Typically the best weather saved for the last full day. 🙂

Kerrie took a hour long helicopter flight today to see the island from above, so while she was doing this the Rust clan head for a beach to play. We found (OK so Vicky found) a great beach just 5 minutes from the heliport (heliport was on the far side of the airport we came into) where there was a lot of people wind surfing and kite surfing. So it was pretty windy but the ocean where we were was pretty still so we were able to splash around as well for about an hour or so.

We stopped by Safeway on the way back to the house to get some final provisions for dinner and then played in the pool for the last 5 or so hours. Oliver is now pretty good in the pool in that he can now motivate himself pretty well even when he is out of his depth. we really must keep on top of their swimming as Elliot can now do it properly and so with a little tuition, he will be sorted. Oliver could even be swimming by Christmas with the right professional help we think 🙂

Last night so Vicky has made a pasta dish and we have two bottles of red wine, a 1.5 litre bottle of White wine, a large bottle of Whiskey and about a dozen bottles of Corona to polish off – wish us luck 🙂

The day started with a little light rain 🙂 It is so green here, that the rain must come more often than we have thus far experienced.

Elliot wanted to get in the pool this morning in his SPF shorts and shirt (the one with NO floatation goodies sewn in) so we thought we would take the opportunity to see how well he coped swimming without the help. we were somewhat amazed that he can swim !!!! OK, so it is purely doggie paddle right now, but the fact is that Elliot learned to swim finally in Maui – how cool is that as a story for his future?

We ended up having another great day by the pool, with a takeaway dinner from Panda Express to close off – the boys are absolutely shattered, with Olly pleading to go to bed and Elly being not far behind.

Simon has burned his stomach in a pretty big way today so it will be interesting to see if we have any whinging overnight and in the morning.

Tomorrow is the last full day and Kerrie is going on a helicopter tour of the island while the rest of us find a nice beach for an hour or so. Then it will be back to the pool to relax for a few hours and watch the sun go down for the last time here in paradise…..

Yesterday, one of the local dogs (lives next door) called Drummer came to play. Drummer is a yellow labradoor that is basically Max in a yellow suit :-). He brought his little foam surfboard around after playing for a while with a small “ball” that had fallen from a nearby tree. Drummer clearly wanted to play with us as he kept bringing the surfboard over and laying it on the ground, then when Elliot went to pick it up he grabbed it and ran off etc.

Elliot finally managed to get the surfboard from Drummer and threw it into the pool – Drummer simply ran at the pool and dived in !!!! It was an incredible sight and thus this continued for many more dives :-).

Drummer left the surfboard behind last night as we went out for dinner but was back this morning before 9am and was clearly ready to play again.

We played again all morning and afternoon until about 3:30pm as we needed to get showered and ready to go out. Mummy had booked for us all to go to a Lu’au in Kaanapali (The Westin Hotel). It was a great evening show with a terrific fire show right at the end. Oliver was not really that interested unfortunately so daddy had to take him out of the show for a little while and he had an accident in his shorts, and given daddy was carrying him, the accident made its way onto daddy’s shirt – nice 🙁

Looking forward to another day at the pool tomorrow – just need to be sure that we don’t let Oliver burn again…. His arms and nose got burned today 🙁

Our third day here already, so we chose tofeelsx by the pool given it is a Saturday – hence will prob be busy on the roads – and we will sneak out for dinner in Lahaina tonight to experience Saturday evening in the nearest cool little town. UPDATE: we did go into Lahaina and had a lovely meal at the Lahaina Fish Restaurant overlooking the ocean. we then took a little walk along the main street (First Street) to check out the amenities and to find some new sunglasses for Elliot (broke his glasses over dinner 🙁 ) – found a nice pair of Bolle items that he seems very pleased with.

We are also planning to research a Luau and also helicopter tour of the island or a submarine trip.

There has been a mouse problem here in the house we have rented sadly with a few of the little buggars dancing around inside the main house so the owners cleaned up the mess that we located under the kitchen sink and put down some traps.

We enjoyed a Costco Tri Tip steak last night although Simon crucified it on the BBQ sadly (we had to slice off the cremated outer surface to make way to the succulent meat underneath – Simon does not have much luck with these steaks it seems) 🙁 All done during some fun antics as the first “caught” mouse became evident under the dishwasher. It was ejected from the house by Vicky and Kerrie and has subsequently escaped from the sticky paper trap that it found itself caught on.

More water fun to be had today…

Today we headed South to go to one of the wonderful beaches in Wailea on the South West Coast of Maui. Accordingly, this area is the exclusive (and more expensive)part of the island. It certainly did not look this way on our drive there (took approx 1 hour to get there) although once we turned the final corner, we found a place that felt built entirely for tourism and hence was just hotel after hotel and apartment buildings. Believe it or not there was no nice little town centre where we could get out of the car and enjoy lunch overlooking the ocean – we kind of assumed that such a place would exist (it certainly does near where our house is ….) so we did not pack a picnic. So we ended up in a subway off the main road…

Because it is all hotels on the beach front, they had pretty much claimed all of the beaches as well so we meandered North until we found a car park near a beach, and parked up. Olly was going mad to get on a beach…

The sand was gloriously golden and super soft underfoot – however the water current was exceptionally strong and hence we could not just let the boys play in the surf. In fact Olly got pulled out on at least one occasion and sadly we lost a Lightning McQueen to the wateras well – somehow we got away with this however and soon the loss was forgotten about.

We only spent about 30 minutes on this beach as the stress and burn factor (from the sun) was just too high to handle. We therefore head back to the tranquility of the pool at the house (via Krispy Kreme of course 😉 to relaxing the pool.

Olly was full of it when we got back (having had a nice sleep for a significant portion of the drive) where he has now learned how to jump into the pool unhelped. We are clearly going to need to watch this as he is not frightened of the water one little bit and wants to be in is ALL of the time. Quite the opposite to his big brother who is very steady in the water but is definitely not as quick to jump in etc. We are hopefully going to spend some time at Grandma’s pool when we get back to the UK to get them both swimming properly and safely etc. Target to have them both swimming by Christmas we think…

Olly has now escaped his temperature issues from the flight although his bacterial issue under his left arm is still quite angry – we continue to monitor it…