Hawaii, post #4...and final?!?....

I don't want it to seem like I'm ramming this Hawaii stuff down your throats. But I mean, really, how many times can someone say they did all this!? Unless you're rich and famous, or the Lucchesi/Trice clan? I know this was my third trip, but my first with my husband and son and very likely our last big trip like this for a while. Poor us will just have to settle for the many cottages scattered across the mid west and east coast that our families share! Poor, poor us!

So, after this I will move on to other fun summer adventures we've participated in! But, enjoy a few more quick videos that I hope convey how beautiful those islands are and how much fun we really had.

(fixed it, now this is the right video of dolphins!)

This was our second day on Maui. Brian, Jim, and Scott went on the bike ride down the volcano that day. So, the girls and little boys ventured to a different beach. It was a short drive from our condo. It was beautiful but the break water onto shore was a little rough at times. This was an amazing 10minutes when we saw dolphins! Wild dolphins! For a brief moment we were told that they were reef sharks and decided I'm never taking my son into the water again. But then, a man who was swimming among them said they were definitely dolphins. If you look close at the video you can see snorkelers among them and several of the dolphins jumping from the water. Can you imagine being one of those swimmers?! What a story that would make. I thought it was cool enough seeing it from shore. The other thing I like from this video and I wished I would have slowed it down a bit, but you can see how beautiful the other island is in the distance.




This was our first real venture to a waterfall. Ben stayed back with his Aunt Jenny, but we got a few minutes here. It was just after this that we nearly lost Ben's blanket not knowing he threw it out the window during the stop. It was later retrieved and soaked in OxyClean overnight.




Me holding Ben and Brian making our way to a beautiful waterfall!




This was at the Seven Sacred Pools (even though there are more than 7 and they are not sacred, that is what they are called). It's a sequence of fresh waterfalls that lead out to the ocean and it's a nice place to swim. And we did! The Bishops and Scott ventured down and Ben LOVED it! The water was a little on the cool side, but fresh so we soaked it up! There were plenty of shallow areas that were perfect for toddlers. Wished we had more time there, but the day was long already and we still had a long drive back to the condo. We decided to drive all the way around the island instead of driving back the way we came and it was amazing! So much beautiful scenery that pictures just can't capture.



I was telling Brian how my mother ventured out onto this rock for a photo op and how she was nearly taken out to sea by a rogue wave. Brian took this as a challenge to venture out to same rock. Idiot...



Although it pains me to put a video of me in a bathing suit on the blog I will. Ben and I were taking turns burying each other in the sand. He was super cute! He wanted to do just like Mommy did, including shaking his legs out of the sand, too! What we didn't catch was him RUNNING into the water to rinse off after wards. He's definitely a beach boy!


With all the beautiful things we saw, I thought I'd save this for last. We had a few long car rides getting to these gorgeous places and we got a little crazy trying to keep the kids entertained. Jackson just stayed stunned. Ben was horrified at first, you can then hear him chiming in! I thought we were pretty good! Scott coming in with the base was the best.