HAWAII

WARNING: long post with a ton of pictures.....





Two of my sisters (Kathy and Stacy) and I took our boys to Hawaii April 4-12. It is their "Senior Trip" although Tanton is just a junior, because the other two (Taylor and Chad) are seniors.... We flew into Honolulu and then we got on a cruise ship and cruised the islands. It was a blast and our boys had so much fun. They are all within one year of each other in age and have all basically grown up together. Although we didn't have the best weather, like we were hoping for, we sure enjoyed some nice fresh Hawaiian rain! :) We did sneak in a couple of sunny days for working on our tans.

We left port from Honolulu on Saturday and docked in Maui on Sunday. We stayed on Maui for 2 days Sunday and Monday. Here our boys took some wind surfing lessons and we spent the other day shopping downtown Lahaina.

Kathy and Stacy on the beach while the boys were wind surfing.

Taylor, Tanton and Chad

These are both pictures of us eating at a pizza place called BJ's pizza in Lahaina while we were shopping.

Stacy, Kelly and Kathy

After Maui we sailed to the "Big Island" of Hawaii and docked on one side in a city called Hilo. We spent Tuesday in Hilo, then we sailed to the other side of the big island and docked in a city called Kona. Both of these cities were quite large.

Stacy, Chad, Kathy, Tanton and Kelly having dinner with our sons... Taylor is missing in action from this photo. Each night we could choose if we wanted to go eat at one of the buffets or have a sit down meal and actually order our meal. We had super dates and got a lot of comments on how cute that the "moms" were out with their "sons". It actually was quite cute and quite a lot of fun. We took the boys while we had them, because they met up with some girls on the boat and most of their evenings were spent hanging out with their "new friends".

Have no fear though, we met some new friends of our own. In this picture is Lisa (back row) and Marcy (front row). They are some friends that we actually met while at Karaoke on the boat. Marcy was a killer at singing! They were really nice gals and we ended up attending a few shows and eating a few meals with our new friends from Chicago!

Some really cool trees in Hawaii.

After we left the "Big Island" we sailed Kauai and spent our last two days (Thursday and Friday) on this island. On Kauai we did an excursion called Kauai ATV -- it is Mud bugging! and man on man did we get muddy....It was raining this day and in Hawaii when it rains it POURS! (pics at the end)

Friday night we set sail again Saturday morning we docked back on Honolulu. Our cruise was over, but our flight did not leave until 9 pm that night so we wore our bathing suits and hit the Waikiki Beach! It was awesome because it was SUNNY and we were able to work on our tans, relax in the sun and come home with a bit of a sunburn.... which fooled everyone! :)

The boys getting windsurfing lessons from their instructor who was IRISH!

Chad rockin the boat..

Taylor Hangin Loose....

....and Tanton enjoying the fun!

Our boat "Pride of America"

The three Amigos - Tanton, Taylor and Chad.

Chad, Taylor and Tanton (in deep thought apparently).

Eating at a diner one of our last nights on the cruise.

The three Amiga's - Kelly, Kathy and Stacy.

Some beautiful Hawaiian mountains as we sailed in the ocean. In one of the pictures you can see a rainbow. The mountainsides were such a dark green and so lush, it was amazing!

This is where the DIRT begins...Kathy, Taylor, Stacy, Chad, Tanton and Kelly.

So, we go in our little mud buggies and we were very naive as to what lie ahead. I could tell it was going to be cold and I tipped our guide an extra $20 to wear that coat I have on (YES! I am a huge wimp). But it was dark clouds, rainy and cold - even for Hawaii. We drove these machines through the biggest mud puddles ever! Now remember..... our 17 and 18 year old sons are driving, we didn't miss a puddle the entire way! I think it was like 11 miles up to the waterfalls. Now, the plan is great. Once you get to the waterfalls normally you take off your clothes and jump in (swimsuits are on under clothes, of course!) You wash off then get out and dry off in the warm sun -- but remember that is on a normal sunny Hawaiian day. We got up there and man, we were FREEZING. Our boys braved the cold and jumped in, but the moms... we just hung out, ate lunch and waited for our 11 mile trek back down the mountain! :)

Half of the time it was raining, oops I mean POURING. Oh what the heck! It just made more mud puddles for us to slam through. Now honestly, I will admit, I was freezing cold, chilled to the bone --- but I would do it again in a heartbeat..........It was a BLAST!!!

Here is the part of the story about the boys braving the cold and jumping in the waterfalls, and the moms just freezing.... check out the MUD!


Tanton and I are in the orange buggy. Kathy and Taylor and Stacy and Chad both had red buggies.

Below is our whole group that went on our mud bugging adventure!

We had a great trip to Hawaii, we had been planning on doing this with our boys for a few years and now it has come and gone and I can hardly believe it! Now Abby says that I will be "too old" when it is her turn to go for her "senior trip" and that is only 7 years away.... Hello, how old does she think I am?!?

Aloha!