Maui Day 3 – relax by the pool…

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 πŸ™ ) – 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) πŸ™ 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…

Maui Day 2 – Missing… Lightning McQueen….

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 πŸ˜‰ 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…

Lahaina, Maui – Day 1

We all got a reasonable night sleep (poor Olly was up at 3am with raging temperature etc) and were ready to go this morning. We head out in the car to get some bits that we had not managed to buy last night such as a paddling pool for Olly – so he can still play in the water albeit in the shade while his infection rights itself (the doctor wants him to not get much direct sunlight) – and some pool toys and some sand toys for when we head to the beach. We had lunch at a beach grill in the Whalers Village overlooking the ocean, and then head back to bathe in the pool and grab some of those beautiful rays falling from the sky πŸ™‚

Elly is so confident in the water it is almost worrying and Olly just wants in – he totally unaware of the risks of the water it seems. Hopefully by the end of this little holiday he will have an idea and be more capable in the water like Elly.

The boys all test drove the jacuzzi in the master bathroom and The littlest boys are looking forward to a great nights sleep πŸ™‚ They are just SO tired

Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings…

Sensational Maui

We set off at 9am this morning for San Jose airport, to find the flight delayed :-(. Turns out this worked in our favour as we were offered an upgrade to first class for $150 each – 5 seats please πŸ™‚ We took all of row 1 and Kerrie took place to sleep on row 2

Poor Olly was poorly on the flight with his temperature soaring to 40 degrees C and the drugs barely able to control it πŸ™ All this on top of the fact that he has antibiotics for the bacterial infection on his left side. Poor little mouse πŸ™

Anyway, flight was about 2 hours delayed but the rental car was waiting patiently for us and the kids car seats were in place as well so now messing around there. We made a stop at Costco to stock up on beers and wine etc ( this is toning to be a MEGA relaxing trip if the quantity o spirits is anything to go by πŸ™‚ ).

The rental house was just 30 minutes drive from the airport etc and when we arrived…..

OH MY GOD – the place is clearly one of the nicest houses we have seen – breathtaking view, fab pool / spa and three very well appointed bedrooms. A mega media / entertainment system including surround sound, 60inch tv, cable, Wii, outdoor music etc

There is also an outdoor kitchen area with bar and BBQ – so not sure if we going to find time to actually leave the house …. πŸ™‚

Not going to be able to post pictures since we only brought phones and iPads with us sadly. πŸ™

Fess Parkers Resort in Santa Barbara

We made it down to sunny Santa Barbara yesterday afternoon in about 3.5 hours, although that included a 1 hour stop in Solvang – a really pretty Danish styled town dating back to 1911.

The actual shopping area of Santa Barbara is really nice, kind of like Los Gatos but 10 times bigger. We failed to find mummy some new sunglasses but succeeded in persuading Olly to get 40 winks in the pushchair πŸ™‚

We then checked into the hotel – as we walked through the main entrance to the hotel Elliot just said “Yes, this is a nice hotel !” πŸ™‚ He was not wrong, but then it is 3times the price of the hotel in Cambria from the previous night.

BOTH our cameras have got flat batteries now so photography has had to fail over to the iPhones sadly, so I guess we must have taken LOTS of photos.

Dinner last night was very nice at the Harbor Inn (think that it’s name) on the Santa Barbara pier. Elliot just couldn’t figure out why their was buildings made over the sea …

Olly has successfully been hard work at every meal time so far excepting the McDonalds in the car at lunch yesterday – little monkey πŸ™

Last night we got the boys into bed and sat out on the little patio with a bottle of red wine and some Trader Joes kettle corn – think We’ve mentioned the corn before – v moreish… πŸ™‚ Great end to a lovely day (meal time excepted)

Today looks to be a day on the beach πŸ™‚