Surfing Hawaii USA - Day 2

The three of us took surf lessons with Maui Waveriders in Lahaina.

Bully was our instructor - that's right, Bully!

We were in a class with two girls from Vancouver and a lady from San Diego. They were all fun-loving girls!

A guy named Troop helped out with our class too.

There was another instructor out there giving private lessons. Every time we surfed by he and his students he would yell, "Oklahomaaa!"

Hawaii - Day 1 - 1st half

We got up between 5 and 6 every morning. We'd sit out on the balcony and have coffee with Joe and Carla.

Aren't early morning pictures fantastic!?

Joe had a real knack for spotting whales. We'd all be sitting around yakking and drinking our coffee, and he'd yell, "There's a whale!" We'd all jump up and gape at the sea for a few moments - "Where?" This would happen several times every morning. Eventually, we did get to where we could spot them as well.

I knew my dad would love these Hawaiian sea crafts.

We didn't have much planned for that morning, so we just goofed around on the beach for a while.

This is for you, Kat. Pardon my sloppy footwritting.

Some kids taking surf lessons on the beach.

Myself in the Pacific ocean.

Lindz writing names in the sand.

Reagan got a little too close to the surf. Ha!

Hawaii - Day 1 - 2nd half

We drove into Lahaina to Boss Frog's to book our surfing lessons, and rent boogie boards and snorkeling equipment.

We decided to go snorkeling right away and drove up the coast to Black Rock. It's the little spec on the far right of the horizon in this picture. We walked all the way down there to go snorkeling. Reagan had problems with her mask leaking, and I was getting sea sick. We weren't seeing much either, so we called it good and went back to the hotel.

This is the view from our hotel room.

Boogie boarding was next. As you can see I strapped the line to my leg. I quickly realized it was meant to be strapped to your wrist - live and learn :)

Our hotel had a beautiful, winding pool featuring a slide, waterfall, volleyball net, and basketball goal. Lindz and I got in trouble for riding down the slide double. The life guard threatened to take our "privileges" away. We're such rowdy and wild girls, ha!

This was meant to be a picture of a synchronized handstand, but I came up a little early which gives the impression that those are my legs sticking up.

Joe and Carla took us into Lahaina to walk around a bit and eat dinner.

A man balancing rocks on rocks - very interesting (for about 5 seconds)!

Kimo's - the restaurant we ate at.

My meal - I can't remember what kind of fish it was, but it was rich!

Can you feel the breeze?

My Maui Map

Hawaii - Arrival

We survived Hawaii, or Hawaii survived us!

Each of us had our own camera, and we took a ridiculous amount of pictures! We were in Hawaii!!! - every moment and every sight was a novelty that had to be captured somehow and brought back to Oklahoma! I kept finding myself wanting to take pictures of the sound of the surf outside our window, of the live music playing, the breeze in the evenings, the way my funky fish tasted, or of the sweet smell of the flowers tucked behind my ear. (Or of being completely crushed by a "sweet" wave while boogie boarding and the sting of salt water in my eyes and nose! or of Reagan being pooped upon my bird - I'm sure she wished she could bring that sensation home to everyone!) But I can only bring back what my little camera can capture, and it just doesn't do any justice to Hawaii!

I'm going to post my Hawaii pics chronologically as best I can. So, I'll start with the evening of our arrival in Maui. We met Joe and Carla (Lindsay's and Rea's aunt and uncle from California, and two of the most enjoyable people I've ever met!) at the airport and followed them to our hotel. At the hotel we were greeted with leis. As soon as we reached our room we changed into our bathing suits and ran like mad for the beach.

I couldn't time my jump to match Lindsay's. We took several pictures and they all looked just like this one.

We did eventually get into the water, but I'm going to pass on posting very many swimsuit pics. But I am going to save those pics and show them to my grand kids someday, "See how hot your grandma and her friends use to be ..." And they'll say, "Ah Grandma, you're still hot!"