Home from paradise

We are home from Maui. Coming home from a nice vacation like this is always bittersweet. We had a great time in Hawaii, though by most standards we might have seemed pretty boring. When Marc and I vacation, we generally do it for relaxation, and we don't concern ourselves with packing every day and night full of activities. There's a lot of "going with the flow" and doing whatever we feel like doing when we feel like doing it. We spent most mornings at the Kamaole beaches right across from our condo. Snorkeling was great at Ulua the first couple days we were there, but then it got pretty murky after that. We ate at the condo pretty often to save money, but we did go out for dinner most of the time. Lulu's became our new favorite restaurant for this trip--if you're ever there, try the Magnum P.I. burger. When we weren't snorkeling or playing in the waves, we were ususally basking in the sun. With the exception of my chest, which ALWAYS burns no matter what I do, I didn't get burnt this trip. Amazing.

We did a little shopping, but didn't really buy many souveniers for ourselves or others. We spent most of our time in Kihei, where we lived for the 11 days. One day we flew over to Oahu to visit Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri. I hadn't been there before. It was really neat to see the memorial, but we didn't have enough time to really explore the Missouri before we had to get back to airport. We also spent a morning up in Lahaina--though I wish we could have made a day out of that trip (about 45 minute drive from Kihei) spending a morning at a different beach, eating lunch up there, doing some shopping, and maybe catching dinner there, too. Instead we just window shopped and went back home. We went to the Maui Ocean Center and aquarium, where they have tons of local aquatic life, including a big tiger shark. That's another place I hadn't been to, so that was cool.

And the cherry on top of the sundae: flying first class. No, we didn't shell out the big bucks to buy first class tickets when we made reservations, but when all the first class seats don't sell, you can upgrade to them cheaper. So we splurged on the way down and on the way back. It was NICE. And it will be hard not to do that in the future. Now we can plan ahead and budget for such things before next year's trip.

So, to recap: we flew in style, I read three books, we got nice tans, we completely relaxed, we ate well, we had fun. All in all, it was a good trip. Unfortunately, we came home to some bad news. While we were away, one of our rats, Cookie, died. Her sister Oatmeal is okay; we're not sure what happened to Cookie. Our friend who was checking in on all our animals while we were away found her and kindly wrapped her up and preserved her in the freezer so that we can have a proper burial. This is the first pet Marc and I have lost together, and even though I ended up being allergic to the rats and can't really hold or play with them, it was very sad to lose our sweet little girl. We'll miss you and the funny little clicking noises you made, Cookie!