory! We grabbed some of the free breakfast provided that day and packed up the place. Seemed like a fast trip huh! Yup, we packed it up and checked out.  No worries, there were a few adventures left. We followed the end of the road as far North as it goes, and ended at the Kalalau Trail. The first 2 miles ends at a great beach, and the next 2 miles takes you to a waterfall. Can't go much further than that without a permit to hike because of how rigorous the trail becomes.

Us in front of our beautiful view

That's a lot of lost lives...

Stray kitties are abundant in Maui. These kitties were 2 miles into a hard hike... what do they eat?! Where do they sleep? How did they get there?! Do they have predators?! So many questions run through my head!

Most would assume that the "ancient Hawaiians" did this. Nope. All done by tourists trying to embody the spirituality of the Hawaiians. But when you realise it was all tourists, the picture is kind of lame

My favorite verse



Our destination



The falls used in Jurassic Park's shot of the their helicopter landing in Jurassic Park for the first time. It was overwhelmingly high. I could barely get all of it in two seperate pictures!

A herd of goats passed the trail during our hike back (include baby goats :) :)

 The Kalalau Trail to the Kalalau Falls was 8 miles all together. It was a rigorous trail, slippery and wet with jagged rocks and sticks everywhere and had to cross the rushing river a bunch of times. Not to mention the ants!! On the dry cliff side, there were ants on every inch of the ground. If I stopped to take a photo, I'd have ants crawling up my shoes and ankles! Ahhhh now that's gross and creepy because there are so many, and much bigger than what I am used to. Most do the trail in 7 hours or more. We are speed hikers though, and did it in 5 hours. We basically run the whole time. Hopping from rock to rock. It was not without some spills, mostly on my part... even though I am more cautious than Jon :-/ And we needed to hurry to have more time to check out Hanalei before heading to the airport that evening.

Sweet stepping stones

 We explored the cute hippie-styled Hanalei town but didn't stay for too long so we could get dinner at Duke's in Lihue before we flew out. Twas a no brainer for dinner, 50% off dinner by the airport, or chance the traffic and eat for full price at a spot in Hanalei...

Regretably we headed home that evening, ready to work the next morning. I'd sum up Kauai as the best vacation I have ever been on :)

Maui No Ka Oi