hanging out in hawaii.

I'm back home after another wonderful vacation. My mom and I spent a week in glorious Maui, basking in the sunshine, splashing in the ocean, and eating everything in sight.   In a perfect world, Ryan and I would pack up our lives, move to the island, and raise a little surfer baby.  

Since that is unrealistic, vacations will have to suffice. 

I could write a long post about every little detail of our trip, but that would be a whole lot of proclaiming my love for fish tacos and coconut gelato. Instead, I'll leave you with the photos, because that is much more fun anyways.

We flew standby and didn't know until an hour before our flight whether we'd make it to Maui or not. When the gate agent hands you a boarding pass with assigned seats, it's like winning the lottery. We had woke up in Edmonton, and we'd be going to bed in paradise. 

We lucked out and got a great deal on a perfect condo suite for our stay. The man on the phone must have liked my mom, because we were upgraded to a 2 bedroom condo on the top floor with an ocean view.  I'm pretty certain that I could get used to this.  

We also cruised in style for the week in our red Mustang Convertible. Our hair was a permanent state of windblown mess, but we felt like the coolest people on the planet.  

Maui has some of the most gorgeous sunsets. My camera is often abandoned as of lately, but I made sure to put it to good use.  

We indulged in fish tacos on several occasions... they just aren't the same anywhere at home! I'm missing them already.

We spent a day driving the Road to Hana. It was a gorgeous drive down windy roads with incredible views. We blasted "Island Radio" and cruised to the mellow beach music. 

Along the way we stopped for my first of many shaved ice that trip. It was incredibly hot outside and they would always melt too fast, but my goodness, Hawaii knows how to do shaved ice. This hungry pregnant lady was in Heaven. 

Our last stop on the Road to Hana was my absolute favourite! The views were incredible and we truly felt like we were in paradise. 

This was also home to the black sand beach, which was so amazing to see. We were both in awe of the  soft, pure black sand and perfect little pebbles.  

Of course, we went to the regular sand coloured beaches in Kihei as well. 

On our last night we went to a luau. That buffet was my paradise.  Every bite was delicious and I may or may not have used the "eating for two" excuse... 

It was a great night, and so much fun to get dressed up with flowers in our hair and leis around our necks! 

I skipped part of the show because I couldn't resist taking sunset photos... 

Baby Shippelt loved Maui too! It was his/her first time in the Pacific Ocean.  With baby and a little help from all of the food that I consumed, I'm really starting to feel rather large these days! 

Sadly, our trip had to come to an end. The flight out of Maui was full so we decided to island hop to Kona for better odds of getting back to Canada.  We flew on a Cessna Grand Caravan, much to the dismay of my mother, who happens to be exceptionally afraid of small planes. 

She did just fine once we were in the air and she was able to take in the incredible views as we caught our last glimpse of Maui. 

We managed to get on the flight, and after a long sleepless night we landed in Vancouver. We spent the day exploring Granville Island and buying ourselves more delicious treats.  

For dinner we searched for a good seafood restaurant and after the longest wait in the history of long waits, we finally got a table. I was initially disappointed to discover a lack of non-alcoholic beverages (Not even Sprite!) but the food certainly made up for it.  

The next day, it was back to miserable, rainy Edmonton. I missed Maui, but when my husband and puppy met me at the airport I remembered how great it is to be home, sweet home! I've now returned from my last vacation before the baby arrives!  From here on out, it's family vacations for us!