Hawaii 5-2

Scott and I were on our way to a church meeting when I got a message from Heather. She said she found some cheap airfare to Hawaii and did we want to join her and Gavin? You had to fly from a Thursday to Thursday to get the discounted fare, which are not the easiest days for Scott to travel, but the dates were over the week of Scott's birthday so it didn't take us long to respond with a big YES!

I got on my phone and purchased our airfare in the car on our way to the church. Then we decided we should invite mom and dad to join us as well and it only took them about 3 seconds to join in. Heather found us a beautiful resort on the beach with several pools and three king-sized bedrooms. We were afraid dad would want to use a timeshare or a trade for his housing but he surprised us all by agreeing to stay with us at this beautiful resort. He must really love us!

We had a fun little surprise on our flight to Maui. While waiting to board I saw that our pilot for the flight was a friend of ours from church, Bert Wagner. He happened to be our pilot on our flight home from New York a few months ago too and was not happy we didn't say something to the crew at that time cause he said he could take care of us. So we made sure to catch him and let him know we were on his flight again and yes, he took care of us! We got free movie devices and cheese plates!

We arrived after everyone else so the Seals and my parents drove the rental car and hung out at Walmart while waiting on us.

It was quite the Tetris challenge to fit all 6 of us, two sets of golf clubs, luggage for six, and a week's worth of groceries in that van. Good thing Scott and I were doing this food plan called Optavia that week and all our mail ordered pre-packaged freeze-dried food for the week fit into a ziplock bag in our suitcases.

The point of the diet is you eat a small meal, or "fueling" every two-three hours for a total of 6 per day and then a healthy meal for dinner. These fuelings only add up to about 700 calories a day and the portions are small. So feeling hungry is not uncommon! This diet plan became a week-long joke, both for it's name and for how little we could eat on it. Turns out Heather did it a couple of years ago but pronounced it Op-tāvia instead of Opta - via, and Scott can't ever remember the name at all. So every time it was mentioned in a text, someone would totally change the name to something funny. Here are just a few examples: Optimavidia, Optimalesmivida, Iwantmyvita2Boptimal,  Vitadeliciosa, Vidaloca, Optastarvia.

Our goal for this trip was rest and relaxation, then some more rest and relaxation. And that plan fit in just fine for the Seals and especially my parents. It is getting much harder for them to walk very far or very fast so our plan was to spend lots of time by the pool and at the beach.

First of all we checked out the beach in front of our hotel. Well, there was sand and water, but not much beach. Once the tide started rising and our 6 feet of beach front property turned into 2 feet we packed up and headed to the pool. That is where we spent most of our days.

We did venture out to the Black Rock Beach one day and had a great time. My dad was the first one to brave the waves in the ocean to do some snorkeling. He walked straight out into the water carrying his fins and snorkeling mask, thinking it would be easiest to put on all his gear once in the water. Poor guy. He kept getting knocked down by the waves, then the water would get in his eyes and it was just a vicious cycle of getting knocked over and not being able to see what he was doing. But hey, at least he tried!

We found one shelter tent in our condo that worked and after a few hours at the beach fighting for the little shade it was giving off, I suggested we head back since we were all obviously done with the sun.

Besides hanging out at the pool and the beach, we looked forward to heading out to eat dinner each night. No one more than Scott either. He warned us every day, "I am eating good tonight!" After eating those little freeze-dried fuelings all day he looked forward to dinner! But it was a good thing he keep his caloric intake low during the day, because every night at dinner, we celebrated Scott's birthday for a free dessert. Most nights that was a massive Hula Pie!

But we saved Scott's favorite for his actual birthday! The night before his birthday I stayed up extra late to put up a few balloons and birthday banner knowing that he would be up way before I would in he morning. It wasn't much but then again that was all the birthday decor I could fit in my carryon!

Scott's favorite restaurant of all time is Mama's Fish in Maui. And that is where we truly celebrated his birthday dinner on January 26th. 

We had also heard that my cousin's daughter, Megan Sefcik and her husband, were also vacationing in Maui at the same time. Then would you believe that we ran into them at Mama's Fish House that night? They were on their way out as we were being seated. We found out there were staying not too far from us but would be changing to a hotel on the other side of the island the next day. 

Scott and I brought our golf clubs so we made sure to use them at least once. Scott scheduled a tee time for us at Wailea Golf Course. The course was beautiful, but also about an hour's drive from our condo. So with only one car between us all, Heather and Gavin and my parents decided to drop us off and then go to McKenna State Park (Big Beach) and then visit Megan's new fancy hotel which wasn't too far away from our golf course.  

(We like to call this photo "The Evolution of Man")

Besides the pool and hitting the beach a couple of times, we did venture out a few other times. One of those was to attend sacrament meeting. My dad was cracking us up as he showed up for church wearing his dress shirt and tie and....Jazz warmup bottoms!

 My mom made sure he stood behind her in this picture so we could't see his pants!

It was during sacrament meeting here that we started receiving a bunch of text messages telling us that Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. It was unknown at the time who else was in the helicopter with him and it was possible other members of his family were killed as well. That was some really sad news and definitely put a damper on Scott's birthday. We eventually found out that one of Kobe's daughters was killed with him as well as several other people consisting of some friends and coaches. 

After hours of watching depressing news reports, we decided to watch a movie in our hotel room. We picked the remake of "Overboard" and it was really cute. Heather and I grew up watching the original movie over and over again. The remake starred the Mexican actor name Eugenio Derbez. Our second movie night just so happened to star Eugenio Derbez as well. So turned out we had an Eugenio Derbez movie marathon going on during our Hawaiian vacation!

As much as we loved our lazy week of lounging by the pool and the beach, watching Eugenio Derbez movies and sleeping in, a few of us were getting a little restless for a true outing. So for our last day there, we booked a whale watching tour. It was peak whale season and we had already heard there were many whale sightings from the land so we had high expectations. But even with those high expectations, I was blown away by the whale activity we got to see!

 (Not sure the guys can pull off the "brother's pose" quite as well as we do the "sister's pose")

It was a beautiful day to be out on the boat and we could see whales in every direction. The highlight had to be when a mamma, daddy and baby whale all came right up to our boat. They came right up to the side of the boat, then swam under the boat to the other side to make sure everyone got a nice view. 

 This week was exactly what we needed and had such a great time. It is always a blessing to have a week of rest and relaxation, but to get to enjoy it with family just makes it that much sweeter. 

Heather, Gavin, Mom and Dad left first thing in the morning to return our rental car and catch their flight. Scott and I got to sleep in a bit and then took an Uber to the airport. Getting this picture of my dad taking a little break in the middle of the airport was the perfect way to end my trip with a smile!

Aloha Hawaii - until next time!