Thirty Days in Paradice

Boys & there Toys...
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As suspected Maui is / was a vacation in paradice. Our expectations of Maui were to use our time on the Hawiian Islands to get caught up on the boys schooling & much needed R & R time for Mom/Dad before our 2 1/2 months camping across NZ & Australia. I decided to pack all the "tourist stuff" into our first week in Maui. We were successful in enjoying snokelling/shoreline cruise tours, surf lessons, laui's, guided van tour of the "road to Hana" which included recieving a birds eye view of the "valley island" in a helicopter and a visit to the Maui Aqaurium. One of the highlights for me was a family hike into the jungle where we played in the waterfalls on the northshore. Another highlight was the "bike down the volcano" tour that Dustin & I did. This adventure started with a Hotel pick up @ 2:30am...you heard right! After a 2+ hr trip up the volcano & an absolutely spectacular sunrise ontop of Halalakalua (10,000'), we processed to ride our mountain bikes 34 km down the side of the volcano ending our adventure in the small surf community of Piai for breakfeast at Willy Nelsons place "Billy's". Were Jacqueline & the boys picked us up & we proceeded to enjoy the rest of the day surfing & boogy boarding on the beaches of the north shore...unbelievable great day, one for the record books!!

Waiting on our flight to paradise!!
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Christmas day started with the boys excitedly opening up gifts underneath our 6" x-mas tree! Then it was off to the beach where we spent our first X-mas suntanning, surfing & boogy boarding...after a few Mia Tia's & Coronas we managed to forget about missing the SNOW! Our family X-Mas dinner later in the day was unusually casual as we eat our X-Mas dinner at the Kanapalii Beach resort in our Aloha shirts!

Our Suntanned X-mas!

what time did you say we had to be up again for snokelling?
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We unexpectedly ran into a bit of home when we literally bumped into the Taillefers while exploring the boardwalk along Lahania!! Good friends of ours from back home. We meet up with them once again (this time pre-planned), a few days after we moved to the south part of the island where we spent a few great beach days & a dinner with just adults! Prior to ending our time in Maui I went to use my Christmas gift from Jacqueline, a gift certificate to rent a "Ultra Classic" for 24 hrs!!What an unbelievable gift...yeehaaa..look out Maui, ready or not here I come! Potato...Potato...Potato...you gota like that sound!!!