Jackson's Lane: June 2013

If you haven't been to Maui, Hawaii then it should certainly be on your bucket list! Jacks grandparents have a beautiful timeshare Villa at the Westin Kanapali and invited all the kids down for a wonderful week of fun!

It was the best time with family, laughs, food, sun and water! All of our favorite things wrapped into one location was heaven for 7 days!

So here we go! Grandma arrived a day before us so that she could have the place set up with food and amenities. So so so kind, and it was so nice to arrive having a fully stocked fridge with kids in tow!

We met Uncle Joe, Aunt Stacy (pregnant with baby Emily!) and Ethan at the airport for the same flight to paradise!

Cousins!

Taking off for a lonnnng 8 hour flight. The ipad was a big hit..but we took breaks to do a few other things in between so we could rest our eyes :)

Have you ever heard of EarPlanes? These little blue plugs that go in your ears are amazing. They make them in child size (I've only been able to find them on amazon) and adult size (which can be found at CVS). They work magic so that your ear pressure is minimal if any at all. I have always had ear problems on a plane and just assumed Jack might too. They work like a charm every time. You need two pairs, one for the flight there and one for your flight back. I highly recommend them!

We finally arrived to Maui just as the sun was setting, not the best picture of that below, but we were all pretty exhausted at this point :)

Its really nice that the entire property is vacation ownerships so the same families attend year in and year out. I love that we are able to make memories with the kids!

Given the time change, we all woke up around 3 am, turned on cartoons, and rolled out of bed at 5 am. Somehow waking up at those times are ok when you are in paradise!

Jackson had traveled to Maui when he was 4 months old, but we stayed at a house for Stacy and Joes wedding. So this was Jacks first time to the resort and it had been a few years for Kevin and I, so it was nice to just walk around and explore.

Prob my favorite picture of the 1000+ I took with some edit:)

The beach is beautiful and the snorkeling right off the resort is some of the best we have ever done! The coral is stunning and the fish are colorful. We saw a family of squid which was pretty cool! Last time we were here we swam with turtles, we didn't spot any off the resort but later in the trip we got to see a few!

If you didn't already guess where Jackson's favorite spot was the entire trip....well now you know!

Lots of fun at the pool every day made for a great sleeper at night!

Even though its a vacation ownership, there is still pool service which we all took up on for adult drinks! You cant go to Maui without ordering a lava flow...yum!

Everyone including the Dads got in on the water slide action!

The surroundings of the resort are beautiful, with mountains towards the back and the ocean towards the front ...while tropical flowers are in abundance everywhere!

After fun in the sun on day one, we went up to relax for a little while with the boys. Aunt Stacy made our most favorite salad, lots of work and love goes into it!
Having a full kitchen is so wonderful when you have kids and saves money from eating out all the time!

Jacks faces in pictures these days are that of a toddler trying to escape the flash....toot!

Thanks again Grandma for all that you did for this trip!!!!!!!

These boys had a wonderful time because of you!
Are these cousins not the cutest? Ethan LOVES Jack, he loves to watch what he does, he talks so much more when Jack is around. Jack by the end of the trip was a little more gentle with Ethan and actually cried at the airport on the way home because he missed baby Ethan :)

While dinner was being made we went out to go feed the huge fish...

Since Stacy is almost due, they brought their nanny, Crystal, with us so that she could help out with the kids, it was nice for dinner and when we wanted to go snorkel for a little while!
So she joined with Ethan to feed the fish too.

We got to see several rainbows towards the end of the day up in the mountains!

We sat down for our delicious dinner and then called it a night.

The next morning bright and early the three of us got up and boarded a catamaran

headed for Molikini island. We were a tad worried about taking a toddler on a boat, but we were told this crew was really great with kids.

Jack wasn't sure what to think, after all it was 7 am Hawaii time and 5 hours difference to Houston time. So groggy he was, but he soon snapped out of it once we started going and LOVED it!

The crew was indeed amazing and they loved Jack so much that

they trusted our three year old to drive the boat!

ohhhhh yaaaaaa, who is driving this boat??!?? I AM :) Love his little finger!

We arrived and the water was a blue like no other, it was clear blue if thats even a color? It was amazing!

But here is the coolest part of our trip, they had a floating snorkel port hole for Jack to ride and look through!! When he got on, the waves were rocking him around and he was scared, but as soon as he saw the first fish he yelled "I SAW NEMO!!" He stayed out there for a good 20 minutes which is longer than I lasted! I love to snorkel but I can't stay out too long or I actually start to get scared myself, but I do love it for the 10-15 minutes I'm out there.

Just as we got him on board he desperately needed to go to the potty....funny how he had a giant potty he was swimming in..oh well good not to teach him bad habits I guess :)
I think we need one of these little wet suits, because he looked so darn cute in it :)

We were fed a grilled BBQ lunch (they had grills on the side of the boat) and after lunch the boys went down to the bottom of the boat where they had a glass section.

While you are not allowed to feed the fish, the staff went down in scuba gear and cleaned off the bottom of the boat so that algae would attract the fish for Jack.

Such a great crew on the Four Winds II for taking care of our baby boy!

This is me taking a picture over the side of the boat, you could see through the water. Again, amazing!

We spent two hours at Molikini and then it was back to Maui

and Captain Jack was back at it again!

You know I love a good celebrity sighting, while I did not see any we did boat to see Oprahs vacation home road, ha. She paid $22 million, yes million...for that road to be built so that she could have direct access to the beach from her home way up above. That doesn't include the house...just the road. Must be nice, eh?

The return back was windy, so I once again was Mom of the year for getting the Ear Band-it shipped to us before we left to Hawaii. It actually is for keeping water out of his ears, but doubly worked as a wind guard for his ears. After we put that on him, he was happy and went right to sleep as he was worn out! Oh and if you have kids with swimmers ear, Macks Ear Dryer also is a saving grace! We used it the entire trip after he got out of the pool/ocean and had no issues with ears hurting because of the water.

Jack missed the turtle sighting but there were several of these fellas we got to see on the way back!

The next day we were back in the water again....

Checking out the scenery...with pants full of sand...ha

We enjoyed some down time and then ...

we went back down after dinner to watch a movie on the lawn.

Such a beautiful night with a sunset, movie and my boys.

The next day Build a Bear was in the lobby, I tried to get Jack to pick a shark or a turtle, but no such luck. Blue bear it was.

We also tried to name him Blue Crush, so that we had somewhat of a Hawaiian inspired name, but nope that wasn't going to cut it.

Blue Puppy Lovie it is.

For me it was nice to not wear makeup most of the trip and for Kevin it was heaven to be able to wear his Hawaiian Dos Equis shirt...ha

I didn't get many pictures at all with Grandma because she stayed to welcome us and get us settled. Next time we will make sure she stays longer so she can ride the train with us! It was a highlight for Jackson to ride in a real steam engine train. We loved it for the beautiful views!

The train ride was about a 30 minute ride which took us right into the near town of Lahaina. With a main street right off the ocean the views are beautiful and the shopping is fun.

We stopped to eat at our favorite Jimmy Buffet Cheeseburger in Paradise and then walked around for a while and road the shuttle back home.

Crystal watched the kids while we had an adult dinner out at Mamas Fish House, my favorite restaurant on the island!

Along the drive that evening the waves were amazing!

We were seated at the most perfect spot and the four of us really enjoyed the night out!

The next day we left Jack back at the resort so that Kevin and I could explore the west side of Maui together. The road to Hana is awesome but we didn't want to be that far from Jack. We had never been to explore past the resort so it was a new adventure for us both.

The drive was breathtaking and the spots we explored were exactly what you picture Maui to be!!

Look at these lucky people who own that house down below...what a view to wake up to every day!

We drove past this cliff and on the way back you will see we traveled back down to snorkel in these exact waters. Super cool!

We wanted to go see the blow hole first so we drove a little further past this tranquil spot over to a more rough but equally beautiful location....

We clearly don't always follow the rules, but we made sure to stay safe.

I loved this man made heart in the rock!

We kept driving as there were signs telling us that the best banana bread was 2 miles ahead... what it didn't tell you was that the road to get there was a one lane over grown road.. quite scary, but it was worth the loaf of yummy banana bread :)

On to the next stop....

We actually listened to this sign given the strength of the waves, it was so beautiful in person!

We got our snorkel gear and went back to that tranquil spot of Honolua Bay

We tracked through a beautiful green reserve to get down to the beach

And off we went, Kevin stayed out much longer than me in hopes of finding a turtle :)

Here he is coming back and it really is amazing that on most spots you can just go a few feet away from the shore and start seeing animal and coral life.

After the snorkel we checked out the golf course that he wanted to play. Dedication is waking up on your last day of vacation to chase around some white dimple ball...however I know that was a highlight for him!

Ok back to our day...We stopped by the Ritz to have a drink before we headed back to our resort.

We had such a great time with just the two of us!

The last full day was a Jack day, where we took him around and let him explore. This spot at Ukumehame Park is one where I want to come back next time to take family pictures! I did not do any edits to these next set of pictures.... the sky, water, sand and wood really is that gorgeous!!

Next we took him over to one of my favorite spots at the very end of the road past Wailea. With each month and even year the tide can change, last year while still windy the area was still snorkel-able. This time it was extremely windy and waves were VERY intense. Its was actually to me a little dangerous because of the blow hole spanning over such a large area. So we made our time here pretty brief. I actually was a little scared myself at one point with the blow hole water crashing so high and large.
Its worth checking out without kids next time!

The terrain changes to huge lava rocks

If you go all the way down until you cant go any further you hit the section with the blow hole. Along the way Jack saw some goats that peaked his interest :)

This is the part that had me a little scared walking so close to the massive waves

Once we got back in the car Jack feel asleep. We found a random snow cone stand in the middle of paradise and then kept driving until we found a spot to enjoy them. We rolled down Jacks window so he could get fresh air and the waves kept him asleep for a really good nap!

We found a turtle that was braving these rough waters and would come up for air every few minutes, we didn't get a picture of him, but it was a fun afternoon site.

Our last night we went out together as a family to Roy's and it was so delish, once again we had the perfect table and the sunset was unreal! The boys loved having the bench seat to wiggle around on :)

We all had a wonderful time and were all so bummed to have to pack up, but you can't stay forever (though Kevin thinks he should start looking for a job in Maui...I think not and it should just stay our vacation spot!) Our family time was nothing short of perfect!