The Ohana

Here are some pictures of Doug and Nancy's ohana. It is pretty awesome.

The outside of the little house.

The bathroom The bedroom

The living room

And the very cute little kitchen

We've just made ourselves at home, can you tell? :o)

A Night With a Ukulele

Well for our second to last night in Hawaii, Uncle Doug and Aunt Nancy took us to a concert at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. We saw one of their new favorite artists perform, Jake Shimabukuro, who plays the ukulele. Oh my goodness was he amazing! I've put two videos I found of him on YouTube. One is my favorite song he played tonight called Blue Roses Falling and the other is his interpretation of Bohemian Rhapsody (which was really good. I was pretty impressed).

Nancy tweaked her back last night so she stayed home and Matt and I went back over to Ka'anapali to snorkel and then had lunch down in Lahina at Bubba Gumps. We are both having a really good time and are sad to leave, but we're already planning our trip back here again next year.

Only one more day; gotta make it count!

You may not be able to see the whole video, but you really just need your ears.

Happy Birthday Matt!!

Well we celebrated Matt's birthday in style today. Matt wanted to drive to Hana, so I took my motion sickness pill and went right along with him. It was a beautiful drive, much nicer this year than when we went last year. We stopped a lot more places this time as well. We found another stand for banana bread (the stand we went to the other day was much better in our opinion), we saw some waterfalls, multiple views of the ocean and beautiful coast, and lots of really coolvegetation. When we made it to Hana we stopped at a few of the local churches, one that was built in 1838, and the other was St. Marys which was a very cute little Catholic church.We also stopped at the Hasegawa General Store, which is a little store that has almost anything and everything you could think of.

Hardware tools right next to the produce, postcards next to batteries, shirts, cutting boards, ice cream, etc. It was really cool and now we can say that we've been there. We made our way back toward the center of the island, I getting pretty carsick, and tried to find somewhere to eat.

We were going to stop at Mama's Fish House, but didn't really feel like paying $40 a plate for lunch. So since we took the main road from Hana we ended up closer to Kehei than Pukalani, so we went to Kehei for lunch...BIG MISTAKE. There is no good place to eat there! It probably took us 45 minutes to find somewhere that was an actual restaurant to sit down and have a beer. Course then the place we finally found didn't even have anything on tap and then they were out of one of my favorite local Maui Brewing Co. brews, so it was almost a disaster. Luckily their BBQ Kalua pork sandwich was really good, so I left much more happy than when I arrived.

We came back to Doug and Nancy's, relaxed, made a birthday dinner of steaks with gorgonzola cheese, wine, and some Hand and Foot. Only a few more days to soak up the beach and some

rays.

Date Night!

Well of course it was another great day on Maui. Nancy, Matt, and I went to Wailea and the beach and snorkeling was REALLY good. I think it was my favorite beach here yet. We gotlots of sun and saw someawesome fish. Some little fish (not sure of the name) were right up near the surface and so close to us it seemed like you could just reach out and touch em! This time snorkeling we saw some fish we had never seen before which was a lot of fun for Matt and I.After some lunch on the beach and a quick beach shower, we went to the Grand Wailea mall and looked at some stores there (Coach was there but I resisted and just looked and did not buy. I was pretty proud of myself).

After a little more shopping, we came back home and watched a movie with Doug and Nancy. They fell asleep half way through it, so Matt and I came back to the Ohana.After coming back to Doug and Nancy's and having a proper shower, Matt and I got all gusseyed up and went out to Lahaina for some shopping and dinner. We had a little date night and went to our favorite restaurant Kimo's. We had some amazing fresh fish; I had some lobster stuffed Mahi Mahi, and Matt had some

parmesan crusted Ona.

It was all really good and we had the exact same waiter as we had last year on our honeymoon. We asked him if he had been working there a year ago, he said he had, and we told him he waited on us when we came for our honeymoon. He was just a good waiter that he gave us some free dessert; Hula Pie, sooo good.

We're looking forward to tomorrow!

De Fish! De Fish!

Well of course it was another great day. Uncle Doug had to work so Aunt Nancy, Matt, and I went over to Ka'anapali beach to snorkel and lay in the sun. Matt and I both got a little red color but the weather and snorkeling was great. We all went to the Westin Ka'anaplai, where Matt and I had our Hawaii honeymoon. Nancy had never snorkeled there so we thought it would be fun. The surf there is just like Black Rock, which if you've never been to Black Rock it is a very sharp surf. The water breaks very sharply on the sand and it makes it hard to get out of the water. We all got out just fine, maybe a little sand in our pants, but no broken ankles this trip. After snorkeling we went to lunch at Duke's, named after the very famous surfer in Hawaii. Then we came back to the house to relax and get out of the sun. We had pulled pork and pineapple pizza for dinner and watched The Guns of Navarone. Neither Matt nor I had seen it, and it was a really good movie. Uncle Doug translated some of the German for us. Matt and I were able to stay up past 9 tonight! We are excited for another day tomorrow and can't believe it's almost over. I guess we'll just have to come back again soon.

I love the smell of plumerias in the morning!

What a great day we had yesterday.We tried to go out and snorkel at Mile Post 14 but it was pretty windy and we couldn't see much in the water since it was kind of dirty. Nancy said it was from the rain and washing all the silt into the water. So we drove down to Lahina and went to lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Since it was so windy around the island it was not nearly as hot down in Lahina as it usually is.After lunch we walked around and did a little window shopping. Then we drove up around the north part of the island, which Matt and I didn't do last time we were here and good thing too, this road was almost as bad as the road the Hana. Oh man it was 1 lane for a good chunk of it! We stopped a few times to take some pictures and even stopped at a little green stand (I think it was called Julia's) and they claimed to have the best banana bread on the planet, I think she was pretty darn close. It was SO good.

After that we stopped at this little gallery which was a really nice gallery. You wouldn't think so coming down this horrible 1 lane stretch of highway. We got a few things there and after getting back to the house, I almost wanted to go back to get a few more things, but I weighed my options and I don't know if I want to go back on that road.

When we got back to the house we cooked up some dinner and watched the Duck game again. I made it till 9:00 again and then fell asleep. I slept in longer this morning so we'll see if I make it longer tonight.

Hawaii Day 1

Well we made it! The plane trip was a little bumpy but not horrible. When we got off the plane, Uncle Doug picked us up and we went over to the Maui Swap Meet to meet up with Aunt Nancy and see her booth. It was really hot and business was slow, so Matt and I walked around the swap meet for about 45 minutes and then we helped Nancy pack up the booth and we all went to lunch. We went over and had lunch at the golf course and then came back to their house to see the new ohana where we are staying and watch the Duck game. The ohana is beautiful. Doug and Nancy really out did themselves with it. It is such a nice little house Matt and I would be fine living here.

We are hitting the sack early (well 12am our time, 9pm Maui time) and going to get ready for another great day.

Aloha!

Well Matt and I are finally taking a long overdue summer vacation. We are heading to Hawaii to visit Doug and Nancy and also to celebrate Matt's birthday. We are so excited to be taking this trip and also to get to spend some time together away from work.

Check back throughout the week for updates and pictures from our trip.

Aloha!