Paradise...and Hawaii was nice too!

Scott and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this year!

I love that I can truly say that my marriage has surpassed all my wildest expectations.

Every little girl dreams of not only her fairytale wedding, but her happily-ever-after, and I am happy to say that my real life is even better than my dreams.

We celebrated by spending 6 days in Maui.  We are still not quite sure how we got the invitation, but we were invited to stay at the Westin in Maui at a huge discount.  Yes, there was a time-share presentation involved.  BUT....you were not required to attend!  The hotel already paid for our rental car, and if we decided to attend the presentation, they would also throw in another $175 hotel credit (and some yummy chocolate-covered macadamia nuts).  Scott agreed for the hotel credit and they had me at chocolate-covered macadamia nuts!  

The presentation did take a little longer than they had promised (2 hours) but that was just because Scott showed too much interest and asked too many questions so as not to appear rude.  He even took notes and asked for her card!  But in the end, when we said, "not only no, but Heck no!" we were allowed to leave without any high-pressured sales but a lovely, "thanks for listening and here is a 50% off coupon to come see us again"!

I was a little nervous before we left town when I saw the forecast for Maui was rain everyday.  But once we were there, it was perfect.  We had enough clouds that you had breaks from the hot sun, enough wind to cool you off and just a few minutes of light sprinkles every few days to make sure we had a beautiful rainbow in the sky every day.

This trip was all about Rest and Relaxation so we didn't plan much except for what book to read by the pool and which restaurant to eat at for dinner.  We did take a leisurely walk down the beach to another hotel one night to  watch their cliff-jumper.  Some stupid couple decided to climb up the rocks just minutes before the diver was scheduled to jump and ruined everyone's photos.

Sunday we went to church.  We thought the meeting started at 9:00 but once there, discovered it was their Stake Conference and started at 10:00.  Well, we got a good parking spot and lots of time to read our scriptures in preparation for the meeting!  It was a broadcast from SLC and really enjoyable.  After church, we drove up to Haleakala National Park and looked out over the volcanic crater.

At night we enjoyed going in to the town of Lahaina to eat and window shop.  Our favorite window shopping to do is the Art Galleries.  Oh, how many pieces of art, and how little wall space!!!

One of my friends from high school, Stephanie Shumway (now goes by Ana Sophia) lives in Maui and works at one of the Art Galleries as an art dealer.  It was fun to catch up with her and have her show us some of their top pieces.

This is what happens when you drink and drive.

This was the view from our pool and this is about all we did every day....nothing.

Our favorite part about Maui is not the climate, the beach, the sun or the excursions....it is a little place we call MFH, or Mama's Fish House.  This has the best food on earth!  And this is where we celebrated the actual night of our anniversary.

The food was as good as we remembered, the ambiance even better!  

I love you Scott and look forward to many more years of living out my "happily-ever-after" with you.