Maui - Day 9 - Last Day!

For our very last day in Maui we drove out to Leoda's to have breakfast. It was kind of funny because Leoda's is right on the way to the airport, but I did not want to leave quite yet so we drove out their just for breakfast and then came back.

Every single we time we took a tour that drove past this location we heard about how amazing it was. 

Waiting for our breakfast! 

Michael got a Frittata not know it was an egg dish. He doesn't usually like egg casserole type dishes, but he actually did enjoy this one so that's saying something. I got a breakfast pie...egg, bacon, cheese and spinach all inside this flake pie crust. I didn't even take a picture because I was too busy devouring it! I also got another Mimosa. 

Back and the condo I wanted to enjoy the ocean one last time! 

The water was out so far we were able to walk on the sand. Thankfully this sand was more fine than the sand in Napili Bay! 

Gorgeous! 

The water was SO clear!! 

My beautiful palm trees! Yes they are mine! :) 

We walked over to the outdoor shower to rinse our feet off and then I went and sat on the bench by the water. I was totally stalling! 

Ahhhhh!!!!! 

There happen to be a guy that was coming down the walkway right when we were leaving and I asked him to take our picture. Too bad the shadows make it so you can't really see Michael's face! 

One last look from the condo! 

On our way to the airport wouldn't you know that was the first time we experienced traffic. The one and only road that leads out of the Lahaina area was at a standstill. We had heard from Lenny that sometimes there will be an accident on that road and they will close it for up to 6 hours to do an investigation. I told Michael I wouldn't be opposed to missing our flight! ;) 

Alas...we did make it to the airport in time. I will say the Maui airport is super confusing and sort of frustrating. Actually all airports of frustrating. The check-in kiosks were being SUPER S L O W!!! Then we got in line to check our bags, but we hadn't ran our luggage through the agricultural scanning machine...we didn't know we needed to do that because we weren't bringing and plants or food home. Thankfully they let us go to that machine and then we got to skip the baggage line and come right back to the front. 

Then it was off to the security! Unfortunately they didn't have CLEAR at the Maui airport so no skipping the TSA line. 

While we were waiting we saw this sign and Michael said..."That is not OSHA approved work attire!" Hahahaha...no kidding! :) 

On our way to the gate we had to put our carry on luggage through the agricultural scan and I thought Michael might lose it. He was just done! He really dislikes airports in general. When we got to our gate I decided that I was going to change into my pants and jacket that I packed in my backpack. I knew I didn't want to be cold on the plane. 

Thankfully there wasn't a super annoying person talking the entire flight this time and it helped that Michael and I both purchased movies. I watched First Man and he watched Welcome to Marwen. Once we were finished we switched seats so we could watch the other movie. 

We arrived back in Seattle around 11pm. My Dad was waiting to pick us in the cellphone lot so I called him and he came right over. 

This is how we felt about being home and back to reality! :) 

By the time we got home and visited with Ga-Ga and Pa it was after midnight. However, in Maui it was only 9pm so of course my body didn't want to go to sleep yet. I don't think I fell asleep until 1:30am. Then my wonderful kiddos woke me up to celebrate Mother's Day at 6:40am...which was only 3:40am in Maui. Oh yeah that was tough! The breakfast was great and all their gifts were so sweet. The best part was after we visited with them for a bit they suggested that they go play on their Kindles so we could get some more rest. That was the PERFECT Mother's Day gift EVER!!! 

Maui - Day 8 - Relaxing!

For our last full day in Maui I wanted to lay in the sun!!! 

First we ate breakfast in the condo and then we headed out to spend time next to the water. 

I brought two books with us the trip....Every Breathe by Nicholas Sparks and then this book. Both of them were great reads and nothing too heavy! I'm on vacation thank you very much!! 

One thing Michael and I have realized is we don't really like laying out in the sand. I love the water and the wind, but I just don't need the sand. That made Papakea even better for us. They had the nice grass there right next to the beach so it was the best of both worlds. 

This was actually the first time we had been at the condo during the morning hours so we finally got to see the tide go out far enough to see the beach in front of the resort! 

It still doesn't go out far enough to be able to hang out down there, but it was still fun to see it! 

After laying out for a couple hours we went up and got ready for lunch. I had made reservations for Merriman's for a late lunch so we could see the view during the day. When we showed up at the restaurant we were quite surprised to find that it wasn't open until 3pm even thought our reservation was at 1:30pm. That's when I checked our reservation a little closer and noticed that I made reservations for the Honolulu location! Oops! 

No worries we just went down to the street to another restaurant that we wanted to try out. The Sea House...right at our favorite spot! 

You guessed it...Napili Bay! Even though we didn't have reservations we got this amazing table with this amazing view. I'm sure it helped that we weren't there during the typical lunch or dinner hours. 

Having so much fun with this man of mine!!! 

Our food here was so good too! Really there wasn't any food that was gross it was all good. Those fun things on top of my salad are watermelon radishes. I normally hate radishes, but these were yummy! 

I could stare at this view all day! 

Back at the condo I wanted to lay out more. I wanted to come back to the mainland actually looking like I had been in Maui. I did go to a tanning salon before we left so I had a little bit of a base tan. I did end up coming back tan...for me! There were some people that were laying out at the condo that looked like they lay out every single day...they were nice and crisp! Thankfully I never did get any sort of sunburn! YAHOO!!! 

Our last Maui sunset! 

Basking in the sun!!! 

Prior to coming to Maui I joined a FB group called Maui Bound. I had seen SO many people comment on how they had returned from Maui and they were changed. They were going to do anything they could to get back there as quickly as they could. When I would read those I would think....yeah yeah I'm sure it's amazing, but get real people. Then I came to Maui! 

The moon peaking out!! 

Honestly it's hard to put into words the way coming to Maui refreshed my soul. It was good for me as a person, but it was also so good for Michael and I as a couple. We've been so busy with work, kids, the house, school and everything else. It was so nice to focus on each other, truly relax and have no responsibilities. Plus it was nice to see that we still enjoy being together with the other person for days on end. It was definitely a very needed vacation!!!

Maui - Day 7 - Napili Bay!

We had SO many things planned for this trip I knew that I wanted the last two days to be free to do whatever we wanted and to relax!!! 

The only thing we had on our to do list for sure that day was eating at The Gazebo in Napili. A friend had given us the scoop for what to do there. He said don't wait for a table inside, but go around back to the kitchen, place an order to go and eat on the beach. Who wants to sit in a restaurant when this view is right outside. 

It took us a bit to find the actual area to go for the restaurant. The parking situation on Maui can leave something to be desired. We finally got a spot and walked through the hotel grounds to where the restaurant is. I saw the line to get in so I knew we needed to go to the back to order. I actually walked past the order area because there's nothing special about it. It honestly looks just like a back entrance. When you really pay attention you can see this tiny sign that says...to go orders. I didn't realize that you could call an order in so our breakfast wasn't going to be ready for 45 minutes. 

To pass the time we decided to go down to the beach. I know it's a rough life! :P

Now that I'm seeing these pictures of Napili Bay I'm thinking I'm going to need to order a few more pictures for our wall in our bedroom. 

I bought this shirt over a year ago when I went shopping with Rachael specifically to get clothes for this trip. I didn't wear it at all last summer because I wanted it to be new for the trip. It's not something I would normally wear at all, but I love it!!! 

Oh Napili Bay...how I love you!!! 

This is the epitome of paradise right here!!! 

While we were walking around we saw a few snorkelers in the bay and that got Michael thinking. He said we should go rent snorkel gear and give it a go since we knew what we were doing now. I remembered seeing a rental shop at the front of the hotel grounds where The Gazebo is and s ince we still had time until our breakfast was ready we walked up there to check out the prices. I was honestly surprised by how reasonable snorkel rentals were. 

It was almost time for our food to be ready so we walked back to The Gazebo and got our food. We ordered the Big Kahuna Omelet, a side of bacon and a POG. We went back down to the beach and ate our breakfast. It was so good!!! 

After breakfast we drove back to the condo to get our things ready for the day at the beach. Once we left we drove over to Snorkel Bob's to see how much the snorkel rentals were there. They were significantly more expensive than the Water Works Sports in Napili so we decided to rent from them. In hindsight if we were coming to Maui again I would stop by Snorkel Bob's on the first day and rent gear for the whole week. The quality of their gear is better than the place we ended up renting from, but it suited us for the day though. 

When we got back to Napili Bay we parked on the side of the road...another benefit with having a small rental car and then we went to Water Works to rent our stuff. The ladies there were SO friendly!!! They also had a great deal that was only $40 a day for snorkel gear, sun chairs, umbrella and boogie boards. We didn't want all that stuff, but afterwards I had wished I had gotten the boogie boards. It would have been fun to try out. 

We walked down to the bay and set up our spot. Then we went right out into the water to start snorkeling. The first thing that we noticed is it's much more difficult to get your flippers on when you are on the beach or in the water than it is when you are sitting on the side of a kayak. We snorkeled all over the bay and had such a great time. I will say that the surf was pretty active so there was a bunch of sand being tossed through the water. Also the fact that the sun was at it's highest point made it hard for me since the snorkel masks don't have any tint to them and my eyes are still sensitive to light. 

We did have some pretty epic experiences here though. First, we were swimming on the north side of the bay and all of a sudden Michael pointed west motioning me to look. I put my face in the water and realized there was a giant turtle right next to us and by giant I mean probably bigger than my 3ft by 3ft coffee table. He was HUGE! I actually had to swim backwards because the current was pulling me closer to him. It was so great watching him. He moved through the water so effortlessly. I wish I had thought to take a picture!!! 

Our second epic experiences was when we were coming out of the water. I had taken off my flippers and was trying to get my mask off. It ended up getting caught on my hair and it was hurting me. I was just sitting in the surf when Michael came over to help me get my mask off. That's when a pretty big wave decided to come. I don't know what we were thinking! I should have just gotten out of the water and dealt with my mask on the beach, but hindsight is 20/20. Once the wave hit me I turned into a human bowling ball and was tossed around. The only thing I saw of Michael was his legs up in the air. I had completely taken him out like he was a bowling pin. By the time the wave receded my mask was free from my face, but it and both of my flippers were washing out in the Pacific Ocean. I got up and started collecting them before they washed out further. I was also trying to laugh the whole thing off knowing full well that a ton of people on the beach just witnessed us getting taken out. So if you happened to be reading this and you have an awesome video from your vacation of me and my husband being taken out by a giant wave in Napili Bay I'd love to see it!!! 

After snorkeling we decided to just relax on the beach. We ate a snack and of course we had some visitors come check us out. I was sitting there reading a magazine and all of sudden Michael was on his feet and I was getting soaked. Another big wave decided to come up and get us. We were as far back as we could go at that particular spot on the beach so it was what it was. Since everything was drenched we decided to pack up and head out. We could have kept the snorkel gear until noon the next day, but we were so tired we knew that we weren't going to use it again so we just returned it. 

After all that excitement I knew I wanted a treat so we decided to drive into Lahaina and get some Shaved Iced. 

On all our trips to Lahaina we had seen this boat that had been wrecked. I had been trying to get a good picture of it and I was finally able to accomplish that on this trip. 

I had been told that we had to go to Ululani's Shaved Ice, but when we drove by it was packed. I knew there was a Dole Whip place so I thought we might get that instead, but then when we parked and started walking I decided that no we were for sure going to Ululani's. 

The line was long and it did take forever, but it was so worth it. 

Side note: While we were standing in line I decided to find a bathroom. Michael held our spot while I walked to the back of the building. We were both still in our swim clothes since we had come straight from the beach. When I removed my swim shorts I noticed that there was sand EVERYWHERE!!! It was hilarious! The sand over in Maui...maybe not everywhere on Maui, but in Napili for sure is not the fine sand that can easily be brushed off. It's bigger grains that were even hard to wash off in the shower later. It was crazy! 

Michael got the shaved ice that Lenny recommended. Strawberry with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream underneath. 

After having POG at breakfast I knew that I wanted POG flavored shaved ice. If you don't know what POG is it's Passionfruit, Orange and Guava. It was amazing!!! I honestly wanted to go back the next day and get another one, but we didn't! 

Driving back to the condo with the roof down! Living our best life!!! 

We got all showered up...which was a feet trying to get all that sand off.

Another side note: The shower head at the condo was so low I even had to duck to get the top of my head wet. Poor Michael had to get on his knees. It was pretty funny! 

We sat outside again to watch another Maui sunset! 

This particular day there was a cloud bank on the horizon so we didn't actually watch the sunset over the horizon, but behind the clouds. 

It was still spectacular!!! 

For dinner this night we had reservations at Roy's. Scott the tour driver that brought us back to our condo from our Sunrise Tour suggested this restaurant. I will say that I wasn't expecting it to be what it was. It had an Asian flare to it.

It seems like every restaurant on Maui wants to have their own special thing they bring to the table. At Mama's it was the bread and the bisque, at Merriman's it was pineapple that had a vinegar dressing on it (AMAZING) and here at Roy's it was edamame with some sort of spice on them. Michael decided to try them, but neither of us knew that you weren't supposed to eat the pod. Once Michael ate it he was pretty sure you weren't supposed to. It's not going to hurt you, but it's just really tough to get down. After a while the server came over and we asked how you were supposed to eat it. You were supposed to put it in your mouth crack it open and pull the beans out. I thought it was such a funny choice since the restaurant was so fancy. 

Anyways we started looking at the menu and it was really confusing for one, but I was having a hard time finding anything that sounded good. Honestly if Michael hadn't already ordered a beer I'm pretty sure we would have left. It was just not what I was expecting at all. To top it off I started feeling nauseous because of the smell coming from the beans. Whatever the spice was that was on them did not sit well with me. When the server came back I asked him to remove them from the table. I'm sure he thought I was going to be a super high maintenance customer. I decided that I needed to make the most of it and I figured out what I was having. I decided to build my own dinner...I got mussels and clams off the appetizer menu and then I ordered a side order of mushroom and asparagus risotto. 

Michael ordered duck! 

I'm so happy we ended up staying because this was my third favorite meal of the trip...behind my steaks at Lelani's and Merriman's.