But First, Maui

At first, I felt guilty.  My absence from here recently has been unlike any other absence I have ever had from this blog o' mine.  But then, as I surfed around some other mommy blogs (and not the mommies who get paid for their blogs, just regular "documenting life" mommy bloggers), I recognized that I wasn't alone.  Many blogs across the internet were totally neglected.  Phew.  But recently, I've missed the ol' Wrighting on the Wall.  What's weird though, is I haven't missed the writing so much as the documenting.

I recently fell in love with Instagram.  Via pictures (go figure) I've been documenting.  It's just not been here.  So, I had this crazy thought, that maybe instead of getting so wrapped up about the writing part that I don't actually document anything at all here, I could treat the blog like Instagram, but with a tiny bit more space for comments, if I should feel led to leave any at all.  Then, I got totally hog wild and thought: "This could be a fun summer project."  Kind of like a picture a day of our favorite time of year.  It would get me back here, keep me from feeling overwhelmed by the writing aspect of it (because there just isn't enough time in the day, people), and I would be back to documenting our lives again.

We shall see how this goes.

Before I can start all of that, though, I have to back up a little bit.  I don't want to start the project yet without documenting one of the most amazing family trips we have ever gone on.  At the beginning of May, our sweet foursome, as well as the In-Laws, traveled to my most favorite place on earth, Maui. It was a very special treat, and I feel like each one of us did a great job of soaking in every blessed second of it.  I rented a lens for my camera that I'd been itching to try out, introduced myself to Instagram, and I was like a kid in a candy store.  After going through each image taken, reducing them down, going through again, and reducing again, I can now officially say that I love each and every 103 of them.

No worries.  I won't share each of them here.  But since it's my blog, I so could if I wanted to.

Here are some of my most favorites of my favorites:

Both The Girl and The Little Man loved the boogie boards we rented for the week:

The first night we spent in Maui, there was a "Super Moon" and because of the large time difference, I got to enjoy this beauty from our lanai at 3:30 am.  As you can see, it was totally worth it.

 

The ocean was warmer than the pool, most of the swimming we did was in the beautiful waters surrounding Black Rock.

We did venture into the pool at our hotel as well.  That was a great place to practice with the snorkeling gear we rented.

We also walked up and down the beach along Ka'anapali.

Both kids loved playing in the sand, but The Girl loved it the most (no surprise there!).

This is the life: Warm weather, a Starbucks, and a hammock.

What was The Little Man's favorite?  Getting wiped out by "big waves".

As I mentioned above, in Maui I met and fell in love with Instagram.  I had heard of others using it prior, but never really got what the big deal was because I was too lazy to go find out.  Well, give a girl some time to unwind from the real world, and I found the time.  I am so glad I did.  I love using this app. It makes capturing life from your camera phone fun and easy.    Here are my favorite Instagram photos:

We've arrived:

The largest Banyan tree, Lahaina, Hawaii:

 Hello, Pacific Ocean:  I wish I had the video footage to share with you (Grandma has it).  It it so fun to hear the squeals and laughter as the kids played on the beach for the first time.

The sunsets in Lahaina never disappoint:

 The Hubs:

The sun in it's final seconds of the day.  Lahaina, Hawaii.

Catching her first wave.

Beach Babies.

 My most favorite pic of The Girl from the trip:

Getting "inked".  The kids and I all got temporary tattoos that lasted the whole week plus a week or so when we got home. It was a very fun part of the trip, and The Little Man will even tell you it was one of his favorite parts.  Go figure.

 

One of two pictures that prove I was there:

One of the most amazing rainbows I have ever seen.  You could see were both ends met the earth.

Before we left for Maui, a woman told us about a place in Lahaina called Longhi's.  She said it was her most favorite place to grab breakfast.  Turned out, it was our most favorite place too (besides Starbucks).  The view, the food, and the coffee.  Oh, the coffee.  The Hubs and I have had some withdrawals from the stuff, and have come to realize that every cup we have from here on out will always be compared to Longhi's coffee.   This is also one of my most favorite pics from the trip...and it came from my phone.

We did a LOT of this for seven days.

Gearing up to go Snuba diving.  No, that isn't a typo.  It's a cross between scuba and snorkeling.  Basically, you have a breathing regulator just like in scuba diving, but you don't carry the air tanks on your back.  Instead they float above you in a raft.  Since you are tethered to the raft and your oxygen tanks, you can only go about 20 feet in depth.  This means you don't have to take any classes or get certified in anything. Just pop in the regulator and go.  This was my most favorite memory of the trip.  Turns out, 20 feet is all you need to see two amazing sea turtles, and scores of beautiful tropical fish.  I'll never forget the way the ocean around us filled with bubbles as our entire family freaked out when the first sea turtle rounded the bend in front of us.  Special, priceless, amazing: those aren't big enough words.

Morning sand castle building.

 This place brought me enormous amounts of happiness.  This Starbucks is by far the most beautiful Starbucks I have ever been to.  Coffee, good.  Beach, good.  Coffee on the beach, amazing.

It's this beautiful every. Single. Day.  Seriously.

The kids, grandma, and I all hit up the Maui aquarium.  We got to see many different things, but of course, after our Snuba experience, we were most interested in the sea turtles.

 

The Little Man was serious about sand castle building as well:

That small silhouette of a human on top of the large rock? That is The Hubs.  He spent his days cliff diving off of Black Rock.  Over and over again.  Day in day out.  It never got old.

Which is why this happened. 

OK, truthfully, we're not sure how this happened.  One morning, The Hubs woke up and said his tooth felt loose (it was a crown).  By evening it had fallen out in his dinner roll.  Thankfully, we only had a couple of days left for him to be toothless.  He was inventive and bought a tooth-whitening system that used trays.  He used the tray to hold the old crown in place.  You really couldn't tell it had fallen out...until he took it out to eat.  Good news: it's fixed now, and since there was already a root canal done on the tooth, there wasn't too much pain involved.   We loved sending this picture off in texts to our friends and family at home saying we had a "Hangover" experience in Maui.


The kids and grandma in the pool.  Thank you, Grandma, for braving the frigid temps of the pool in order to bring the kids the ultimate relaxation experience. 

 There you have it!  However, I am still missing the pics we took with The Hub's GoPro camera.  I am sure there are some treasures on that thing too.  We are still working on a process of getting those pictures to my computer. I'll share them when I can.

For right now, though, you get the picture (HA!)  A very wonderful time was had by all.