Hawaii 2015

This January we left for Hawaii the morning of the 10th. After debating (and arguing) we decided to leave Mollie with Clark's parents for the duration of the trip. Saturday morning we left in tears and drove to Salt Lake to fly out from there. My friend, Brooke, let us leave our car at her house in Bountiful and drove us to the airport. I saw babies EVERYWHERE in the airport and on the planes and cried some more. We flew from Salt Lake to Portland and Portland to Kahului. Did you know they have a law in the Portland airport that the food prices have to be comparable to city prices? I think all cities with airports should adopt that law.

Clark sat across from us on the aisle and we sat like this for all of our flights.

We arrived in Kahului around 9 pm Hawaii time and then Clark had to go track down our rental car. We put pull-ups on the girls for the last half of the second flight and I'm so glad we did because there we were surrounded by luggage and car seats and both girls had to pee with no one to watch bags. You can guess what options we had and used... After an hour (eternity) Clark came back with the car and we drove to Kihei to stay in the condo with my parents. By then a little girl had to go #2 and was very distraught because that wasn't happening no matter how many pull-ups she was wearing. Somehow we made it in time and everyone crashed from exhaustion shortly after.
  Sunday we woke up around 5 because we all thought it was 8 according to our internal clocks. We put on a movie for the girls but that only lasted until 6, so we walked down to the beach so my parents could sleep without our noise. It was still dark, but there was someone on the boardwalk holding his little baby... The beach didn't last long since someone had to pee, imagine that! So back up we went and found Liz's condo and hung out with them until it was time to go to church. Church was hard for Shelby and she was exhausted by the time it started so Clark took her back after Sacrament. It was hard in general because we were in this beautiful place and hadn't played yet! We went swimming in the pool after church to get some of our antsy-ness out. Our condos had a big pool, hot tub and even a kiddie pool to play in.
  Monday Ron, Chloe and Saige were taking surf lessons so we decided to rent a paddleboard and head to the same beach. Clark and I took turns giving it a go. My legs were shaking, good workout! I decided not to share a pic of me standing up with my blinding white legs in all their glory. I did see a big turtle come swim right past my board, it was awesome!!

I took Ashton and Shelby each out for a turn. Ashton LOVED it and would have stayed out much longer. Shelby was pretty nervous but did alright. It really was the perfect day to go and the water was not very deep for a long way out.

Once Ron and the girls had their fill of waves we swapped them and they let us use their surfboards.

Ron is trying to give me a quick lesson before the waves came.

See that splash? It's ridiculously hard to balance on a board that's not moving in water.

BUT I got up on my first wave, BOOM! Apparently I'm not too shabby at the surfing thing. I had a lot of fun and soon learned why they gave us shoes because I got cut a few times falling off. 

Here's Clark surfing.

We took our board back in the afternoon and headed to the beach so our patient kids, who had been sitting on the rocks at the park all day, could play. We also took the boogie board and rode some waves. It was a perfect wave day.

Ashton loved playing in the water and was a little too fearless for me. She loved catching the afterwaves on the boogie board with her dad's help.

Tuesday morning we headed out to snorkel. Clark, me, Ron, Saige and Chloe. It was a long drive, I don't have any idea what the spot was called now but we drove up to see how the waves were and they were pretty big. 

See the concerned look on our faces?

We drove back down and hiked into the bay and found the water too rough and wavy to snorkel in so we hiked back out and drove to another beach and met everyone else. The water was calmer so we were able to snorkel at that beach.

Too big of waves to snorkel here

Clark, my dad, Liz, Ron and the older two girls hiked around the corner of the beach and jumped off the rocks into the ocean. My mom and I stayed with the kids. I should clarify, Liz and Saige didn't jump and my dad jumped off some lower rocks after he, being in normal clothes, found some women's running shorts sitting on the rocks and changed into them. I'm laughing my head off writing this. That would have been a sight to see, or not... Liz and Ron headed to another beach and boogie boarded and we wish we would have gone with them. The boarding sounded good! We chose to head back around midday instead. We stopped with my parents in Lahaina on the way back and ate lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate.

We spent a lot of time at the beach, which was a block from our condo, or at the pool there as well so some of the narrative might be missing because we were probably doing one of these things. Ashton started practicing swimming by herself around Thursday, she got pretty good at the end!

Wednesday we played basketball at the park in the morning and the kids played while my mom and Clark watched them. Clark and I took the 4 younger ones (Ashton, Shelby, Logan and Lanie) to the beach for the afternoon. They just played and played in the sand for hours. When Liz and Ron came we had our turn in the ocean.

Playing in the dirt at the park.

Thursday we went to Big Beach and it is BIG. We parked at the opposite end from my parents and got to walk down the length of the majority of it carrying all our crap. My arms wanted to fall off and the girls were over it halfway through. The waves are bigger here than the beach by our condo. If you timed it just right you could get out without getting slammed by the waves. My dad took my mom out her first time and they got slammed twice. It's one of those things you cringe and laugh at the same time watching it. One of the things about going to Hawaii in the winter is the waves are bigger and the ocean is less calm so some days are definitely better than others. Through Thursday we actually had pretty mild waves for wintertime. Also, when my dad swam anywhere he always had his hat on and it somehow always stayed on his head!

Yep, we got to walk that!

I buried the kids at Big Beach. Logan got buried up to his neck and the girls were mermaids. Clark and Ron both snorkeled on this beach and saw turtles and fish. We celebrated Saige's birthday that night. Chloe went home by herself Wednesday for basketball.

Friday Clark, Saige, Ron and I went to The Dumps to try to snorkel. The waves made the water murky and it wasn't such a good day for it. And lets be honest, I had a small panic attack. It freaked me out not to be able to see things and get pushed by the waves towards the rocks. I didn't last very long. The Moss clan was leaving that night. We went with my parents to the pineapple plantation and fed the ducks and walked around.

I'm destined to look 3 months pregnant the rest of my life, sigh.

We hiked up the stairs to the Ioa needle lookout. and spent some time walking the trails and reading signs. And posing for the camera. We stopped in Kahalui and had milkshakes and fries with everyone thanks to my parents at Ruth's Diner. It had a 50's vibe with posters about flying to the Pacific on PanAmerica. I like vintage stuff like that.

Saturday we finally braved the road to Hana. We stopped at different points and took pictures. Shelby got carsick and was miserable half the ride until we moved her to the middle. We were sure one of the natives was going to hit us on the hairpin turns or one lane bridges. We also tended to miss the waterfalls because there was no rainfall while we were over there.

We stopped at this black sand beach park right outside of Hana. I wish we could have had more time for the girls to play there. The water was calm and protected by the lay of the island.

We finally arrived at the seven sacred pools and hiked down to the lower three. The girls were troopers and hiked right along the narrow and rocky edge of the middle pool to get to the upper pool. I was sure one of us was going to slip to our death. Clark swam to the top waterfall.

We hiked down and I swam to the middle waterfall but got freaked out when I couldn't find anywhere to stand.

They, rental car companies, tell you to turn around at the pools and head back down. There was no way we were doing that so we headed around the island. We hit the gravel road and very very narrow spots where it felt like we were going to fall into the ocean. Every time we passed someone going the other way Clark cussed them for not being on their side of the road more. It was bumpy and rough and lots of fun, let me tell ya! But we survived and will never, ever do it again:) That night my parents watched the girls and Clark and I went to Da Kitchen, a local plate lunch type of place. It was yum!

Sunday was more church and more pool.

Monday was our last day and we spent the morning at the beach down by our condo. We had lots of fun pictures of the girls on that day.

Action shot!

Any guesses what Shelby is doing?

Ashton used a tube to ride the white stuff in over and over. She was having a ball!! Clark finally convinced me to go out. The waves were pretty big and I HATE getting flipped. We had a lot of fun riding them before they broke. Some got pretty huge and I was panicking but Clark stayed by me and I survived:)

We tried out a local taco truck for lunch. I really liked the Mahi Mahi tacos. This was The Big Brudda, steak and shrimp.

We spent the afternoon and evening at the pool and Ashton kept practicing her swimming without her floaties and got pretty good!

Our flight didn't leave until 11:37 Hawaii time so we waited it out at my parents' condo and taking a trip to Walmart. Shelby danced for us while we waited. 

It was a long flight home but the girls slept to LA and slept in the airport until our flight out from there. We spent $18 dollars on 2 breakfast sandwiches in LA, so ridiculous. When we got to SLC, Brooke picked us up and took us to our car at her house. Thank you Brooke and sweet baby Bowman! We filled up on some much needed In-N-out and caffeine with a lot more food at about the same price as our LA sandwiches. We made it home by 6 pm. We were so happy to be reunited with Mollie and get some long overdue cuddles. Thanks to Grams and Papa for watching her. And thanks to my parents for graciously putting up with tantrums and messes and Disney cartoons and all the many times we transferred rooms and just being really awesome and patient and giving the whole trip! It was a really fun trip and at the same time I will never leave my baby for that long at that young of an age. Ever. Again.