Maui, December 2011

On this trip to Hawaii, we brought our granddaughter, Kylie as part of her 8th birthday present. She was uber excited and so were we.  Getting up at 2:30 a.m. proved to be no problem for this little girl who enjoys adventures with us.  On the weekends she likes for us to ride bikes through our subdivision but tells us that SHE is taking US on an adventure and proceeds to lead the way down one street and then another hoping to get lost only for us to always find our way back home again.  So Saturday we told her WE are taking HER on an adventure that she will write about in her journal and be able to reflect on for the rest of her life and maybe someday get to repeat some of it and share with someone else.

The plane trip had two stops, one in Houston and the second in San Francisco.  Kylie was just amazed how we could be in such far away places so quickly.  I was relieved that she has such a "glass is half full" attitude towards travel. She loved observing all the different shops in each airport and we both couldn't resist the Body Shop with its variety of tempting scents luring us as we passed.  I got some coconut shimmer lotion and peppermint foot scrub.  Already needing BOTH of those!  After arriving in Maui and getting our rental car we went to WalMart for groceries.  NOT at all like our super WalMart since there wasn't a produce dept or any fresh meats.  Everything was picked over by the tourists who arrived earlier in the day and it was 7 p.m. by now.  We got what we could which was only bread, milk, snacks, beer, 2 bottles of Maui pineapple wine, paper products, juice, water, a pair of water shoes for Kylie and our total bill came to $122.  Guess that's to be expected when milk alone costs $4.58 a gallon.  We drove on to Kaanapali where our condo is located and had some burgers at Teddy's Bigger Burgers where Kylie looked at me with the most red and tired eyes and exclaimed, "Hawaii is NOT what I expected it to be".  I felt bad for the tired little thing and told her she would see the Hawaii she expected tomorrow.

In the morning we went for a walk on our beach at the Maui Eldorado Resort. Kylie was definitely excited about the beach.  After our walk we had some breakfast, I went to the local grocery to finish the shopping, and then we packed up drinks and supplies for the beach.  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the beach.  Chip was able to get Kylie to put on the snorkel vest and get out in the water beyond where the waves were breaking but she wouldn't go any further.  Later Chip swam out around Black Rock by himself since Kylie just wasn't ready to go snorkeling.  We played in the waves in front of the cabana so Jackie and Phil and Aunt Kiki could watch us on the webcam on top of the cabana.  We built a great little sand castle that people kept stopping by on their beach walks to check out and take pics so they could post them on THEIR Facebook pages. LOL.

After cleaning up around 4 we went into Lahaina and walked around town window shopping.  Of course we found a cute Maui flipflop charm necklace and a headband with a plumeria flower on it. In the Croc store we got Kylie a pair of croc flipflops and some Hawaiian jibitz to put in a stretchy bracelet. We brought our Maui wine with us since many restaurants here have a BYOB policy with no corkage fee. Dinner was at Cilantro, a fresh Mexican casual diner where they have a salsa bar and some great fish tacos.  The slight taste of pineapple wine goes well with the spicy tacos and salsas. Kylie had a quesadillo and we could not talk her into taking a bite of the tacos.  She's already going back on her promise to try new things, but oh well, it was the first day.
BUT A FUN ONE!