HAWAII DAY 3

Today, we had to pack our bags and head over to our new condo in Ka'anapali. We we're up bright and early again ( 6:30am, ugh!) and headed to the breakfast room for another delicious and free breakfast.

We had 5 hours before we had to check out and we hadn't been down to Wailea beach yet so we decided to leave our bags in our room and catch the shuttle down. Our hotel offered a free shuttle for drop off and pick up which was pretty awesome. Parking was a nightmare down in that area.



(Getting ready to head into the water!)

When we got to the beach it was pretty windy and the surf was pretty rough. Eventually after a little hesitation we both got in the water. I had read online that if you were to see a shark this would be the place you'd see them. I had that on my mind the entire time so I don't think I ever really relaxed in the water. Once I saw a lot of people just jumping in I went with the flow and came to the mind set that at least the sharks have options of who they want to bite. Seems silly, but it was true fear I had. The surf seemed to calm down a bit so we had fun splashing around and play in the waves. I guess further out they have some great snorkeling but we hadn't gotten gear yet so we decided we might come back for that if I could get over my fear of sharks.



The next thing I remember is being taken down by a 6 foot wave. There we're quite a few us that we're taken down and I was scared shitless. I remember being thrown to the ground and holding onto my baby belly before I hit, loosing my BRAND NEW Coach sunglasses in the mean time. When the wave subsided I was able to pick myself up, rationalize what had just happened and try to look for my glasses. We didn't have any luck as the waves just came pounding in and I very quickly got out. There was a guy working the beach as part of a canoe rental shop and I asked him what my chances in finding the glasses were and he said absolutely zero.I gave up but I think Carlos looked for a good hour.

We decided to lay on the beach chairs for a little bit to dry off, then head up to the shuttle pick up area and head back to the condo. We got our jeep loaded up and started the drive to the Lahaina area where our condo was located.

We stopped at Subway for lunch and stopped again at that little shave ice stand in Kihei before getting on the highway. We arrived at our new condo around 2 pm and were told check in wasn't until 4pm. We decided to start the process anyway and i'm so glad we did as there were quite a few delays. After being told we we're going to have to move rooms the next day and not be able to check in again until 4 ( on my wedding day!)we pitched a major fit and was able to get a room right away. We lost our "ocean view" suite but there was no way we could move rooms with hair and make up girls coming in. All in all I think it took us a little over an hour to get checked in ( ridiculous!)

Once we were in, we decided to walk the grounds a bit, get a feel for our new location, check out the pools, and the beaches, etc. We then headed down to Safeway grocery store to grab a few essentials. We bought stuff for lunch and a few dinners, to last us the rest of our week. The premise is Hawaii is very expensive for food. And I will say, yes, it's a bit more expensive then the mainland, and brand name restaurants could be costly but if you shop sale items at the store, and eat everything you buy, and/or if you're at a restaurant you have other options other then steak and lobster.

We took our goods home and decided to make homemade meat sauce with spaghetti and garlic bread. I didn't get any pictures because well...we were hungry.

After we finished dinner and cleaned up we went to sit in the hot tub. I've never been afraid to sit in a hot tub pregnant, because I know my body. I have a 10 minute in 10 minute out rule, or if I'm in anyway feeling too warm I'm out for much longer.

Around 10pm we headed back indoors, showered and went to sleep. Tomorrow is the BIG day and we're both so relaxed and excited for it all to come together.

HAWAII DAY 2

We woke up at 6:30 am. Absolutely not like us, but we were ready to get a good start on our day. We didn't make any set in stone plans as we had a 10:30 meeting in Lahaina to get our marriage certificate done.

Our condo offered a complimentary breakfast which we took advantage of. They had some really good items like bagels, banana bread, muffins, toast, fresh fruit, coffee, juice and water.





The breakfast room was stunning!





Once we were done eating, we headed back to the condo to grab our documents and head to the marriage license office.

it was about a 45 minute drive, even though mileage wise it was only 25 miles. With the winding roads and slow moving speed limit ( 45 to 35 to 25)we made it a few minutes late. Lucky for us she was running late too, so no harm done. The process was really simple. We turned in our forms, showed our license, raised our hand and told the truth, paid our $65 fee and we were on our way.


(filling out our marriage certificate form!)

We decided to walk front street a bit sine the office was right around the corner. We browsed a few shops, checked out a few menus at some local restaurants and watched some surfers in the near distance.





It was around noon and we wanted to get some lunch and get a little beach time in. We started our drive back to Wailea and stopped in Kihei at a little deli called 808 deli. We went based off the reviews on Maui revealed ( the blue bible!) It took us a bit to find it as it's tucked behind a big Mexican restaurant. We did find it though and our sandwich was just ok. We were also advised ( from the owner and the book) to try the pasta salad. I took two bites and couldnt gag anymore of that down. it had a weird curry powder/cream mixture and it just didn't flow well for me. Once we were finished we walked down to a little shave ice stand across from the beach and let's just say...Pure Heaven.


(sharks blood and coconut/pineapple mix )

I don't remember the name of this place, but if you're in Kehei, it's down the main street across from the beach with huge signs. you can't miss it.

We quickly realized we forgot to bring hats, so we went on a mission to at least 15 stores trying to find some. I had luck right off the bat but Carlos didnt.


Once done with our dessert and shopping we headed back to the condo to get our gear. We called the front desk to see if there was a shuttle we could take down to the beach and they advised us most beaches close at 3pm during the winter ( it was 2 pm currently) We were kind of bummed but decided to head down to the Grand Wailea and see if we could swim at their fabulous pools. We couldn't, as they only allow registered guests but we found a way in anyway.
( consider us ninjas)We swam and sat in the hot tub, and decided to head out and browse a few shops. Eventually we found a hat for C and headed back to the condo.

We were getting pretty hungry for dinner but none of the fancy restaurants in Wailea sounded good. So we did something so silly and drove to Taco Bell. I can't even believe I'm admitting we ate Taco Bell in Hawaii of all places, but it was so, so good. We headed back to the condo, watched a little TV, played on the ipad and went to sleep. The heat must of worn us out because I think we we're both out by 10:00pm.

HAWAII DAY OF TRAVEL ( Valentines day!)

I'm slightly behind on the blogging as we've had a busy week, and then 2 days of amazing sunshine and I could not bring myself to sit down and just write.

I had big plans to blog through our wedding and honeymoon in Maui, but we ended up not bringing our laptop ( we had so much other crap there was no room!) and typing a blog on the iphone or ipad is ridiculous, so we squashed that idea. I did however, write snippets so I could remember what we did and on what days we did them so when we got home I could get it all documented for us to read in the future.

I'm not sure how other people could lug around a huge camera, because I absolutely could not. We were in and out of the water so much, and had a convertible jeep we didn't feel comfortable leaving our big camera in, so a lot of our photos are through our iphone. Looking through all the blurry photos now, I sort of wish I would of just sucked it up and brought the big camera. Oh well.


DAY BEFORE LEAVING


The day before leaving to Maui, I had a prenatal appointment, and a hair appointment. Everything was running late ( stupid doctors that 'm now no longer with!) making me late for the next appointment and overall we had an extremely busy day. We decided to spend the night at my inlaws house so we could drop off the dog, and sleep in a little later as they live closer to the airport then we do. When we arrived my mother in law had decorated up the house, and made us dessert. I was already so tired, and exhausted from the day I really just wanted to go to bed. It was incredibly sweet what she did, and I couldn't be more thankful for a their well wishes.








Dessert was a multi flavored sherbert ( tropical!) with fresh fruit and a wafer cookie. It was really yummy! Shortly after we got everything cleaned up we headed to bed around 12:30am only to be up for our 7am flight at 4:00am. ugh



DAY 1 HAWAII

Once our alarm went off at 4 am I was still so sleepy I could hardly pull myself from bed. I woke Carlos up to start moving, as we still had an hour drive to the airport. We loaded up the car with a few things, then got on the road around 4:30.

We got to the airport with zero traffic and proceeded to park in the economy lot. ( at $ 15 a day I don't think it was really "economy") The parking shuttle picked up up and dropped us off so we could proceed to the check in counter to Hawaiian Air. One thing that was kind of annoying was I had checked us in online the day before. I paid for bags, had the receipt and expected them to just have a bag drop off counter. We ended up having to stand in line for 30 minutes with the people checking in just to drop off bags. What the heck is the point of getting things done early if we still have to start at square 1? Annoying, really.

One of our bags ended up being 2 lbs over weight and 1 bag ended up being 4 lbs underweight so we had to switch a few things around which just made me more antsy. By this time it's 6am and I wanted to make sure we could get breakfast before our 6 hour flight.

We moved toward security, made it through with no problems and found some breakfast. We stopped at a chili's which was nearest to our gate. C got a breakfast combo of french toast, eggs and bacon. I ended up with a breakfast burrito and home fries. Both were disgusting and $30 to end with. I couldn't eat more then 3 or 4 bites before I gave up. UGH

Within 10 minutes of getting to our gate it was time to board our flight.



I couldn't wait to get up in the air so I could attempt a nap. So SO tired.


Once we were in the air, Hawaiian Air made the announcement they would be serving breakfast. We had NO idea as every airline we've been on in the last 5 years no longer serves food, especially for free. The attendants brought us our breakfast and wouldn't you know it? a dang breakfast burrito. YUCK. I gave mine over to C and just ate the muffin. He liked the food better then in the airport but still wasn't the best.



5 hours and 30 minutes later ( we arrived early!) we were on the ground in Kahului. We found our bags and headed to the rental car counter where we picked up the keys to our convertible jeep. We actually didn't reserve that particular car because it was SO expensive, but they upgraded us for $24 a day which we couldn't pass up. We got the 2 door soft top, loaded up our bags and we're on our way to Wailea.








I decided I was starving so we looked through our Maui Revealed book and found a thai restaurant called Saengs nearby. it was pretty good, and the scenery was beautiful!





Once finished we made it to our condo in Wailea called Hotel Wailea The condo was beautiful and really spacious inside ( we plan to do a condo review as we stayed in 2!) We got situated, relaxed a bit and headed up to the pool. I think we were there 3 hours, and decided to head back to our room and shower to get ready to go out to dinner.

We knew with it being Valentines Day, we'd have slim pickings for dinner without a reservation. We decided on something simple and opted for a pizza place near our condo. Matteo's pizza was decent and really good in price. We walked right in placed our order cafeteria style, and never saw a waiter/server from then on. It was sort of odd to have to ask the busboy to fill our water glass and grab us plates, etc. But we got food, it tasted good so we really couldn't complain.


( horribly blurry photo!)


We were so exhausted, and headed back to the condo and got ready for bed. It was already midnight our time!

We have a lot planned for tomorrow, including getting our marriage license ( eeek!)