Shake Rattle and Roll!

Warmest aloha to you. Keep the islanders and visitors (haole) in mind as they pick up the pieces today. The earthquakes Sunday really did a number on Maui and the Big Island. Luckily no serious injuries seem to have happened.

So, we last left off at the snorkeling drop off point. We headed to the southern part of Maui and met up with Chris. He's from the mainland, but moved to the island a long time ago. Now a big part of his family lives there. Hmm....

Getting ready for my first time in a kayak. We had to have life vests on for the launch...


...But we could take them off as we got out in the water. We were the first to do so. Rebels.


Ava was glad to see us go. What do you suppose that means?


Here we are coming back in. We saw LOTS of fish, swam with the honu, saw eels. It was way cool.


Oh yeah, here's Chris. Shaka.


This is how they harvest sugar cane. They burn it. Which actually created a problem this past weekend on Maui, as the winds in Kihei died to nothing, literally. The stagnant air let the soot drift into town, fall, and coat everything with a black snow. One resident said the wind even created drifts across the road. See, all is not perfect in paradise. (Where have I heard that before...)


Here we are heading off onto Hana Highway. It's just beautiful.


We found a nice couple to snap our photo. If you look, you can see the valley behind us.


There's a black sand beach down there you can see. We wanted to get closer.


So we did.


Here's a cool one of Ava with goats at a local farm. She loves animals.


Next: Our upcountry experience. There's two worlds (or more) on Maui. You'll see one that not many visitors make the trip to see. It's a real treat.

Here's the latest on us:
We're doing well. Ava's quite the chatterbox. Some of the things she says on a daily basis cracks us up. She's putting multiple words together now, into small sentences. What else... We're bird sitting for a coworker. 2 parakeets. Ava's having fun with them. Plus we have her new fish. We're up to 6 now in her aquarium. That's probably the limit, we'll see. Oh yeah, Nick and Rachel welcomed Samantha Elizabeth into the lives this weekend. A beautiful baby girl born Saturday morning, 19 1/2 inches long and 6lbs 12 oz. Very healthy. Keep an eye on their blog for the latest there.

Aloha!