Celebrating Mom’s 50th Birthday!
Aloha! I’m now home back in the Pacific Northwest. In a lot of ways I’m glad to be back in the climate I love. In fact, as I type it’s gray outside and raining. Although it’s officially summer, I don’t mind the rain. I have no outdoor plans for the day, so I’m content to stay snug inside and update my blog, make a Hawaii photo book on Shutterfly.com and catch up on my television shows I missed. I’m fairly positive that you don’t really want to hear about my plans for putting around this afternoon. I have decided in an effort to not overwhelm you, I will do a blog series on my trip to Maui. I’ll highlight each day and share a photo or two. This will allow for the length to not get too daunting. At least, that is my hope! So sit back and relax while I share with you a sneak peek into my vacation.
We left for Hawaii on my mom’s 50th birthday. This whole trip was formed around the idea of celebrating my mom’s big milestone in Maui. It eventually morphed as we added my grandma to the trip. She’ll be turning 80 this Thursday, so the trip became a birthday celebration for her as well. I should also mention that we were gone over Father’s Day, so even my dad and Jeremy got some celebrating in on this trip. We’re a party family!
Jeremy made it all fit!
The flight to Maui was fairly uneventful up until the end. I’ll let my husband explain that one since it’s his story not mine to post on the world wide web. Overall, we made it to Maui in one piece. With 7 people in our group, we were quite the force. We rented a mini-van and let me tell you, we filled it! I was really concerned about all our luggage fitting in the van as well as people, but Jeremy did his magic and all the bags fit in the back sit! It was remarkable!
Once to we made it to our condo and unloaded our stuff, it was time to take care of business. The first being that all our tummies thought it was dinner time thanks to the 3 hour time difference. We quickly decided to go to Da Kitchen which is a local restaurant that was rated well by Maui Revealed. Da Kitchen serves local favorites like Loco Moco which my parent’s both had. I had never heard of this dish, but they have t-shirts dedicated to it over there. It’s a layered dish that starts with white rice then a hamburger steak then two eggs and covered in brown gravy. I went for a teriyaki chicken sandwich since I knew what that was! I don’t like ordering mystery meals! After the birthday dinner, we drove back to to Kahului to visit Costco (a place we would go often) to get food and supplies.
First time on the beach!
The fun thing about Costco in Maui is that they have items in their stores that we don’t have. They have an entire aisle dedicated to macadamia nuts. They have pastries in their bakery that are local favorites. We picked up sweet rolls with fruit and cream cheese on top. The great thing was that the rolls weren’t overly sweet – more like a slightly sweet dinner roll – so the fruit and cream cheese paired with it nicely. We conquered Costco with a full cart filled to the brim with meal options and snacks.
Back at the condo, we continued to settle in and make ourselves at home. We all headed down the the beach which was a block away from our condo to watch our first Hawaiian sunset. This was my first time dipping my toes into a “warm” ocean. Surprisingly, it was colder than I thought it would be, but I adapted quickly. I don’t think the Oregon Coast will ever be the same after Hawaiian waters.
Our first day was full of a lot of business. We had to travel and get settled into the condo, we went grocery shopping, but still made time to celebrate Mom’s birthday and explore the beach right outside of our window. It was a good day and the start of our adventures! More updates to come! Stay tuned!
Amy Scott's Thoughts 