aloha mornings

Disclaimer: there's so much good stuff to share from Hawaii, when I looked through my 857gillion photos for a few to illustrate the story of our mornings, I couldn't draw the line anywhere! I just kept uploading the images that went along with the running story in my head, which perhaps I can rehash in some manner of cohesion here. Probably not, but hey, it's photos of Hawaii so who really cares? love, Uncle Merv.

We arrived on Maui late in the day, and with no moon to speak of in the sky it was impossible to see what our view would be from the hotel we'd bargained for on priceline. On the flight over, I had reminded the family that we got a great deal, so we couldn't be picky about the room. It might not have two beds, and it was definitely going to be some "garden" view of a dumpster or the back of a building. We were there for the beauty and joy of the resort  itself, so there would be no bitching about the room or so help me God,  I'LL TURN THIS PLANE AROUND. When we finally got there, the bellman led us at a sprinter's pace through such a labyrinth of breezeways and stairwells that I really had no idea which direction our room was facing. I had an inkling that we were on the right side of the joint, but I assumed that the dumpster or building would obscure our view. Once we got everyone settled in their respective king sized dream bed or pile of linens on the floor (it's good to be king), I woke frequently throughout the night, and eagerly anticipated the light of morning when I could catch the first glimpse of my beautiful Maui.

view from our lanai - honk if you love priceline

Bliss! That first morning was so exciting, we couldn't wait to get out into the day and start getting our aloha on. We hadn't had a proper meal since lunch the day before, so we picked up a breakfast menu, but ultimately decided against the $25 omelets and hit the lobby starbucks instead for various coffees and peppermint frothy things and muffins and such. It was the most I've ever spent at a starbucks, including catering. But I digress!

The kids and I  were first to get our suits on and head down to the pool and the beach around 9. We came across one of those "today's activities!" signs and I quickly notified my husband and all of facebook that happy hour was from 10:00-11:00 am at the Mai Tai bar! It was hard to wait, but soooo worth it.

 

Oh... okay. Yes, I'm still talking about mornings in Hawaii. And yes, I'm still on the first day and the post is already long. Get comfy, grab a mai tai. I'm determined to blah blah blahg until I can explain all of photos I haphazardly uploaded.

We spent two nights at the Sheraton, and it was just like a big happy playground for all of us. The room was great, especially for the kings, but we had plenty of open space for various uses like floor beds and bananagrams.

soundtrack: "Mom, is wr a word? Is ue a word? Is xcdrf a word?"

When we eventually left the hotel, we checked in to the condo that we had rented for the following week and ran right out to the grocery store/beach/bar/I have no idea and suddenly it was time for the ride back across the island to fetch a certain someone from the airport!

As you can see, the children are clearly possessed. Or perhaps that glow is shimmering rage from the unimaginable traffic situation that forced mom to sit at the airport by herself for over an hour waiting for us. (Yet as difficult as that gridlock was to endure, our suffering is nothing compared to the friends and family of whoever was in the awful accident that caused it)

Once again, we drove past those breathtaking cliffside Maui views in complete darkness, and once again we settled in to our new digs without a good look at what our view would be, although the sounds of the night were pretty a good hint. The ocean was so loud that my boy asked me to close the patio door so he could sleep (cue ominous and foreboding music).

Once again, it was kinda awesome.

View from my bed. The girl was an intermittent obstacle.

The only bad thing about our master bedroom was that while it was  listed as having a private lanai, as you can clearly see in this next photo, the owners had inexplicably enclosed said lanai for some dumb reason.

I know! Poor me.

But the whole front of the place was chock full of lanai, and this is where we enjoyed our mornings.

Specifically, it went like this: Mom woke up at the crack of dawn's ass and brought her coffee out to the lanai, which ran the length of her bedroom and the living room where the kids slept.  There was a soji-like sliding door to separate the spaces, and mom had her own sliding door. The kids' door was closed (dun dun duuuuun) so Mom could whoop it up out there if she so desired. Eventually, people would start to wake up and make their way out to see what was what and start contemplating the day.

The official pastime of a Hawaiian vacation is to spend an hour paging through 54 free magazine/coupon/calendar things (as mom and my girl are doing above) and then casting them all aside in bewilderment and just doing whatever the hell you feel like doing. 

That looks nice, let's go there!

Aloha!

So once we'd all gathered on the big lanai, we would look around to see where the sky was bluest, then we'd go there.

Oh yeah, one of our mornings was Christmas!
 

Oh, Tenenbaum

Hey, it's Christmas morning! That looks nice, let's go there.

There's Mom in her coral colored shirt, the kids are checking out new underwater electronics in the shallow end. The turtle is painted on the bottom of the pool, reportedly in some homage to Kelsey Grammmar? Don't ask me, I wasn't really listening.  

  Hey, our front yard looks nice! Let's go there.

(confession: I just deleted 3 photos that were really just too ridiculously unrelated to anything even remotely resembling this fraying thread of connectivity)

Most mornings in our little slice of Kahana heaven, some of us would take little walkies down on the beach. It was so unbelievably beautiful, and there were always interesting places, people, and things to explore.

Like a rope swing!

The water. The water! Would you just look at that water?! And it's warm.

Look, a sea turtle popping up to say aloha!

Aloha, honu!

Sea turtles weren't the only majestic aquatic creatures we had a good look at, we went to sea one day and watched humpback whales frolicking with their babies

But wait a minute, wait, wait, wait just a minute.... that was NOT in the morning.

Uncle Merv is just gettin' warmed up....