Nine Fun-Filled Days in Paradise

This year the Woodbury's were oh-so-generous to take us to Maui for our annual family trip. Everyone was able to come except for Luke, who we missed sorely, and we had such a fun time together in the warm and sunny tropics! We spent half of the time in condos in Napili. They were right along this beautiful inlet where there were tons of sea turtles and incredible snorkeling. The last few days we spent at a resort in Wailea with all sorts of pools, one of which had a play structure and 2 pretty fun slides, and beaches just a short walk away. In a quick run-down, Friday we snorkeled and went to a beach, Saturday Danny and I cycled 50 miles or so around the coast West Maui, Sunday we went to church and hung out, Monday Danny and I went on a set of 5 zip-lines and then we went to an incredible aquarium with some of the fam, Tuesday Danny and I did the road to Hana where we hiked to and swam in waterfalls and jumped off cliffs at the Seven Pools (everyone else decided not to come, how sad!), Wednesday we snorkeled a little then drove to our new hotel, Thursday we played in the pools at the resort (our game of tag was the funnest part!) then went to a luau, Friday we played in the pools some more and went to the beach, and Saturday we watched the World Cup soccer game, went to Iao Valley State Park with Kim and Jason, watched Toy Story 3, then went to the airport to sadly end our fun familial escapade. And between all that we ate yummy food, played games, and just had fun being together! Thanks Mom and Dad Woodbury for such an unforgettable trip!

A passionate embrace :)

Snorkeling with Heather and Sam. It was Sam's and Jake's first time snorkeling!

Jumping on a sand castle we built. Well, I helped a tiny bit in the building process... Danny and I cycling a loop around the coast of west Maui. Definitely the hardest 50 miles I have ever biked. With all the ups and downs along the coast, we ascended a total of over 5,000 feet! Plus, along the only part that was mostly flat we were either dealing with Danny's flat tire or 20 mph winds pushing straight against us. Most of the part that consisted of ups and downs winding along the north coast was actually a beat-up one lane road, so we had to watch out for cars coming both directions. Without even looking we even saw around 4 or 5 cars that had gone off the steeply descending side of the road and were lodged against trees or upside-down below. Pretty crazy!

About to take off down one of the five zip-lines

Danny and I about to take off. This zip-line was almost exactly a half mile long, and we got up to 40 mph, even with the winds. When you looked to the right you could see the rolling hills, and when you looked to the left you could see green hills and then the ocean.

Swimming below one of the waterfalls on the Road to Hana

One of the waterfalls

Our secret waterfall. We couldn't take the camera with us to the furthest up waterfall as it was pretty sketchy getting there and we had to rock climb in order to do so. But it was so hard to get there that Danny and I were the only two people up at the top, and we got to swim in a secluded pool below a beautiful waterfall... how romantic :)

The Seven Pools. Here we would climb to the top of the waterfall and jump the 20-30 feet or so to the pool below

At the seven pools looking out to the ocean

Getting ready to go snorkeling. At this spot literally right in front of our condos we saw tons of huge sea turtles, all sorts of beautiful varying kinds of fish, a few eels, and even an octopus!

Playing tag around the kid pool of the hotel we stayed in the last few days. Here Sam and I are scheming on who he would help me get since I was "it"

Papa Rick getting Danny wet. If you pulled on that rope it would cause all that water to fall

A continuation of our game of tag. You can see in the background my superb form as I leap forward to tag Jason (at least I think that's who I'm tagging)

Danny and I before the luau, where we got to see the fire dancing world champion

The whole family before the luau. Notice how we are all matching with our respective families. Cute huh?