This Could Be Paradise

I think it's about time that I blogged about my adventure to Hawaii. one of the most fantastic trips ever. and somehow, I didn't fail all my classes, even if missing the whole week of school made the last half of the semester death!!!

the week began with being stuck in an airplane for forever! definitely my least favorite part. (except for we had to wake up at like 4:00 to go to the airport!) it was so great to get to Vegas and see my family and get ready for the fun adventure ahead! Finally after 6 hours on the plane we made it to Maui! the rest of the day involved getting our rental cars and groceries, but we got to watch the sunset on the beach. and we saw the first 2 whales on our trip!

Friday may have been one of my favorite days. We set aside most of the day to hang out at the beach. and we even got a fair amount of sun! and for me, that meant actually getting a little tan. but what made it awesome was the fact that I fulfilled my dream of getting to swim with dolphins. we had rented snorkel gear for the week and we headed out to find some cool fish. my sister noticed that there were dolphins swimming around. we swam out to them and there was a whole school of them. even little baby dolphins. they were so cute and it was pretty much the coolest experience ever!!! after the beach, we headed off for a long drive up to the top of this really tall mountain to go on a hike. It was super awesome up there because it looked like you could just go walk on the clouds.  However, seeing as we were going to Hawaii, none of us packed warm clothes and the mountain ended up being freezing. Although it was super pretty and we wanted to go on the hike, we were just wayyyy too cold! as you can see, we all ended up freezing and huddling together for warmth.For tradition's sake, we ended the day watching the sun set. Someone was there playing guitar and it was so relaxing to just listen to the waves and the beautiful music.

Saturday began with driving around the island to see many cool sights. that's the thing about Maui is you have to drive like 2 hours to get anywhere. and some of the roads are super windy or really thin or by a huge cliff and you think you are going to die! the first stop on the road of death was one of the coolest hikes I have ever been on. it starts out in a kind of rainforest like climate, then you are headed into bamboo forests and finally, make your way out to a beautiful waterfall! part of the hike had lots of long wooden boards like bridges and we had fun doing crazy yoga poses. too bad I don't have any pictures of this! after that, we stopped at some hidden pools to swim. however, they didn't seem that fun to swim in (the tide was really high and we probably would have just been carried out into the sharp rocks) so we just watched the waves crash in for awhile. I almost lost my flip-flops thanks to those crazy pools. then we stopped at the perfect beach. the waves were built for body surfing and boogie boarding. even though there was not any sun, I just had to get in and have some fun! we ended the night with a delicious dinner at Outback (yay gift cards!) and then we all crashed and went to bed.

Sunday we headed off to some random ward for sacrament meeting. After church, we went on a whale watching cruise and were lucky enough to see some whales... flirting I guess. they even put a microphone in the water and you could hear the whales clicking. we then headed off to where else but the beach. we headed out for some more snorkeling at the best place we found so far. There was a reef a little way off the shore and we even saw a sea turtle! one of the weirdest/coolest things is you can hear some much while out snorkeling. you can hear all the little shrimp clicking and you could even hear the whales kind of moaning and it was awesome!

us whale watching!

On Monday, we drove out to a snorkeling beach that my parents had been to on their first trip to Maui that was supposed to be really cool, but they had closed it to help protect the environment :( so we went back to our favorite snorkeling beach and were able to see 2 more sea turtles and a lot of cool fish. said beach also had some sort of reputation as a nudist beach... every day there were people who were a little scantily clad. ew. we headed home from the beach starving and hit up the mall for some beach burgers. we then wanted to go to another mall that my dad thought was super close and so we ended up like walking 2 miles up this huge hill. good thing we got to take a taxi back to our car! we ended the day with another beautiful sunset, shopping, and fish tacos. 

On Tuesday, we went to hike at Iao Valley. It was gorgeous. looking at the huge cliffs covered in fog, it really just made me think of Avatar. the hike was pretty cool. (we snuck off the path to go further and explore. don't tell.) there was also this really cool cave with lots of vines hanging over it and it looked straight out of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. so naturally I loved it. after the hike, we continued driving around the island to one of my other favorite places. there were more pools to swim in, but again the waves were huge. instead, we just sat and watched them crash against the cliffs. it was gorgeous. we went to a huge blowhole and it was so windy we almost died. but it wouldn't be a family vacation for us without a little risk. we then went back to our hotel to relax and get dolled up for the LUAU! the luau was delicious and the best part was the open bar! even though I was 21, I stuck with several virgin lava flows! the dancing part was just as crazy because the men were a little scandalous in their native attire and it was a windy night. we all got a kick out of that :)


Wednesday was our last beach day. we were blessed with sun and so I was able to get more tan. we also snorkeled and boogie boarded for the last time. we then headed off to Lahaina to get some lunch and to shop. I tried on several sun dresses but did not find anything I wanted enough! I did get several fun souvenirs for myself and friends! we watched our last sunset and I learned how to skip rocks! the night ended with some late night pizza hut and going to bed early so we could wake up for our flight home!

the best part of the trip is all the crazy jokes my family comes up with. for every strange thing, we would say "that awkward moment when..." we also made jokes about all the crazy tiki statues. "oh bennett.... I didn't know they had a statue of you here. my sister and I got a kick out of all the crazy signs by the beach. like the one to the left. writing this blog post... I already miss it so much and I hope that I can head back to Maui some day. it was so gorgeous! below there are several other fun pictures from the trip that I could not fit in anywhere else!

well... time to do something a little more productive! this took way too much time, especially with my computer spazzing out and deleting half the post! I have just been hanging out at home as of late with my wonderful family (post to follow later), but greater adventures are about to happen and hopefully I will have the time to blog about them!