Hawaii

Only a woman who has never been this pregnant nor traveled this late in a pregnancy would be crazy enough to join her husband for a trip to Hawaii. But we celebrated my 30th birthday in Maui! Believe me, there are not bathrooms everywhere a pregnant woman needs to go…and if there is a facility of sorts, there is no way you are parking your backside on that seat! So, yes, your imagination does you no favors as you imagine a nearly 8 month pregnant woman squatting above the great white throne!!!

While on Oahu, we did the tourist gig and visited the Polynesian Cultural Center for a quick tour, luau, and evening show. It is a one time deal, but pretty commercialized.

On to Maui where the snorkeling near Black Rock just outside our hotel on Kaanapali Beach allowed us to snorkel with green sea turtles a couple of days in a row. They are these fabulous and large creatures!

BlackRock at the end of Kaanapali Beach

View from our lanai

The humpback whales are in the Hawaiian Islands right now giving birth and mating. The action was phenomenal! We saw a mother nursing her 4 day old calf and watched the males frolicking antics in competition for mating rights. A mammal the size of a school bus rising out of the ocean is an amazing sight. Although we joined the Pacific Whale Foundation for a morning tour, you could perch on the beach and see just as much activity.

We hiked down to the ocean just past mile marker 42 to this place called Olivine Pools where the ocean has carved these fantastic pools in the volcanic cliffs. I took this photo just as the surf was coming up and the waves crashed over the pool edge and pushed Seth under the water and back against the shelf. Mother Nature at her finest and expressing her ultimate power!

On another morning, we took a sailboat cruise out to Molokini which is a sunken crater where you can snorkel on the coral reef. The wind was brisk that day, so the waves were a little choppy and the water chilly, but the visibility is fabulous! We took underwater cameras, but the photos just don’t do the beauty justice. Unknown to me, Seth snagged this shot of me and the baby belly…I suppose not everyone has an 8 month belly shot like this!

On my birthday, the weather was lousy, so we decided to take a driving tour to Hana and all the way around the island. We saw these beautiful trees that had multi-colored pastel bark.

Due to recent rains, the waterfalls were raging!

There were chickens that wandered everywhere we went on the island. And we saw lots of feral cats cleaning up the crumbs in every parking lot.


Black Beach with black volcanic sands was really exotic and the lava tubes were fun to explore.


The back side of the island resembles the Scottish highlands and was mainly utilized for cattle grazing. This beautiful rainbow came out just before the evening sunset.

We had dinner that evening at a place called Mama’s Fish House which is right on the beach and surrounded by a giant banyan tree. It is a high class place where you pay for ambience, but the food was excellent as well!

Our final parting tour was of the USS Arizona in Honolulu. It was worth the wait and very interesting to learn a little more about that piece of history.


These birds of paradise were blooming on the grounds there.