The Westin is also beautiful.  Well, they don’t have the views that the building 6 has at the Sheraton, but still very beautiful.  If we had kids or were with another couple, I think that would be the place to be.  Lots of stuff going on there.

This morning we got a underwater camera and headed out in to the ocean again.  We went up around Pu’u Keka’a (poo-poo kee-kah-ah .. had to put that Hawaiian name .. it’s the Black Rock outside our window) and took a bunch of pictures of the reef and two of one of the giant turtles that came up to us.  Like 5 ft under Shannon… really cool.  Another monk seal was parked on the rocks this morning too.

Then we sat around the pool most of the rest of the day.  Ya it was rough.  Moving my hat every 20 minutes to keep the sun out of my eyes.  Getting up every 30 minutes to get another drink.  Rough I tell ya!

Went up to the room about 2, took a nap (cuz walking is WORK), and then got ready for the Old Lahaina Luau, which is out back of the Cannery Mall in Lahaina, which is the town immediately South of Ka’annapali, which is where the Sheraton and Westin are.

Luau was cool.. we got a bunch of pictures and some video.  We had a spotlight in our face, so our pictures aren’t that awesome.  Food was all authentic Hawaiian.  We had a ton of stuff I have no idea.  I put everything on my plate and ate it, besides the Chicken Long Rice… f that stuff.  It looks like tape worms, or for my nerd friends, translucent Gagh… no thank you   I liked all the meat and fish.  The raw stuff was a little weird for me even though I usually like it (and I’ve been eating raw fish every morning here with cream cheese, tomatos and capers).. one made me go in to a coughing fit, but it was still pretty good.  They had some grape leaf type things that had fish inside.  I could eat a bunch of those.  A word about Poi though.. uh just one: yuck.  Apparently I can’t be Polynesian

The dancers were all amazing.  Flawless and graceful, but powerful at the same time.  They are all ripped.  Both guys and girls.  Lots of skin flashing around on everyone too since they wear traditional stuff.  Shannon got to see a lot of man butt

At our table was a family who were all from Minnesota.   Literally every 3rd couple we talk to is from there.  Anyway one of their daughters moved to Japan and was there with her husband and new 9 month old.  They were fun and very friendly.

After seeing what was all down there, we realized we missed out on all of Lahaina, which is the party place around here.  We really did the stay in the resort area, and even in the quiet resort area.  The Sheraton is clearly the more chill place on this side of the island.  The place where people come to relax as oppose to party.  We enjoyed that completely and saw that we’d have not had as good of a time if we stayed elsewhere… at least on this trip… because it was just about us.  Everywhere around us has more people running around.  There are just as many people here, but they are spread out and doing their own thing.. kinda hard to explain unless you saw it

Anyway, we took the shuttle back and now are getting ready to sleep.  We’ll check out tomorrow after we get one more shot at the amazing breakfast here, probably hang out around the pool, and head out.

Aloha Maui.. mahalo!

We found the liquor store next door at the Kaanapali Hotel, which is right next door to the Sheraton.  Uh.. the Sheraton is way way nicer   But also probably part of the reason it doesn’t have a liquor store as they push the drinks in the pool side bars

We also got some pretty good sake.  Good enough to tell me that I’ve been drinking the Bud Light of sake.. I gotta spring for the better stuff.  Even Shannon liked it, and she can usually only drink one.  So after that bottle at dinner along with the first hand tips about Maui, and then another bottle of wine in the room, we went to bed.

Got up.. still sick.. but it was snorkeling day and I was excited.  We ate breakfast and then suited up.  Our gear makes us look pretty pro   Lots of SCUBA guys and a few snorkelers going out at the same time too.  We went out twice and saw some amazing stuff.  We got up close (like 10ft) away from a huge sea turtle and a monk seal.  That took about 2.5 hours, so we ate lunch and took a nap.

We just got back from the pool.  Swam that whole thing, which is huge and connected by a bunch of under-bridge water ways.  We’re going to get dressed and walk down to the Westin and eat down there on that family from last night’s dinner’s recommendation.

Tomorrow we’re going to redo today (this time with a underwater camera.. duh!), only it’ll end at the Lahaina Luao, which is supposed to be the best.  It’ll be our last day here… so sad.  We’re definitely coming back.. probably not a spring break to save some bucks, but you know.. sometime.

So after the wonderful (!!) wedding at Harrah’s we set out to Maui.  On Friday before the wedding Japan got hit with a tsunami that totally wrecked Japan, but did only a small amount of damage to Hawaii.  We were kinda freaking out that morning, but it all worked out.

We got on the plane at KCI and landed in Fort Worth.  Unfortunately about then I started feeling bad.  I thought it was just booze lag from the reception, but it’s a head cold… no good.  The plane to Hawaii was a little late getting ready, but about an hour later than we were supposed to we were off.  In flight movies were some movie about equal pay for equal work in Britain and The Last Airbender.  Easily the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life, but who cares?  Other than that, the flight on American Airlines was much better than I was used to.  Two big thumbs up for them and their airplanes.

We started to land and I couldn’t equalize because of my head cold.  Omg.. ow.  That hurt.  We got down and everyone was very far away sounding and my head was pounding, so that was awesome.  It started to get a little better, but never did clear up that night.  We opted to get a round-trip shuttle ride instead of renting a car from the airport to the hotel, because all our activities were very close to the hotel.

The drive was amazing.  Whales shooting up out of the massive ocean on your left, huge volcano on your right side.  Everything is a bright color of green, blue, red and purple.  Other islands loom on the horizon over the water.  The Molokini crater sticks out.  Lots of boats and fishermen.  Totally awesome just to sight see and not have to pay attention to the road, which totally demanded it.

We got to our hotel.  In a word: wow.  You really can’t imagine a more beautiful hotel with a more amazing view.  Everything we saw on our drive up here x1000.  It’s worth every penny, which of course they welcome   That is to say, it’s expensive here for sure.  You’ll spend $!00 for dinner for 2 easy.  $10 on a drink.  Activities start at about $150 per person, but everyone is so nice and will bend over backwards to make sure you have fun, and it’s all very special.  Totally worth it.  The view from our room is unobstructed ocean that goes until it hits the horizon.  It’s very quiet here.  Not a ton of people, especially up on the Black Rock, which is where we are.  There are 3 elevators (from our room to the lobby take elevator to 3, walk across breezeway, take elevator to 8, walk across another breezeway that’s more enclosed (and WOW what a view), and then go down to 1, walk across the pool and restaurant area, and go up a floor to the completely open air lobby.  Never seen anything like it before in my life.  Amazing.

We had dinner at the local steak place.  I was miserable during the thing though.  I couldn’t hear myself talk, ears popping like crazy, nose running, coughing my brains out.  Not an awesome way to start off.  We went to bed with the door open, ocean crashing against the Black Rock .. so peaceful… no other sounds.

Woke up pretty early (4 hours difference -10 GMT here instead of -6 in MO).  I was still terrible, coughing so hard my head hurt, head in a vice.  We had to make the executive decision to skip the diving.  Reading the Internets, diving with a cold beyond like 20 ft is crazy.  You can’t equalize, your head will be in the worst vice ever, and you risk some pretty bad injury (ruptured ear drum, blown lung).  I was so so (so) looking forward to that, but it came down to do I want to continue to relax and get better or run the very real risk of hurting myself and not having a good time the rest of the time.  Since we booked through the hotel, we were able to cancel.  However I still feel sad when I see people suiting up for SCUBA downstairs and pool side, and know that I can’t do it.  Just to prove it to myself I went down about 4ft in the pool.  Ow

We went to breakfast.  Our trip includes all our breakfasts for free.  Uh.. amazing breakfast!  It’s like Granite City breakfast buffet, but with like the freshest fruit and fish too.  Also awesome.

Anyway, Tuesday we did zip lining.  Popped a few cold pills right before we went, and I felt great.  The adrenaline also helps   That was awesome.  We have lots of pictures and a video of Shannon from that.  We had a Pink Floyd concert on the way up to the ziplines.. probably to try and freak us out a little   We got out of the first van right at “and the worm ate in to his brain!”  Of course, I thought it was awesome.  A guy proposed to his girlfriend in our group!  I have some pictures of that.  The guides were amazing.. so nice and so knowledgeable.  They kept it fun and safe.  Getting hurt via falling is probably one of my biggest fears, and so it was a little rough walking to the first zipline, but I could see it was very safe and there’s was no way that was going to happen, no way possible, so I was fine.  We did 8 lines, each progressively longer.  Probably doing about 30 mph over a canyon.. pretty awesome

Came back after a couple hours of that and sat and watched the Black Rock dive ceremony that happens every night at sunset.  Had a bunch of $10 drinks and some Mahi Mahi (trying to each as much seafood as I can here, cuz I know it’ll be good and won’t kill me here), it was good.. like a fish burger

Overnight I got an amazing shot of the moon reflecting off the ocean outside our window.  I mean the night sky down here and the ocean makes me feel like this place is made for me.

Today we are just chilling.  Official chilling day.  We are getting a massage here at 3 over looking the Black Rock and the beach, and then doing Teppan Yaki tonight for dinner.   Both inside the hotel.  We might walk next door down the beach to buy some alcoholic supplies, because you can only buy drinks here.

Tomorrow is ocean day.  We are going to snorkel around the reef here (which happens to be one of the best places to do that in Hawaii).  We have our masks, snokels, and wetsuits so we will put them to use… we just have to rent fins, which is right next to where we jump in.  There are some massive turtles out there and supposedly you can hear the whales too.  We’ve only seen their sprays so far.

Anyway.. that’s what I know so far.. I look forward to tomorrow… I really want to get in there and see what’s going on.

Tuesday night I had my dress fitting. Pru and Stephanie along with their daughters  and Petie came to see me all dressed up and give support. We all had dinner and got excited about how close the date was!

Thank you ladies for making this time special for me.

• Zip line Tuesday at noon.  It’s the first one on Sheraton Maui 2011 Activity Guide
• SCUBA refresher (pool and shore dive) Wednesday at 1:30pm.
• SCUBA dive Molokini Crater Thursday starting at 7am.
• Old Lahaina Luau, Friday 5pm

We can’t wait for the RSVP’s to start coming in…getting really excited as the day creeps closer.

We took a lot of pictures that day, but these were the ones we liked best. Hmmm, maybe we should have kept some of the fake jungle ones…they were oh so natural.

Check out the link!

http://agoodtimephotobooth.com/