Settling in to our Maui home...

Our home for less than a week in Maui: simple, right on the beach in Kihei.  Beach: long and white.  Pool: just about perfect for a quick swim, and the grounds: great for exploring with kids!  A few key shots of the Maui Sunset Condos that was our home.  And a few others to set the tone.  Great week with Bella, Erin, Melissa and Ruby!  (minus the stomach flu part)

Much reading was done.

Playing shuffle board...

early morning walk

And the little girls bonded nicely :-)

on the lenai for a morning cup of Kona coffee...

Bella sure surprised the young boy who was behind this door when the elevator opened!  BIG eyes!

Bella did absolutely wonderful learning to swim!

A Hawaiin culinary adventure...

Spicy Tuna Nachos from Quatro

Erin and I agree on one thing in particular:  travel is as much about new experiences and relaxation as it is about new food adventures.  And there were a couple great ones! 

Thanks to Bree W., we heard about the little Kihei strip-mall restaurant called Quatro, which was- get this- Latin and Asian fusion (sounds awful!).  But it wasn't.  Wasn't at all.  In the midst of the Ruby puke-fest, Erin, Bella and I escaped for a great meal.   We liked it so much that we went the night before we left as well.  

Crab cakes

Seared Ahi

Pupu Steak

Our 2nd favorite restaurant was in Lahaina, a place that Sven and I absolutely loved the last time we came to Maui: the little ocean-front diner called Honu, which had a really intense Lavendar and White Cheese Pizza.  But best of all: Ahi Bruschetta on flax toast with edamame puree, tomaatoes and 20 year old Balsamic.  Somehow I managed to not get any good photos of the food, but check out the view!

 

 

My favorite breakfast and lunch:  whichever Safeway or Foodland Poke is fresh!  LOVE it!

Surfing Goat Dairy

Bella feeding a goat at the Surfing Goat Dairy Farm in Kula, on the hillside above Kihei.  This wonderful farm produces scrumptious goat cheese products: cheese, chocolates, chevre, ice cream.  And soap.  But we enjoyed feeding the goats as much as we did sampling the products. 

This is Einstein: the smart goat that figured out that the best nibblins are to be obtained from the bits that fall to the ground.

An afternoon on the Hana Highway

On our last day on Maui, we checked out of our condo by 11, and then spent the next 8 hours playing: we went to the beach then drove to the east side of the island.  We drove until we saw Rainbow Eucalyptus trees, about 10 miles down the Hana highway or so.  On the way, we stopped in at something called Twin Falls that was noted on a map that Bella had taken from a store (thanks Bella- we were just driving and didn't really know where to go).  Turned out this little unmarked beauty (only recognizable as a stop by the fact that there was a fruit stand and about 10 cars at a pull-out) was a mile and a half of lovely jungly walkway which ended at a lovely waterfall...  Truly wonderful little stop off.

Melissa swimming under the falls

The slow wade back from the falls.