On Monday, we carved pumpkins! We missed our Megan and our Mariah but we had everyone else with us, even Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik. It was a fun time!

Tuesday we were busy getting ready for our trip. We have been planning a trip to Beijing since August. Tuesday we packed and gave Savannah and Sarah as many instructions as we could think of so things would run smoothly while we were gone!

Wednesday we woke up before any of our kids, drove to the airport, and flew to LA to board our flight to Beijing. Only . . . they wouldn't let us on the flight! What? You need a visa. It takes three weeks to process. We watched the plane take off without us on board.

It was a very sad moment. All the plans! All the dreams!

The airline took pity on us and let us change our flight to somewhere else. Where would we like to go? How about Hawaii?

And that is how we ended up in Maui with long pants, knit hats, and sweaters and where the only place I took a picture of the Great Wall was in a Panda Express after we arrived.

We put our happy faces on, bought some new clothes, rented a car, and stayed at a lovely resort on the beach in Lahaina, which turned out to be a really good guess at the right place to stay!

On Thursday, we took our guidebook's advice and drove The Road to Hana. It was beautiful! But very long. The nice thing was that because it was Halloween (who knew?) we had the road pretty much to ourselves from 4pm on. All alone in paradise!

Coconut Ice Cream

After flying all day Wednesday and driving all day Thursday, we were pretty exhausted and took Friday nice and slow. We spent the morning sitting in lounge chairs on the beach watching the waves roll in and enjoying our view of the other islands. After a lunch of fish and chips from the local fish market, we went to the activities desk and booked a luau for that night and a snorkeling trip for Sunday. Then we went to a time share presentation to get both things half price. I must have looked as tired as I felt because they kept offering me coffee! Ha ha! That night we tried to go to the luau but after eating in the rain, they cancelled and let us reschedule for the next night.

Kevin "working" on the beach!

Designer free ponchos!

On Saturday, we drove to Haleakala. Which is the tall, tall extinct volcano mountain that makes up the main part of the island. Beautiful! We were above the clouds, at the same level as the observatory, and it was magical.

I got to wear the clothes I actually packed!

After that, we drove to Iao Valley and saw the Iao Needle. Beautiful! On the way back, we stopped for smoothies and mine was purple! We swam a little at the beach after that. Then the clouds rolled in and they cancelled our luau again. This time, before the food. That's ok. We split a steak and grilled pineapple at the hotel restaurant on the beach. Yum!

Sunday was our scheduled snorkeling trip. They fed us breakfast and lunch and we boated out to Molokini which is a small crescent island off the shore of Maui and has great coral and tropical fish. We got to see it! Then they took us to another place on the southwest shore of Maui and Kevin saw a turtle! For lunch they grilled Maui Wowee burgers on the boat which is a cheeseburger topped with pineapple, barbecue sauce, and a hot dog. We passed on the MaiTais, but we did try the slide into the ocean. Fun times! Oh, and we saw dolphins.

We rested a bit after that, but then took to our car again and went North where we visited the Nakalele blow hole. It was beautiful! Everything was beautiful. What a place. And yes, I did hike in my muumuu.

That evening wasn't raining! So, we got to see a sunset and go to our luau.

It was very hot in Hawaii and there were flowers everywhere--every tree, every bush like children in Utah. We had to leave on Monday but the calm of Hawaii had soaked into us and even though we missed some very specific children in Utah, it still made it hard to leave.

Banana trees in the landscaping!