Maui, Part IV – Road Trips

The pics below were taken on trips to Lahaina (where we got to meet up with half-Hawaiian/half-Edmontonian, Cristina!), the North Shore and around the Fairmont Kea Lani, however some other fun things we did were visit Paia, enjoy dinner at the Five Palms with our friends Christy and Andreas and of course check out Hawaiian Costco, for it’s plethora of cheap wine and beer, huge packs of marlin steaks and awesomely delicious poke counter. We also did some whale watching, but that’s in the next post.

Maui, Part III – Birthday Time

Birthday time! The master plan was to surprise the un-surprisable, and everything went off without a hitch! Sue is one of Shirley’s dearest friends, however she lives in the US and they don’t often get to see each other. As soon as we planned out the trip details, Michelle and Sue began to conspire, and were able to plan out a great party including leis, grass skirts, streamers, Hawaiian themed cakes and, of course, the shocking reveal of great friends that Shirley thought were an entire ocean away! It might have been Shirley’s birthday, however the look on her face when she saw Sue and Tom was a fantastic present for the rest of us!
A few days later, on her actual birthday, we headed out to Mama’s Fish House on the North Shore for the official, pre-planned, birthday lunch courtesy of Guy, where we all enjoyed an amazing meal and, perhaps, a mai-tai or two. Great times were had by all!

Maui, Part II – The Condos

We stayed in a condo at a complex called Menehune Shores, in North Kihei. Since we’d booked fairly last minute, both us and Guy and Shirley ended up having to switch units halfway through, due to pre-existing bookings, but it still worked out fantastically despite the mid-trip moves. These pics were all taken in and around the complex. The last pic is the morning after Isabelle’s mid-slumber tumble out of bed, which wasn’t the nicest way for any of us to wake up at 3:30am.

Maui, Part I – Beaches

It took a little while to get all the photos in order because, as usual, we took a ridiculous amount of them, but here are the Maui trip photos! The basics of the trip are that we planned everything out fairly last minute, but were still able to convince Guy and Shirley to drop everything and join us. We were also able to plot out a serious surprise visit for Shirley’s birthday from our friends Sue and Tom! I’ve split out the photos into themes, and we’ll start with beaches, because really, that’s why anyone goes to Hawaii.

We spent most of our time on Kamaole I and Kamaole II, which are town beaches in South Kihei. It’s kind of mind-boggling that such amazing beaches can be right in town, but they were and we made good use of them. We also visited Big Beach, which is another incredible beach south of Wailea. Isabelle had a great time playing in the waves and sand, and Elodie had a great time eating the sand, while we had a great time relaxing and watching whales from the shore.

From the Archives: Valentine’s Day

Since Valentine’s Day 2012 happened to be the day that we closed on the purchase of our first house, we decided it deserved better than simply being derided as a “Hallmark Holiday” and we did it up in style. Cupcakes, balloons, lots of red, pink and white, and later on we had a cheese and chocolate fondue double date with some friends. Take that, Hallmark haters.

Just Some Afternoon Pics

Just some pics of Isabelle and Elodie rolling around on the floor, cuddling and reading about whisky.

This Makes Us Pretty Happy

While we find this video ridiculously cute, it’s also the beginning of an extremely important era; the era of sisters keeping each other entertained!

Winnipeg!

Here’s one from the Archives!

Back in October, we headed out to the ‘Peg to visit Kathleen, Brian and Maddie. We were a little leery after learning from Kathleen that “a Winnipeg Handshake” was a euphemism for being stabbed, but we steeled our nerves and out we flew.
Isabelle’s immediate and exciting discovery was that Auntie Kathleen had set up her tent in the basement as a special bed for Belle and B (her bear). This was a big hit, and is also why the bottom bunk of the bunk-bed at my parents’ place is currently referred to as “a tent.” We settled in nicely, and were soon touring around Winnipeg, meeting some great new friends, and enjoying great food and great company. We visited a nature centre, downtown Winnipeg, the zoo, an awesome kids’ museum and Assiniboine park. Though we’re not packing our stuff up for a move or anything, we thought Winnipeg was a really nice city, which may or may not have gone against our expectations. Nice work, Winnipeg and thanks for a great visit, Gregsons!

Darcy and Rich Visit for Thanksgiving!

Here’s one from the archives!

Back in October, our good friends Darcy and Richard stopped in on their way across the country. We had a great time catching up, unleashing Isabelle on them, introducing them to Elodie, and enjoyed a great Thanksgiving dinner with them and Matt and Shaz.