We just got back from Maui about a week ago and it was amazing! Maui holds a very special place in our hearts because we were married there 3 1/2 years ago. We got the opportunity to return for another wedding, Tony's cousin Adam was married there. We had been planning a trip anyway to go back this year and Adam and Liz's wedding gave us the push and incentive we needed to make it happen. It was so good to get all of the Cronk side of the family together, (that rarely ever happens, because everyone lives in different parts of the country). And what better place to get together! We are ready to start planning our trip back!
Day 1 we didn't really do much! We landed in Hawaii at about 12:30pm Hawaii time. It took forever to get the rental car. We then went to lunch at Tony's favorite restaurant, Da Kitchen. Then we went across the street to get groceries at Costco, and Walmart. After checking into our condo, we got unpacked. We headed to the beach across from our condo at about 4:30pm and played and watched the sunset. We had a very long day of travel and were exhausted, we headed back to the condo and went to bed.
Our first full day on the island was spent at our favorite beach. Polo beach has good waves and there is never that many people there and it's just nice and low-key! The water was a little cold that day, but everyone had a great time! Tony swam with a sea turtle for a long time, the water was pretty murky from rain so the pictures are not very clear.
We had the wonderful opportunity to be invited to the "rehearsal dinner" the day before the wedding. But this wasn't your regular "rehearsal dinner"... Tony's aunt (mother of the groom) works for a boat charter company, and she rented a whole boat for the whole entire wedding party and guests for a snorkel trip to Molokini. One thing I learned... Fish are hard to take pictures of, they don't stay still! So here's a funny story... I get really bad motion sickness so I was prepared this time I had my doctor give me a prescription for patches. So I put one on Tuesday night (your suppose to put it on 3 days prior), then on Thursday (day of boat trip) I had Tony put a new one on me. That morning we went to the pool and it was so bright outside more than usual, but I forgot my sunglasses so I just thought that was why. Well on the way to the harbor I noticed my eyes getting really blurry, it was really weird. On the boat I took these chewable over-the-counter tablets for motion sickness. As we were on our 30 min boat ride to Molokini I noticed I could not see anything up close, my eyes were so blurry. I could still see far away, but my eyes were very sensitive when I didn't have sunglasses on. After the snorkel trip we went to Walmart and it was really bad, so I took the patch off. When we got home I looked in the mirror and my pupils were completely dilated. They were HUGE, it looked like I had been doing drugs. Anyway the blurriness went away within a day or so but my pupils stayed dilated for a few days. So in a ton of pics you'll notice my squinty eyes... Sad but kinda funny! Hope no damage was done to my eyes! The cool thing about going to Maui between the months of December and April is the Humpback whales. They come down from Alaska to breed and give birth. In the past, there have been about 3,500 whales in this certain bay at a time. It was so cool, you could sit on the beach and watch them jump out of the water (breach), you could see them blow water, and come out of the water. When we were on this boat trip these 2 whales were what looked like coming straight for our boat, it got a little scary. They are so huge and so beauitful. My favorite was watching the babies breach and do tail slaps, they were so cute! Pretty cool, what a fun day!
Tony and I took a morning to ourselves and went to Gannons (formally The Seawatch), where our wedding luncheon was held. We went up there and had breakfast. It was so yummy and you can't beat the view! We then ventured down to the Four Seasons Hotel where we were married. It was so weird walking through there! We actually walked right past where we were married because it looks nothing like it did on that day. They cut down all the trees around the little grove, it was sad! We walked to the little overlook where our ceremony took place and Tony said "We should have a ring ceremony". So me thinking he was being funny started to take off my ring, then he pulled out a wedding band! I was so surprised! He had it made to match my ring! It was so romantic!! After our nice little morning together we headed back to the condo and got our swimming suits and headed to Little Beach (the nude beach) to meet up with Tony's family. We hung out there for a little bit, then went back to the condo to get ready for the wedding. The wedding was beautiful, Liz looked Amazing and you could feel such a happy ambiance radiating from everyone there. It was so nice, I'm honored to have witnessed and been a part of their special day. Tony's uncle Greg officiated the wedding and he did exceptional! After the ceremony and pictures we all headed to the reception at Diamonds Ice Bar and Grill. Aunt Nini (mother of the groom) did such an amazing job at putting everything together, and decorating the room. Everything was amazing, good people, good food, good atmosphere, AMAZING music and dancing! It was a fun night!
One of our most favorite things about Maui or just Hawaii in general are the Swap Meets! We love to go to the Maui Swap Meet, you can find some pretty good deals on souvenirs. However they changed the Swap Meet to a new location, and some of the vendors are not the good local vendors there used to be. So it was kindof disappointing, but of course I still found things to buy! Cool story... Tony wanted to get a new fish hook necklace that is made out of some kindof bone. Well we were looking and he found one he liked at this Asian guys booth. So we walked around some more before buying it, and we came across this local Hawaiian guy (BIG local Hawaiian guy) that hand carves fish hooks, and all sorts of other things out of this certain bone (I don't know what it's called, Tony knows all about it). But he had the same one the Asian guy had. Anyway, so he was talking to us and asked where we were from and we told him Utah and he said his sister and her husband live in Provo, so we said we lived in the next town south of Provo. Then it got quite and he said very fast and under his breath "You LDS"? and we said "Yes... are you"? and he said "Yes"! It was really funny, maybe you had to be there but after that we were like we'll be back, and he said "come back and I'll give you the LDS discount"! So after walking through the whole swap meet we went back to buy the fish hook Tony liked. And Tony was talking to him about the wood and the bone on the hook, and Tony asked him about the Asian guy down the way and he said "An Asian guy selling Hawaiian stuff... I don't know about that"! It was so funny!! anyway so the guy hooked us up we got half off the price. And his hook is real bone and wood and not plastic like the Asian guys. I wish I would have got the guys name! It was pretty funny. After the swap meet we headed back over to the side of the island we were staying for a luncheon with the whole wedding party again. After everyone was done eating, a surprise proposal and wedding happened, nobody knew about it except for the couples kids, uncle Greg and aunt Nini, and like 3 or 4 other people. Then we just went to the beach for the rest of the evening and played with the family, before some of them headed home the next day.
Trevor and Ashlyn rented this electric GEM car for a couple days for them to cruise around in. We tagged along with them for the day and it was super fun. We went shopping in Wailea, went to lunch back up at Gannon's, and just cruised around Kihei. We had to try and find outlets where ever we went to plug in the car, so that was an adventure. That night the Oscars were on and we were invited to an Oscar party at Greg and Nini's house. We were told that there was going to be a Best Dressed and Worst Dressed awarded, so we got the boys in their best Oscar attire Maui Style!! It was alot of fun! Again Yummy food, good entertainment, and good people. Fun night!!
We decided to get a good beach day in, so Tony and I packed a cooler full of food and headed to Polo Beach. There was a high wave warning on the island that day, so the waves were alot bigger than normal for that beach. But it was so much fun! Kinda scary at times but fun. We had an amazing lunch on the beach. We spent the evening with the rest of the family at Kamaole Beach. It was a full beach day.
We headed to Lahaina for the day. I love Lahaina it's very old town Hawaii, it's alot of fun! I love Front Street and all the shops and restaurants. We had lunch a Bubba Gumps, and just shopped all day. We headed back to Kihei, for a little more shopping, and a BBQ with the family. It was our last night with Steve and Tammy... Sad!
Our Last full day and night in Maui was spent going on an adventure. We hung out at the beach with Tam and Steve before they had to leave. Then we (Trev, Ash, Tony and I) went back to the condo, packed lunches and headed out to go snorkeling off the shore on the south end of the island. We walked down this long path of volcanic rocks and over this hill to the shore. There was no beach just volcanic rock Ouchy on the feet! once you got in the water it was amazing, the water was pretty clear, and there were so many fish! It got a little scary because the current was very strong, it's crazy how far off shore you can get and not even realize it! The fish were amazing though, we swam through many schools of them and they don't care. Tony was obsessed with finding me a turtle, that he didn't take many pictures. We went to Big Beach after that to eat lunch, we got the most amazing whale show while sitting there. We just played in the water, in the HUGE waves and had a ton of fun. We were waiting for the sunset but the clouds were in the way!
Our last day we had to be out of the condo at 11am but our flight didn't leave until 11:30pm. So we had the whole day to kill. It was hard because we couldn't go to the beach. So we just went shopping all day and Tony and I went up to Iao Valley. The lovely, deep valley of 'Iao features the 'Iao Needle, a natural rock pinnacle presiding over the 'Iao stream and surrounded by the walls of the Pu'u Kukui Crater. Once used as a natural altar, the 2,250-foot stone pillar covered in green, is a basaltic core that has survived eons of swirling water. 'Iao Valley is the site of one of the most famous battles that occurred in 1790 and changed Hawaii history forever when King Kamehameha I destroyed the Maui army in an effort to unite the Hawaiian Islands. It's so beautiful and peaceful. The weather was amazing up there to, Iao Valley is the second wettest spot in Hawaii, and there was no rain up there that day, it was gorgeous! We got something to eat and headed to the airport for our red-eye!
We had an amazing trip and are so sad its over. There are so many things we still wanted to do! This was a very relaxed and much needed break! I'm so grateful we were able to go! I've already started planning next years trip back!
ALOHA
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