The Sanders' Family

Day 7 – Our Last Day

scottjulieandkids — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 08:15:37 +0000

Thursday, September 20th, 2007

Thursday morning Julie and I started out the day with another golf lesson at Kapalua. This time after reinforcing the basics of our stance, grip, and swing, we were videotaped and compared against some pros. Our instructor Ian is great at spotting issues and knowing the exact way to correct the problem. For instance I kept bending my right elbow during my swing so he stuck a sponge between my two arms and had me swing a few while trying to hold the sponge in place. After a few hits like this the problem was corrected. The first part of practice took place in what, from the inside looks somewhat like a garage – however, this garage, when the door is open overlooks the course, the ocean, and Molokai. Ian’s desk was inside and I commented this might just be the nicest office on the planet.

After a little video analysis of our swings, we headed outside to practice a bit more before switching over to a little short-game practice. We spent about 1/2 hour getting tips on putting and using various devices to enforce the right style of swing (low-tech yardsticks mostly). We wrapped up with about 15 minutes of chip-shots to ensure we got a well-rounded instruction. I think both Julie and I had a good time. Now we just have to stick with it for a while, sneak time to go practice, and probably start looking for a half-set of clubs as Ian recommended to start with (he says buy the good clubs but start with half-a-set and then add to them later).

Before leaving the golf course we stopped at the Kapalua logo shop to see if I could find a nice polo shirt to remember the visit. I did – and find two other Tommy Bahama items, a shirt with the Kapalua logo and the wallet I had originally been looking for. Julie also found a nice sweatshirt and cap. Final tommy count this trip – (Scott: 6, Julie: 1). I think I’ll be the only guy in Seattle walking around with hawaiian shirts all through winter .

On the way back we stopped at an Outback Steakhouse for lunch that we spotted on the way up to Kapalua. Unfortunately they turned out to serve dinner only so we opted instead for our highest quality cuisine so far – Mc’Donalds. After lunch we headed back to take care of a few pre-trip errands. We checked in for our flight using a kiosk at the hotel. We looked into shipping some of the extra stuff we bought only to realize it would be cheaper just to pay the overweight bag fee at the airport. We also visited our friends at Westin Vacation Services to say "no" to the timeshare sales. Not surprisingly they now suggested the offer might be available later. To be honest we both liked what we saw but agreed even if we wanted to do this we wouldn’t do it now (since we just bought a boat this year).

We had booked a luau for our last night so decided to spend the last couple of hours before that started at the pool lounging around and reading. Julie’s stuck mainly to her celeb mags. I’ve been reading a book called "The Tipping Point" – jury’s still out since I’m not done yet. We had a nice time by the water but it did get a little windy towards the end (enough to blow my towel off the chair and into the pool).

At 5:30 we lined up for the Wailele luau at the Westin. We did another luau up the road the last time we were here and although it was entertaining, the food was nothing to write home about and the squished folding chairs at picnic tables didn’t work for me. This sounded better since we were told it was smaller and featured table service. Before the luau Julie picked up a nice handmade flower necklace and I bought a hand-carved tiki statue (the one with the mean face and eyes tilted downwards) which I’m told is for protection from evil spirits – this will go well in my office at work.

As promised the Westin’s luau was much better with maybe only 100 guests and table service of food served family style. There was an open bar, appetizers of salmon, dried mango, and taro chips, salad, entrees of fish, pork, and teriyaki beef, and mini desserts of pineapple and chocolate cake, macadamia tarts, and a dessert we’ve seen several times here that I’ve grown to like here that’s sort of like a Jello Jiggler made with coconut. During the evening we were much closer to the entertainment with the usual mix of hula, hawaiian music, drums, and fire dancing.

After the luau was over we capped off the evening with a walk along Ka’anapali Beach and then it was time to retire to the room to pack. Tomorrow morning we have a 10am flight from Kahluhi which means leaving the hotel around 7am. We’ll take a 30 minute flight to Oahu followed by the six hour flight back to Seattle arriving around 9pm Pacific Time.

Assuming tommorow goes uneventfully this will be my last blog on this trip. Let’s see if it takes me until my next trip to Maui to blog again.

Day 6 – Free Day

scottjulieandkids — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 03:03:56 +0000

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

Wednesday morning we decided to take a drive to the southwest coast of Maui to do a little shopping at The Shops at Wailea. Not that we needed to do more shopping, it was really an excuse to take a nice coastal drive and visit the third Tommy Bahama store of our trip – the only one with an attached cafe. I picked up a Maui Tourist T-Shirt, Julie grabbed a more trendy dress at BCBG Max Azria (what she’s wearing in the attached photo) and found a bag she wanted at Tommy Bahama. Tommy count so far this trip – (Scott: 4, Julie: 1). Afterwards we had lunch at the Tommy Bahama Cafe. Julie had a chopped salad, I had the Ahi salad (I’ve had a lot of Ahi this trip). We finished lunch with the best desserts so far. I had an out-of-this-world Pina Colada layer cake and Julie had Butterscotch pudding with chocolate swirls.

After shopping we headed back to the hotel for a timeshare presentation – yes we did one of these and it was my idea. To me it’s just window-shopping and I’ve never had a history of getting talked into something I really didn’t want. From what I knew of the costs I was really curious how they’d demonstrate that this type of vacationing was actually better (and cheaper) than just staying in hotels. For sitting through one of these we got $100 gift certificate at the hotel and a 50% off coupon for our next stay at any Starwood hotel other than in Hawaii. The initial sales presentation was interesting and lame at the same time. They presented a lot of good information up-front punctuated by questions that (as Julie puts it) made us feel like we in Kindergarten (ex: What do you think is a better value: option A, or option B). Next we took a trip over to the actual property and looked around. We were pretty impressed by the facilities and the rooms were quite spacious and nice (the three TVs won me over ) . We also saw some nice amenities for the kids like a pirate ship sitting in the middle of a kids pool.

After we came back we met the "manager" – the sales guy who presented us with the costs and "bribes" as they put it to convince you to buy. I think we both agreed it might be nice at some point in our life but not now. They tried the usual hard-sell of saying we had to give them a decision now – in response we both said the answer was "no". Then of course they said we could think it over overnight if we had to "go to a luau". Yikes – what a joke. We told them we’d think it over and be back the next day. I’ll leave you in suspense to our next blog to find out our answer .

I’m still glad we got to see what this is all about but I was pretty annoyed that their "90 minute" presentation took about 3 1/2 hours of our trip. After this adventure we set of to Lahaina for dinner to a tapas place recomended by the concierge called Mala.

Mala is a small joint on the water on Front St right behind the Lahaina Cannery Mall. Though the food ended up being quite good, the prices didn’t quite match the cramped atmosphere (more diner-like on the inside where we were seated). I’m not sure why the concierge called this a tapas place – it’s really a restaurant like any other. I had the Filet Mignon (still jealous from Julie’s the night before at the Plantation House) and Julie kept it simple with a burger & fries. Since we did dessert earlier in the day we opted to skip tonight. The last stop for the night was the nearby Safeway to secure breakfast items for the next morning since we’d knew we’d be getting up early for another golf lesson. The trip to Safeway here was interesting since unsurprisingly we found things like Papayas, Coconuts, Dragonfruit, and Mangoes to be the local fruits featured in quantity and things like apples, bananas, and citrus mostly imported in lower quantity. The selection of flowers was also quite different with tropical plants and leis.

Back at the hotel we contemplated getting in one of the hotel pools or hot-tubs but unfortunately the pools closed at sundown and we decided given the degree of our sunburns the hot-tub wouldn’t be a great idea.

Day 5 – Our Anniversary

scottjulieandkids — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:11:02 +0000

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Tuesday morning started with a quick breakfast-on-the-go from the hotel cafe stand. We drove up to Kapalua for golf lessons at the Kapalua Golf Academy from 10-12am. Julie has never golfed before. I had only gone out a couple of times with friends and had once taken simulator training on a cruise ship. I got the idea this might be a fun way to spend a couple of hours on the island and Julie agreed to give it a try. We met our instructor Ian and stepped outside the academy building to a driving range where he focused on getting us into a good stance and having a good grip on a club. Luckily we were alone at this point so once we started hitting balls we couldn’t make fools of ourselves in front of more than one stranger. The range at Kapalua was a beautiful site overlooking the ocean. EA Tiger Woods Golf features Kapalua for this reason.

The first range we hit balls from got pretty windy about 45 minutes into our lesson so we grabbed a couple of carts and headed over to their second range which was more shielded from the wind. By the time we got over there we were both hitting balls decently although certainly not consistently. I tended to hit the ball often against the shaft instead of the middle of the club head. Julie was hitting the ball dead on but taking a fair amount of the lawn with it. By the end of the lesson we probably hit 100 balls each and had a pretty good time. We decided to come back Thursday morning for a second lesson.

After golf we headed back to a shopping area next door to our hotel called Whaler’s Village for lunch at the Hula Grill. We ate at the Hula Grill last time and enjoyed the food and atmosphere of eating right on the beach. Beware of the aggressive birds though. We got dive-bombed with bits from someone else’s plate that a bird dropped on the way back to his perch. My fish sandwich was great. Julie had a turkey sandwich that she enjoyed as well. After lunch we both split up for some quick shopping. It turns out both of us were looking for last minute anniversary gift bags and as we found out later we both bought the same one for gift giving.

Meeting up back at the hotel, Julie split for a hair styling at the salon. I would join her 1/2 hour later for a haircut. In the meantime I caught up on my blogging. As for haircuts, I’m really a Great Clips $12 haircut kinda-guy so spending $50 for basically the same haircut was sobering… Nonetheless the stylist did a good job although I’m certainly not a salon convert.

We took the recommendation of the hotel concierge and had made reservations at a restaurant in Kapalua named the Plantation House. We were advised to check-in early for our 6pm seating time to ensure a good seat. We got there around 20 minutes early and, as a result, ended up with the best seat in the house, a table at the edge of the dining room placed halfway outside of french doors that overlooked the Kapalua Golf Course with stunning views of the ocean and the islands of Lanai, and Molokai.

As we waited for our first course we exchanged gifts. Julie gifted me with a great shirt that combines two of my favorite vices: Tommy Bahama and Poker (the shirt had two Aces and the phrase Pocket Rockets on the back). Updated Tommy count this trip – (Scott: 4, Julie: 0). In addition she threw in some lotions she picked up at the Body Shop to sooth my badly sunburned feet (burned snorkeling despite the SPF 50). I gave Julie two gifts. First, Julie has been appreciating jewelry with butterflies lately so I gave her a diamond encrusted butterfly necklace. Also since this was our 8th anniversary (bronze) I gave her a simple, matching bronze bracelet and earrings.

We started dinner by sharing two salads, a Watermelon & Candied Walnut salad, and a Goat Cheese Arugala salad with Likulei dressing (passion fruit). Julie ordered a drink she loved (said it tasted like a milkshake) called a Lava Flow (basically a pina colada with a strawberry swirl). I stuck with wine for the night. For dinner, Julie ordered the Filet Mignon and I had Lobster Tail. I love lobster and rarely indulge although I had to say Julie’s steak made me pretty jealous. She gave me a taste and it was spectacular. My lobster was nothing to complain about either. We finished the meal with Creme Brulee and spiked coffee for Julie, tea for me.

Great dinner, great day altogether.

Day 4 – Snorkeling

scottjulieandkids — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:48:58 +0000

Monday, September 17th, 2007

This morning we had no real plans other than to relax by the pool at the Westin. Julie was planning on getting up early to stake out some nice chairs by the pool. She overslept a bit but thankfully found a nice spot with some shade and sun. It’s an unfortunate fact we learned during our last visit that guests get up early (around 7am) to go stake out chairs by the pool and, if you don’t join ‘em, you won’t get a chair at all. We had talked about renting one of those nice cabanas however they had already been rented away a week in advance.

The pool at the Westin is really something to see. It’s really multiple pools joined by grottos and connecting waterslides. I can’t say I’ve stayed at enough luxury resorts to compare however this pool is at the top of my list.

Somewhat spontaneously we decided to take an afternoon catamaran ride for snorkeling. The Gemini catamaran beached for boarding right at our hotel around 11am. We jumped aboard and took a 45-minute motored excursion against the trade winds to Honoluau Bay on the northwest shore, north of Kapalua. We were fortunate that although the boat could accomodate 40 guests at capacity there were only about 18 booked for our trip. The ride was pretty windy (around 15 knots), causing us to bounce around a bit, however the ride was still enjoyable, catching sight of a number of sea turtles surfacing for air along the way. I sat on the starboard hull most of the way up and got one good splash from a stray wave giving the rest of the passengers a good laugh.

On anchoring at Honoluau Bay we joined one other catamaran excursion with passengers already in the water but for the most part the preserve was by no means overcrowded. This is a good point for me to mention the fact that I’m not really a swimmer. As a matter of fact, before last year, I didn’t swim at all. After about ten lessons at the Pro Club I’m relatively comfortable in a pool but had never swam in the ocean much less gone snorkeling. Julie, on the other hand, is a skilled swimmer and had been snorkeling before. In the spirit of giving new things a try I did give it a go and did pretty well once I got comfortable in the water. I wore a waist belt for extra buoyancy and shared a flotation tube with my wife who did most of the driving.

We swam out behind the boat and over the reefs. It was a surreal experience that felt more like flying than swimming. The highlight for me was getting up-close with a sea turtle. During the whole experience we were being filmed by an underwater videographer who accompanies the trip and sends you a DVD of the excursion afterwards.

I only lasted about 20 minutes in the water because enough salt water got in my mouth that my throat was burning pretty bad… Julie stayed in about another 20 minutes where she got to see several more turtles and different areas of the reef. After getting out of the water the ship had a nice lunch catered by the Westin – some Mahi Mahi and BBQ chicken along with an open bar.

After lunch we pulled up anchor and motored out to the middle of the passage between Maui and Molokai and then sailed back on the trade winds to Ka’anapali Beach where we were dropped off where we started. I have nothing but good things to say about the crew of the Gemini. All were very pleasant, helpful, and knowledgeable about the area. I bought a T-shirt with the Gemini name since that also happens to be my birth sign.

After the snorkeling trip, Julie and I retired to our room to rest and finish the movie we started the night before, Knocked Up. This turned out to be a surprisingly good movie that we both enjoyed although I did think it ran a bit long.

In the evening we drove to Lahaina for dinner at B.J.’s Pizzeria. We ate here during out last trip with the kids and enjoyed the food and terrace which has a good sunset view. The night concluded with a little shopping and gallery gazing. We also had an informative chat with a jeweler who restores ancient coins into jewelry. One example he showed us was a coin hand-etched in ancient Greece bearing the image of Apollonia from around 400 B.C. Other items he showed us were “pieces of eight” recovered from a Spanish shipwreck near Cuba.

Tomorrow is our anniversary and we already have a fair amount of the day planned. We’ll start the day with a golf lesson, spend time in the hotel salon in the afternoon and then set off for our anniversary dinner.

Day 3 – Travel to Maui

scottjulieandkids — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:11:38 +0000

Sunday, September 16th, 2007

Still on Seattle time, Julie and I woke up pretty early, got breakfast in the Surf Room in the hotel, and had time to spend a couple of hours at the pool. The pool at the Royal Hawaiian was small and plain compared to what is to come at the Westin, however the saving grace was that it wasn’t very crowded.

Before heading off to the airport I had time to snap a few photos of the grounds while Julie sent off some postcards to friends and family. We got to the airport around 12:30pm and had lunch at a decent bar & grill (can’t remember the name) before taking the short 35 minute flight to Maui. I was surprised to see flights to Maui almost every hour on a pretty big plan (707). I half-expected a smaller prop plane to be used for inter-island flights.

Picking up our rental car at Kahului airport was an experience. The car was paid for by the hotel package we were on. They offered us a $100 upgrade to a Ford Mustang convertible which we initially took. On going out to the car we were taken aback by how dirty and banged up the car was probably by people (like us) trying to cram too much luggage in too small a space and leaving the top down in the rain. Looking at another car of the same model showed many of the same problems so we ended up sticking with the car class that was free and got one of these funky looking Chevy HHR’s which is actually working out pretty good.

Getting to Ka’anapali beach and the Westin is about a 1/2 hour drive from Kahalui airport. We found it relatively easy having stayed here last year. The Westin Spa & Resort is a very impressive hotel. The first time I walked through the doors I was awestruck by the entry experience. You basically walk in what "feels" like a typical front door to a hotel lobby and find yourself almost immediately outside again facing an amazing set of waterfalls in a man-made lagoon stocked with flamingos, tropical fish and flanked by parrots on perches. The lobby it turns out is basically outside, facing the ocean, and the Westin’s spectacular pools.

Checking in at our hotel turned up our first “hitch” in the trip. Apparently the package we booked came with no guarantee of bed configuration so we ended up getting stuck in a room with two doubles rather than a king. This wasn’t acceptable to us; especially given we were on our anniversary and let the staff know. Our complaining didn’t get us a king bed however it did get us upgraded to a better view and our resort fees waived ($100 worth). The next day our concierge offered us a room move but since we had already settled in we decided to forgo it and just make do.

After dropping off our bags we had dinner at one of the hotel restaurants, Ono. Julie loves their macadamia nut-crusted chicken. My opinion is that they’re good for hotel food, but still hotel food. Funny enough, the last meal we had the last time we were in Maui was at Ono, however at the time it was raining and we remember huddling under the umbrellas to try to stay dry while we had our last meal before coming home.

Day 2 – Pearl Harbor

scottjulieandkids — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:55:53 +0000

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

Though we hadn’t originally planned on visiting Oahu – booking flights using frequent flier miles mandated this – I looked at it as an opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor. We skipped going out for breakfast Saturday morning, having bought supplies at one of the many ABC Stores the night before. We were told there was a parade out front of our hotel and if we didn’t leave before 9am we’d be stuck there until 1pm so leaving early was essential. We picked up our car from the valet and were starting to feel sprinkles. We asked the valet if we should run back and get jackets. He said it was probably a passing storm so didn’t bother – that was a mistake.

On driving to Pearl Harbor, the sprinkles alternated to heavy showers by the time we reached the Arizona Memorial causing us to wait in the car for the downpour to let up. The drive to the memorial had taken longer than we planned since we missed the exit we needed and ended up having to find our way back on smaller roads – we missed our in-car GPS unit right about then. We were issued tickets for the 10am tour and occupied the next hour with an audio tour of the museum. It was fascinating to me to learn that there had been several warning signs the morning of Dec 7^th, 1941 about the impending attach, however it remained a surprise primarily because of difficulties circulating the information around the chain of command in a timely manner. For instance, a newly installed radar installation had picked up the approaching Japanese war planes. The signals seen were mistaken for an expected group of B-52 bombers coming from California. Also that morning an American destroyer, the USS Ward, opened fire and sunk a discovered Japanese mini-sub (one of six carrying torpedoes to be used in the attack) on discovering it trying to sneak into the harbor behind an incoming cargo ship. Either of these incidents should have been enough to provide a warning yet neither did.

The memorial tour consists of a 20 minute movie followed by a boat ride across Pearl Harbor to the memorial which is a simple, white structure floating above what is essentially a graveyard for approximately 1,000 soldiers who were entombed on Dec 7^th, 1941 aboard the USS Arizona when it sunk. The structure provides viewing windows from where you can see the parts of the Arizona still visible at the surface of the water as well as a marble wall listing the names of each of the soldiers who lost their lives at the attacks. The memorial itself, along with the silence of its visitors was an appropriate way to remember the lives lost on that day and made me glad we took the time on our vacation to visit.

Although we had talked about visiting the adjacent exhibits, the USS Bowfin (a submarine from WWI) and the USS Missouri (an active battleship used through the Gulf War and the site of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay), we had spent a long time at the Arizona memorial and decided to take a drive around the island since the weather still wasn’t good enough to consider going back to the hotel for some lounging by the pool.

It was time for lunch and we were told by a concierge at the hotel that there was a nice community along the north shore popular with surfers. The town, Haleiwa, was nice but its shops were pretty disconnected making any sort of window shopping impractical. We also were amused by the number of restaurants run out of the back of conversion vans for tamales, Hawaiian BBQ, etc… Luckily we had one of our guide books with us that recommended a local Mexican restaurant named Cholo’s which turned out to be quite good – best margaritas we’ve had so far on this trip.

On the way back we stopped by the Dole pineapple plantation just for kicks. Sadly, here the largest attraction for us was the pineapple ice cream. It’s mainly a huge gift shop & café with a pineapple maze and garden tour in back. I think it would have been a good stop with the kids (they could have ridden the train) but for us, the prices of the walking tours seemed too steep for our interest level so we which left pretty quickly. On the upside we now know how pineapples grow (grown out of a palm-like plant from the ground which gives three fruit 12-18 months apart and then becomes infertile). I think we both thought they grew on trees like coconuts J

After getting back to the hotel and resting for a bit we decided to go for a walk to a shopping mall called Ala Moana about 1½ miles from the hotel. Julie had asked me if there was a Tommy Bahama store nearby and this was the spot. Anyone who knows me well knows Tommy Bahama is my one clothing vice and in this case I needed a replacement for my wallet (also a TB bought last year) which is now near falling apart from all the junk I shove in it. The walk to Ala Moana was long, long enough that we were sure we’d take a taxi back to our hotel. The mall was nice, mostly luxury up-scale stuff. Though Tommy Bahama didn’t have any wallets I wanted I did end up buying both a new T-shirt and a new long-sleeve shirt. Tommy count this trip was now – (Scott: 2, Julie: 0). We found a store good for picking out gifts for the kids that we ended up having shipped back home.

For dinner we ate at an Italian restaurant in the mall, Assaggio. Again, we had a great meal here though had to wait a long time. We actually thought we’d find somewhere else and ended up circling the mall only to find similarly long wait times everywhere else and ended up back there. I had Linguine Sausage Putanesca, Julie had Veal Parmesan – actually I think that’s what was buried under that huge mountain of melted cheese After dinner we took a taxi home and passed out exhausted.

Day 1 – Travel to Oahu

scottjulieandkids — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:31:27 +0000

Friday, September 14th, 2007

Friday started at 4:30am Seattle time in order to get us to the airport in time for our 8am flight to Oahu. That gave me about three hours sleep after an all-night packing session. Since sleeping on planes has never really worked for me I was pleased that Hawaiian Airlines was showing a movie I hadn’t seen on the flight over (Ocean’s Thirteen). The flight over was mainly uneventful, arriving about 20 minutes early at 11:30am Hawaii time, except for Julie finding herself as the Blue Hawaiian when the pen she was using to fill out the state agriculture form broke over her hands making them a nice shade of blue.

After grabbing our bags and our rental car we drove to our hotel, The Royal Hawaiian aka The Pink Palace. An older hotel on Waikiki beach built in 1921, it’s known mainly for being painted entirely pink on the outside. Though it does have a newer, adjacent tower, we stayed in the original section which was quite nice, having unusually high ceilings in the room as compared to most hotels you’d stay at in such a prime location. Amenities were nice although Julie couldn’t convince me to try on one of their signature pink bathrobes.

We ate lunch in the adjacent Moana Surfrider hotel in their Beachside Café. This had been recommended by the Royal Hawaiian’s concierge but was pretty disappointing overall. I had a steak salad with tough steak and under-ripe avocado. I think Julie’s chicken quesadilla turned out better for her. After lunch we headed across Kalakaua Ave to a shopping village which turned out to be much too touristy. Julie and I split up so she could go back to the hotel and get a pedicure. I set off on a trek to a place I had seen profiled on the Travel Channel called Puka Dog.

Puka Dog is a family-run business that started with a location on Kauai and later added the Waikiki location. I liked their story of entrepreneurship in taking their unique idea to market. A Puka Dog is basically a hot dog with two unique differences. First, instead of being split in the middle the bun is hollowed out on the end and toasted by having it stuck over a hot spike. Finally a Puka dog is (optionally) topped with a combination of unique toppings starting with a lemon, garlic sauce of varying heats as well as a fruit relish of your choice (Mango, Pineapple, Coconut, etc.). Luckily I saved room for lunch so the hot dog with spicy hot jalapeño, lemon-garlic sauce and coconut relish ended up being my dessert. Really good! If anything I’m surprised they haven’t gotten more aggressive with expansion given all the exposure they got on TV. During my snack their many tourists came in, most quoting that they saw them on TV.

When we joined up back at the hotel we rested for a bit before going out for dinner at Roy’s at the end of Leward street, a nice shopping district a short walk from our hotel. Roy’s is a well known group of restaurants across the island chain (apparently they have some in the continental US as well including Seattle) known for its Hawaiian fusion cuisine. I was incredibly impressed by the service (actually we’ve had good service just about everywhere so far) and the food. Julie had a goat-cheese-stuffed chicken and I had a sampler plate of three different fishes (Ahi, Butterfish, and Ono) with different preparations served with rice. At Roy’s, Julie and I had a debate about what the right drink was to have in Hawaii. I think the Margarita is about Mexico, the Daquiri is representative of the Caribbean, so the Mai Tai must be Hawaiian (turns out Wikipedia says it was invented in Oakland – go figure). Since then I’ve had my share of Mai Tai’s

Hawaii Planning

scottjulieandkids — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:45:03 +0000

In 2006, Julie and I took the kids on our first trip to Maui in late March. My first (and last) blog entry on this site was actually anticipating that trip. I never followed-through with any blogging so this time around I wanted to do a better job journaling our latest trip to the Hawaiian Islands.

When we planned the trip I did some research and determined that March would be a good time to go to avoid the busiest seasons with little risk of rain. Well things didn’t go quite as planned. It rained about seven days of our nine day stay. The Hawaiian Islands saw some of their wettest weather in years during this period. Kauai had landslides that destroyed many homes and the islands had a general propane shortage in effect so the pool at the Westin couldn’t be heated and the tiki torches could not be lit.

We still made the best of the trip having at least one very memorable whale watching excursion however we vowed to have a “do-over”. This year my mother-in-law kindly offered to watch the kids for a week to let us get away so we got to plan our first real vacation away from the kids since our first son was born.

Coincidentally around the end of 2006 we received a pretty compelling offer from the Westin Maui Resort & Spa in Ka’anapali Beach (where we stayed in 2006) to return in 2007 for five days. The package price was only $750 for five nights of hotel, plus a rental car, plus a $100 gift certificate to be used at the hotel’s spa & restaurants. In 2006 we paid something like $350 per night so this was a huge deal. Of course this wasn’t an ocean view room but that would be largely wasted since we’re usually out and about anyway. We put a deposit down and planned to book for sometime in March 2007 as soon as we knew when we could coordinate babysitting and the kids’ schedules. When we called to book a March vacation late in December we were disappointed to find out they were booked clear through September. Of course this is like using frequent flier miles. They weren’t really “booked” – just booked for this package. We dealt with it and delayed our big trip to September to make it more of an anniversary celebration (our anniversary is September 18^th). Arranging frequent-flier miles to pay for our flights led us to spend two extra nights in Oahu with an inter-island flight to Maui. Now here we are ready to leave and enjoy some time away alone to celebrate.

Vacation Planning

scottjulieandkids — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 06:13:33 +0000

Maui Bound

Julie and I are excited to have booked a Maui vacation in March. We’re going to stay at the Westin Maui on Ka’anapali Beach. It’ll be the first trip to the Hawaiian islands for both of us.