Four years ago, Kevin and his brothers started planning a special celebration for his parent’s 50th wedding anniversary.  At the time, the two of them were going to Maui every year to celebrate their anniversary, and so we all thought it would be awesome if the boys and their wives could join them in Maui as something special.  Since then, the plans were tweaked, and finalized, and Friday was finally the day we were heading out to Hawaii.  (I find it funny that after both Kevin and I having never been to Hawaii in our lives until last June, we were now going twice in 6 months – ha ha!)

On Friday morning, at 2 am, after not falling asleep until 11pm the night before, Kevin, Lily and I were up and getting ready to leave for the San Antonio Airport.  Kevin and I had a flight to Hawaii that was leaving at 4:10 am, and Lily had a flight to Salt Lake leaving at 6am.  Because of logistics, Lily had to come extra early with us, but she didn’t mind – and funnily enough, we were both going out of the same gate, so we just stayed together until Kevin and I got on our plane.  It sure was hard to wave goodbye t our baby girl though.  Two weeks was not enough time to have her home :(.

Our first flight to Phoenix was not full, which meant I could curl myself into a tiny ball across the two seats and take a nap.  I was so very tired.  When we got to Phoenix, we had a three hour layover, which was lame, but oh well.  Kevin was fine with it though, because not only was our gate right next to the PGA Fan Shop, but they had a golf simulator, and for $30, he had 30ish minutes to play, and he played all of Pebble Beach on the simulator.

Then we had our long flight to Maui. Unfortunately, that flight was full, and I ended up in the middle seat between Kevin and this guy who kept not only taking the arm rest, but pushed his elbow over the side and it kept jamming into my arm when he fell asleep.  Good times.  At least I wasn’t trying to sleep, and I had both a great audio book and a great ebook to read ;).  When we landed, I was able to see that Lily had made it to my mom’s house in Idaho.  It was crazy looking at the map and seeing us all so far apart.

Hawaii was warm and lovely, and I sat on the curb with all our luggage while Kevin went to get our rental car.  It was gorgeous, with the sweet smell of flowers in the air and the palm trees swaying.  Definitely not a bad place to sit and read my book while I waited.  Especially, because I was technically supposed to be in training meetings all day, because it was the first day back for teachers after break.  (I may have had to burn a lot of my personal leave days to go on this trip, as I was missing the whole first week of school after break.)

Travel weary and completely exhausted, we went straight from the airport to Costco to stock up on food for the week.  It was a convenient five minutes from the airport, which was awesome.  Then we stopped for lunch at a great local place called Cupies, which was delicious!  And we were so hungry for real food, and not the snacks from our long flight.  After that, we drove the 40 minutes to our resort in west Maui, the Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort Villas.  (Scott and Shannon have a time share there, and because of it, we were all able to get great condos at a deal, and all be together at the same place, which turned out to be amazing.)  We were the first of the group to arrive, and so we sat and enjoyed the view while we waited to be able to check in.  It was gorgeous, and when we finally got all settled in our room, it was just in time to watch the sunset over the ocean from our 6th floor balcony.  It was definitely a sign of good things to come.

Saturday morning, we were up by 4am (maybe a little earlier), as for our bosy time, it was actually sleeping in until almost 8am – ha ha!  I got up and went to the gym to work out, and then showered and got ready for our golf adventure.  Dennis, Scott, Kevin and I went to watch the PGA tournament at Kapalua, The Sentry.  Dennis would go every single year with Valerie or by himself when they would come to Maui, and so it was awesome that he got to have two of his boys there to share it with.  The weather was a touch warm, but it was clear and beautiful.  I even wore the new shirt that Kevin gave me for Christmas that says: “Golfing Wife: Like a regular wife, only much better” – which is seriously awesome.

Dennis had his whole routine, and we loved being along for the fun.  We followed Tony Finau for a bit, as he is a favorite of all of ours.  It was awesome being so up close and personal.  Being at a golf tournament in person is really so awesome.

After a while, we camped out at number 7, this amazingly gorgeous par 3.  Like, my jaw literally dropped when I turned the corner and saw it, it was so spectacular.  (It is the bottom one in the picture.). Actually, the entire course was so beautiful, but it was such a spectacular hole – and tricky!  I am so glad I didn’t have to hit over that giant forest filled chasm!!

While we were watching, I think that my favorite part was watching Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama playing together, as not only were they fighting for the top spot on the leader board, but they are two of the best golfers in the world.  (And Kevin will tell you, I may have always had a little crush on Collin – ha ha!). When they were waiting for the other player in their group to put, they just happened to both be standing the same way, and it was like they were posing for a picture for me, which was awesome.  

After the golf, we were so exhausted and hot, but ready for some dinner, and not just anywhere, but at Dukes.  The one in Maui is a five minute walk down the beach from our resort, which was awesome.  We decided to get yummy smoothies and appetizers (I had a salad), so that we had room to share a slice of our very favorite – Hula Pie!!  Oh, it is really so very good – dangerously good, in fact.  We watched the sunset as we walked back, and then we found the rest of the family by the pool and hung out talking for a bit.  It was a perfect day.

Sunday was another day of golf adventures for Kevin, Scott and Dennis, while the rest of us went to church.  Because of the number of tourists that they have coming to their ward in Maui, they actually switched things up and created a “visitor’s sacrament meeting.”  They had a member of the bishopric conducting, local Aaronic priesthood boys come early to officiate the sacrament, and the rest were volunteers with a testimony meeting. Brian played the organ (what a treat and blessing for everyone there, as he is amazing) and Rachel led the music.  

After church, we stopped at Leoda’s for Valerie’s favorite banana bread, and I got the best beef pot pie I have ever eaten.  Yum!!  It was so nice, and I was sad Kevin missed church (and the pot pie, which I meant to save some of for him, but it was too good, and I ate the whole thing), but the start time of the tournament had changed, and so they couldn’t come.  They had a wonderful time together, especially enjoying the free beach chairs and umbrellas.

As for me, after hearing about all the sea turtles that people had been seeing down at the beach, and it being my true dream to snorkel with a sea turtle, I decided that I would go out and snorkel until I found one.  Unfortunately for me, the waves were pretty big and the current was strong, so it wasn’t ideal for snorkeling.  First off, I didn’t realize that the rocks and coral began only a couple steps out into the water, and so in the first minute, a wave knocke my feet and ankles into them, and cut me up a bit.  Oh well.  I persevered, but the current was so strong, that after only about five minutes, I was exhausted.  The water was also a bit murky because the current, and so it was tricky to see, as well as the waves pushing me around so much, I couldn’t get my camera to focus on what I was trying to film/take pictures of.

I got out of the water, trying to decide what to do next, when I saw a man snorkeling further out signal to his daughters that he had found something.  I knew that it had to be a turtle, so I marched back into the water, swam straight to where they were, and proceeded to see my sea turtle!!!  It was amazing!  It tried to get pictures and video, but I eventually gave up and just enjoyed the experience.  At one point, as the turtle was on the bottom feeding, I was floating/swimming right over head and enjoyed every second of it.  It was a bucket list moment, for sure.

When I came back in to shore, I had only been swimming for about ten minutes total, but I was completely wiped out.  I showered off the sand, then hopped into the pool to feel more clean from the salt water, and then I hunted down a place to relax.  And relax I did.  Other than getting up once to use the restroom and fill my water bottle, I stayed on that lounge chair until it was dark.  When Kevin and the boys got back, he and his parents joined me by the pool, and eventually Brian and Rachel joined us as well, with Scott and Shannon there for a bit.  It was perfection.