Escape to Paradise - Maui Vacation, Pt. 4

 On Saturday, Nov. 29, we had a lazy morning at home. We knew we wanted to get out and do something fun, but it's tricky since Kaden was still napping twice a day. We really only had 3-4 hours of time between his morning and afternoon naps to go out and explore, and that period bridged the lunch hour. To save time, we decided to immediately pile into the car after Kaden woke up and go out for a big brunch before driving south to a new beach. There was a restaurant close to our condo that we wanted to try called Slappy Cakes. This restaurant concept is genius. There's a griddle in the middle of the table. You choose a type of batter, and any number of toppings to mix in or sprinkle on top of your finished pancakes, then select a specialty syrup or whipped cream to finish it off! I went with whole grain chocolate chip and banana pancakes. James went a little crazy and tried their purple sweet potato batter with fresh blue berries. Kaden got to sample a couple of my pancakes (sans chocolate), and also ate lots of the fresh cut fruit and some scrambled eggs. He must have enjoyed his meal because it put him into a little pancake coma and he needed to sleep it off in the car.

 After brunch, we drove down the coast to Kihei to play in the park and sand at Kama'ole Beach Park III. When James' brother Jon was at the Air Force Academy, he went to Maui for a few weeks for a summer work/study type TDY. While there, he stayed at a hotel right across from this beach, and highly recommended it to us. It had everything you could ask for when playing outdoors with a toddler. It has a playground with baby swings and lots of green grass to walk around on, plus a beautiful, picturesque beach, and bathrooms and a place to rinse off before getting back into the car. It was still a little chilly and windy, so we didn't get very wet. But Kaden loved playing on the playground, dipping his toes in the "osh", and "helping" daddy build a large sand castle.

I thought it was impressive that James was able to construct a sand bridge over that tunnel!

 Later that afternoon, after Kaden's nap, we made one more attempt at swimming in the condo pool. Once again, it was really too cold to enjoy the water. We snapped a few photos, let Kaden splash around for about 5 minutes, and then called it quits. It would have been SO nice to take advantage of everything they had to offer at the Kahana Sunset. Originally we envisioned traipsing back and forth between our living room, the private beach out back, and the pool. But due to the rainy weather, we spent most of our time in the car on our way to and from southern beaches where the sun was actually shining. We couldn't have asked for nicer accommodations for the price, but I do wish we'd chosen a better location.

Sunday was pretty uneventful. We spent the morning watching football, then went out for brunch at another great near-by restaurant called The Gazebo. You can find it pool side at the Napili Shores Maui by Outrigger. It's a cute indoor/outdoor restaurant, literally inside a gazebo overlooking the ocean and the pool. The wait is long because there are not very many tables, but the food was fantastic. James got a little over ambitious and ordered their chocolate macadamia nut french toast. It was so sweet it was practically inedible. Kaden loved his Mickey Mouse pancake, though.

That afternoon, Kaden wasn't feeling very well so we ended up snuggling on the couch in our condo and watching more football all day. I cooked us dinner at home, and we watched the sunset between rain showers. Normally, I'd be frustrated at "wasting" a full day of vacation sitting inside on the couch. But since we'd already enjoyed over a week and a half of fun in the sun, it was nice to just veg out and spend time as a family. Plus, we had two very big days coming up, so we needed our rest!

Escape to Paradise - Maui Vacation, Pt. 3

I think Thanksgiving was one of our most enjoyable days on Maui. It didn't hurt that it also happened to be my birthday! :) Instead of attempting to cook a full Thanksgiving meal for two and a half people, we decided to go out to eat at one of the quintessential Maui restaurants: Duke's Beach House. They offered a special Hawaiian style Thanksgiving meal, complete with succulent turkey breast with gravy and cranberry sauce; sweet bread stuffing; golden mashed potatoes with garlic; purple Hawaiian sweet potatoes mashed with butter; and traditional sweet potatoes roasted with brown sugar; and a medley of roasted Hawaiian root veggies which included brussel sprouts and multi-colored carrots. For dessert, we had pumpkin spiced hula pie (ice cream pie) topped with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and chopped nuts. It was to die for! A perfect birthday treat! When I write it all out, that sounds like a ton of food. But the portion was actually perfect for a Thanksgiving meal. We were full and satisfied without over eating. The only problem with eating at a restaurant meant there were no left overs!

 After lunch, we let Kaden work off some steam by toddling around on the boardwalk behind the giant resort where the restaurant is located. I loved seeing him in his little Hawaiian shirt. Since it wasn't feasible to attend a luau while we were there due to Kaden's early bed time, we decided this would be the day to get decked out in our Hawaiian gear.
 

That afternoon, after Kaden's nap, we attempted to go swimming in the pool at our resort complex. The water was warm, but it was still a bit too breezy and cool outside to stay in for long. But even that short time was fun. Kaden loved floating around and kicking his legs in his baby pool floatie.

The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing about and watching some football on tv. We did go outside just in time to catch yet another stunning sunset. The fact that we got some good pictures of us holding Kaden with that sunset in the background topped off my great birthday!

 Friday, it was raining again. What to do in paradise when it's pouring outside? Drive up above the clouds, of course! We'd read that one of the top things to do on Maui is to drive up to the top of the Haleakala Volcano and explore the unique landscape inside the crater. It's interesting because the volcano doesn't look very tall when you see it from ground level because the base of the mountain is so wide that the sides don't appear very steep. However, the road to the summit has so many switchbacks that you rise in elevation very quickly and it's rapidly apparent that you are on a BIG mountain. It was a very windy couple of hours on our way up, but amazingly Kaden and I both did pretty well. I credit James's considerate and gentle driving with the fact that I did not get too car sick.

Our destination

Looking down on the ocean from above

Above the clouds

No Joke.

 This timelapse video should give you an idea of what the drive was like

We made two stops when we reached the summit. One was an over look where you could see the full expanse of the crater. The other was up at the mountain summit where you could look out across the ocean and see The Big Island, and a few of the other smaller ones in the Hawaiian chain. It was definitely a unique and wondrous landscape. Since we had Kaden with us, we couldn't do much hiking around. But even what we saw was very interesting and memorable. Definitely worth the trip!

Teaching Kaden about sharp, porous volcanic rock

The only place this unique plant (called a Silver Sword) grows in the world is on top of that one volcano. Crazy!

View of the Big Island and its two volcanos

 When we got home that afternoon, we were greeted by a perfect double rainbow out the back of our condo. In some ways, I felt like Hawaii was apologizing for the less-than-ideal weather with these impressive natural displays. That's ok with me! We had a spectacular day!