Hawaii

Yes, it has been a long time since I posted. You may have wondered whether our family traveled to a tropical island far away from civilization, and then remained there, never to blog again. Well, it didn't exactly happen like that, although we were tempted.

Let's see..we had a few more days in California and more adventures including quality time in San Jose with our friends Eva, Bruce & Sonja (who is 2 years older than Eliana) and Sheryl, Sean, Sophie (1 yr older than Eliana) and Sasha, who just turned a year. Then it was off to a week in Hawaii at the Westin Villas on Maui, in the Kaanapali area of the island. Two year ago in January 2007, we got a call from my parents asking whether we had any plans in January 2009...turns out they had bought one week of a 2 bedroom timeshare at the Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas.

So who would possibly say no to a week in Hawaii in the middle of winter? The night before we departed from San Francisco, we noticed that the weather forecast was for the coldest winter weather on the East Coast in 15 years...we were thrilled to be far from the cold.

I have so many photos to share! This one summarizes the whole week:



We saw many, many smiles from Eliana throughout our time there...how could she not smile when she was doted on by Nene, Bampi, Mommy, Abba, Tanya & Uncle Larry, with extra drop in attention from Aunt Ann, Uncle David, Lauren & Josh?

How did we spend our time? Things evolved into a routine; in the mornings we would walk from our resort to the Westin Hotel and back, about a 3-4 mile walk. When we got there, we'd stop for breakfast:





The macadamia nut pancakes were particularly good. Eliana also liked looking at the flamingos, although she didn't get the whole standing on one leg concept.



In the afternoons (and sometimes the mornings as well), we took Eliana swimming. She LOVED it.





(Bampi wasn't sure he was recording the video above, so his toe makes a candid appearance.)



Then, we had other adventures. One cloudy day we went into Lahaina and had lunch at Kimo's, including their famous Hula pie...





which was, as you can imagine, very sweet. The funny thing is that we rarely give Eliana sweets, so she's just looking at the chocolate and ice cream with a puzzled expression.

Another day, we visited the Needle of Iao. Eliana had a great time walking up and down all of the steps.





Another cloudy morning, we visited the Barnes & Noble. Good news, Bampi found that they had many copies of his books in stock:



And even going for a walk outside our door was scenic and beautiful:





So that's it..hard to believe that we've gone and come back already. Anyway there's no question that a change of scene is always a good thing..we have warm memories of our trip and are working on creating some local adventures now!