Hawaii....ALOHAAAAA

So we went to Hawaii last week for our 8 year anniversary! I've never been to Hawaii before, but Art has been twice. We decided to go to Maui, since thats an island he's never been to. We decided to go cheap, as in we stayed at a condo type hotel and brought food with us. This is totally new for us, we are usually hotel then eat out. But since we just went on our super duper Sandals vaca we decided it was probably smarter to go cheap.

We stayed at the Maui Kaanapali Villas, which now are called Aston Kaanapali Shores (online, but when you get there its still the first name..) it was an awesome location. And VERY quiet. Hardly any bratty kids there, and not many people hanging around the resort either. Thats how I like it. The pools were AWESOME (except that they all had a deep end...I no me gusta!) they were soooo warm. I'm talking like a bath. Usually no matter where we are the pool always seems a little cold when you first put your foot in. But then once you get all the way in, its usually fine. This one I put my foot in and I was like oh my gosh, I just went to heaven. Art is thinking, oh lord help us, Rebekah is going to want to stay in all day. Its true, I love love love the pool. So our room is nice too, all the rooms are decorated different since they're all individually owned. Ours was fine, kind of what I expected. But there were some rooms we saw that had just been done up with fancy schmancy decor... Thats okay. Who needs that. Resort is good, we like it.

So lets see here. We mostly just hung out at the pool or the beach everyday. We only were there for 5 days, so we didn't have a ton of time, since half the first and last day were travel days. On Friday I decided I would try snorkeling. I got in and there are some waves there, not big ones but enough that pushes you up quite a bit. I put my head in and was like oh hell no. So I told Art he could go out by himself. I stay up on the beach and enjoy the sun and watch as he swims way out. He goes out for probably a half hour, then he comes and tells me all about the cool stuff he saw. Now I want to try it again. So I have Art go rent me a lifevest. There is no way in hell I am trying this again without one. So he goes and gets one. There is a lady in the water who is helping me relax, telling me to say, I used to be afraid of the water, but not today, the water can't hurt me. I'm thinking okay thats lovely, but it could hurt me if I drown, or if a shark attacks me. The worst part on this beach is the getting into the water with your snorkel stuff. The waves hit you so much that its hard to even stand up, so with putting all that crap on, its a difficult task to get in without falling over. I do it, and at first I'm breathing really hard, and kind of scared. I make Art hold my hand the entire time. As I'm terrified to do this alone. So we start swimming around and we do see a bunch of awesome fish. I knew it was getting deeper. I estimated it was probably like 10-12 feet, Art smiled and said okay if thats what you think. (He didn't want me to know it was probably at least 15 or more) And same thing, at first I was freaking a little, but then I just took a deep breath and thought okay I can breathe and I have a lifevest on, I'm safe. Tons of yellow orange and blue fish, oh and some black and white polka dot ones too. Those ones are funny. We snorkel for a while and then I'm like okay I need a break. We go back out a while later to a different spot and see even more fish.

The next day we decide to go exploring on the island. So we saw a ton of different beaches, took a million pictures, and just had a great time together. Nothing too exciting this day, so onto Sunday we'll go. A couple at the resort had told us about this really cool snorkeling place (see pic up top) so we went on an adventure to find it. And we did. We stopped up top at the lookout and it looks gorgeous. We see a ton of people. We get down to the ocean and its all rocky, we had brought our watersocks, mostly because I don't feel comfortable with the flippers yet. And also thankfully with how slippery the rocks were, the watersocks were much easier than flippers would have been. So at first the water is super merky (sp??) you can't really see anything, then I'm like hmmm...okay whatever. So we swim out a ways. We start seeing some fish after a while, pretty much the same as the ones by the resort. We swim over to where a bunch of other people are and see a HUGE school of fish. I'm talking like at least a thousand. They were all over the place! This one girl is freaking out, she thinks they're going to eat her or something. They were fairly big fish for how many there were. They were like the ones of finding nemo...when one switched direction, they all did. So we swam around with them for a while. We went pretty deep here, and I knew it, and I didn't even freak out. We went out where the boat/catamaran is in the picture. (Yes I had rented the lifevest for the entire day) I'd say we were at least 20 ft, maybe more, who knows. But at least that deep. So we hung out here for a couple hours and decided we'd seen enough. On the way back in, it seemed like there was nothing for the entire way back and it was taking forever. Then when we were almost back we saw this AWESOME fish it was like 4 different neon colors and sooo BRIGHT! Neither of us had seen this kind anywhere else. Then right next to him was this neon yellow long fish like a foot long and really skinny with a point nose. They were both really cool. Done snorkeling here. We didn't see any seaturtles, which is what I really wanted to see. So we decide maybe we'll try blackrock which is suppose to be the best snorkeling in Maui, and just happens to be right next to our hotel.

Once we get there, there is a TON of people and I'm like nope, actually I'm pretty done. (Having my ears in the water for so long, kinda gave me a headache) Art goes out and not two mins later I hear someone shout there's a seaturtle. Art looks up and I've already got my stuff and I'm running into the ocean. I get out there a bit and don't know where they had seen him. Then I hear someone say oh here he is. So I'm trying to run back in (wasn't too deep) but its hard as the water is so choppy. Finally I get to where the guy is saying he is and I put my head in. HOLY CRAP ( okay actually I yelled Holy S%&*) because the thing was HUUUUGGGGEEE. I seriously could not believe my eyes. It was insane. I swear he was like the size of my four wheeler. He starts swimming away and I could not keep up with him. But it was AWESOME, and then I found Art and I was like okay I'm done, saw my seaturtle.

So I snorkeled in deep water, which is a big actually huge accomplishment for me. And other than that we just hung out, relaxed and spent time together. It was a great quick getaway. Wishing I was still there. I'll be putting up a separate blog on our dinner at Roys. But since this one is so long, I figured I better just stop it now!!

Ohhh except for one thing. Something we did to entertain ourselves was taking "action shots" on the camera. So we'd jump in the air, and catch every motion in pics on the camera. So here are our pics from that. The one of Art made me laugh for AT LEAST two hours straight!!! I told him to jump up and click his heels to the side. You know how people do that like on movies and stuff. Well he has no CLUE what I am talking about, and this is the end result. Ohhh lord, reminds me of danceteam. This picture is my new favorite. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!!!