Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Maui (Hawaii Honeymoon Photographer)

June 13, 2013

After our wedding (yes, I got married in case you missed it, photos from that coming eventually!), Mike and I headed off to the south Pacific to Maui, one of the Hawaiian Islands. Since it's such a pretty place, I figured I'd share it all with you. Don't worry, this isn't ALL of our photos, it would be WAY too big of a post! But bare with my "slideshow" and check out our honeymoon adventures.

Day One, June 12, 2013: Our first day on Maui was spent checking out our resort and exploring. We headed up the northwest coast of the island for a long time to check everything out and see the sights (and there are a lot of gorgeous ones).Our resort, the Royal Lahaina Resort is on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (I heard that somewhere), Ka'anapali Beach. It is pretty amazing! Then we spent the evening (where I could barely keep my eyes open from the long flight the day before and the 6 hour time difference from home) at the Royal Lahaina Luau.


^That's our resort there.


^Heading north to see the sights, this is Napili.

^Our lunch stop, the Gazebo.

^Honolua Bay.




^Luau time!




Day Two, June 13, 2013:On our second day, we did a little more exploring. We checked out Lahaina, which is a cute little town and shopping area on the beach, south of our resort. We saw the huge banyan tree there and had some pizza at a local place for lunch, then Mike bought some shirts. Afterwards, we kept going south and found "Big Beach" where the waves were HUGE. It was fun swimming, even if I did get thrown onto the beach by the waves a few too many times. That wore us out and we headed back to our resort, where we also booked a few excursions for the rest of our time in Maui. Afterwards, we had dinner at this awesome restaurant at our resort, Basil Tomato's. So good! We liked it so much, we went back for the early bird special the next day ;)

^ The coast at Lahaina.

^The HUGE banyan tree (my Mom and sister were here about 8 years ago)


^Mike took this one in Lahaina.

^Big Beach with BIG waves.



^Mike was playing with my camera and took this one of the tiki guy at the resort :)
Day Three, June 14, 2013: I don't have many photos of our snorkeling trip because I got CRAZY seasick and really wasn't into it. Kind of a shame, but hey, that's what happens when you have lousy ol' motion sickness! We did get an underwater camera that Mike had a fun time using while he was swimming around though, and though we don't have good photos of them, we saw dolphins and sea turtles too!

^Heading out to the snorkeling spots on a WAY too windy day.



^Mike looks happy, and I know I'M feeling much better on dry land... and eating dinner!

Day Four, June 15, 2013: Our next excursion had us up at 2am. Whoa, although that wasn't too much of a stretch for us, as it was only 8am at home! We were bussed up to the top of the Haleakala (House of the Rising Sun) Crater to see the sunrise. It was windy and in the 40s up there, brrrrr! But it was an awesome site. Next we road the bus down a few thousand feet and biked the rest of the way down the mountain. We had a slow kid in our group, so we didn't get to go too fast, but it was still a pretty cool trip. We couldn't take photos the way down so I didn't get too many, sadly, but there are still a few good ones. We went back to Lahaina as well that day and chilled the rest of the night since we had been up so early, although we did find the Maui Brewing Company, where there was lots of good beer for Mike, and pasta for me!


^The sun coming up over the crater.





^Smooches on our bike above Maui.


^Lunchtime with a view of the mountains.


Day Five, June 16, 2013: Our next trip had us traveling all the way around the east part of the island. We took a bus on the road to Hana (spoiler alert, Hana isn't really much of anything, although seeing everything on the way was worth it) and back around again. We saw some awesome valleys and mountains, ocean views and waterfalls, chickens, trees, caves, black sand beaches, deserts, etc. And before the end of the day, we stopped at Maui's only winery! Mike and I did some damage there :)

^Gum tree on the road to Hana.





^Still think this is my favorite photo from the whole trip.




^A cool stop before Hana at a park with awesome lava rock formations and a black sand beach.









^Ranch land in the desert side of the island. LOVE this tree.

^The OTHER side of the crater.



^WINE! Woo hoo!


^Torch ginger. Very pretty!

Day Six, June 17, 2013: All the trips we'd been on so far made my motion sickness act up (my ears are wusses!), but this day we finally found something I could do without getting nauseous! Haha! Anyway, we headed back up the crater to the US's first zip line tour. It was five lines and each one was more fun than the last. It was fast and fun and just scary enough to be awesome. I'm not sure it was exciting enough for Mike but I sure had a good time! That night we also found Whaler's Village (no photos, I left the camera in the room :( which had lots of good shopping and restaurants to check out.




^LOVING the zip line!



^Mike on the biggest zip line, my favorite!

^Relaxing by the pool on our last night at the resort.


Day Seven, June 18, 2013: Our last day was just a little more exploring before catching our flight home. After checking out, we stopped back by Whaler's Village and continued back to the east toward the airport. Though, again, I didn't take too many photos, we stopped in Paia Town, which was really a cool little ecclectic place to visit, I'm glad we made it there. It was a long flight home but the trip was pretty great!

^At Whaler's Village.


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