hawaii…mushroom rock

on sunday we decided to go for a drive around the west side of maui.   i loved that you could see so many different climates and scenery in an afternoon drive.  we drove past the dry side of the island first, then we started into the wetter side..  we went for a walk at a place called mushroom rock.  it is a little walk from the road, but the view was amazing.  we saw a whale and quite a few sea turtles right close to the shore.

 

all of us watching the sea turtles

megs

adam and emmy

grandpa, meghan, morgan, and rachel on mushroom rock

 

me and coop

   

love this girl and that crazy hair

a little whale watching

 

the kiddos looking in the tide pools

the drive home was about 15 miles of one way roads and bridges.  it was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on.  this is a picture of some of the road and a tiny hawaiin village.

our train of rental cars, this picture is of the road after it has widened up for a while.  we didn’t stop and get many pictures, because we wanted to hurry and try not to run into any cars coming the other way.  in a lot of places, you could only fit one car, so if you ran into another car, someone had to back up.  we only ran into a few cars, and there was always a pull-out close by.

 

the only damper on our day is that poor carson was pretty sick.  we drugged him up for the walk, but once we were driving home he started feeling lousy again.  luckily he fell asleep for most of the drive.

hawaii…ridge hike

grandpa and grandma had been telling all of us about a neat hike they wanted to take us on, a flat hike with cool hanging bridges, along a small river…it sounded lovely.  as we tried to drive to said hike, we discovered it was partially on private land, and they would not let people use it any more.  our second option was the ridge hike.  not flat, or with cool hanging bridges, or a small river.  the ridge hike was ALL up, but we decided to give it a try.  it was a grunt, but it was absolutely beautiful.  we actually had to tell the kids to stop, because we were running out of water, they wanted to keep on going.

grandpa and brinley

such a pretty view

 

  

brinley needed a little rest:)

 

 

carson and uncle shae

we must have gotten stares everywhere we went, we were a pretty big crew.

this was the slower moving group

megs

 

rachel and paige

 

me and coop

our lunch spot

i am so happy that my family was able to make all these fabulous memories together.

hawaii…boogie boadring

across the street from our condo was our favorite beach.  we loved it because the waves were really mellow and the kids were able to spend so much time out in the water.  the waves were the perfect size for the kids to boogie board.  I loved it when they would all catch the same wave and come in together. so fun play all day on the beach with cousins:)

grandpa and haylee

haylee and zach

 

bell

morgan and paige

 

i love this picture has a little group of old ladies swimming behind our kids,   so fun that they still want to play in the ocean.

 

zach

look at these cute little boys waiting for a wave. they had so much fun together.

hawaii…little sandy babies

 

 

 

 

  

we were a little worried about these two littlest ones on the beach.  they ended up loving the sand, but getting so covered in it.  they couldn’t quite understand how it was important to wash the sand off of your hands before doing things like rubbing your eyes or eating.  they were good little sports and we had so much fun with them.

 

 

cooper stole grandmas yogurt from her most mornings.

one of my favorite pictures ever.  what a sweetie this little lady is.

 

megs and emmy

 

this little lady decided to head for the water.

  

zach and emmy

 

grandpa trying to distract cooper with a football.  he liked to rummage through all the moms bags looking for snacks