Maui: Trip 4

Posted on January 11, 2019 by sandersnm

To ring in 2019 we headed to Maui to celebrate our friends getting married! We had a beautiful sunrise and some great views of Molokai and Lanai on our flight over.

Lanai

Windmills on West Maui.

We arrived on Saturday morning and had breakfast in Paia at Paia Inn Café.

Pineapple mint jalapeño juice. Delicious but so spicy!

Huevos Rancheros Verde: cumin black beans, two eggs, salsa verde, lime crema, queso fresco, with corn tortillas, and cilantro

After breakfast, we drove around and then headed to Lahaina to check in and get ready for dinner. We made reservations to visit our favorite restaurant, Mama’s Fish House, for dinner.

Crispy Mahi-Mahi Rolls with poha berry and Hamakua mushroom brandy sauce

Seared ahi special

Mama’s Stuffed Fish: Stuffed with lobster and crab, baked with a Macadamia nut crust

On Sunday, we walked around Lahaina and then met at Hale Pa’ahao Prison for the rehearsal before the rehearsal dinner at Old Lahaina Luau.

Hanging out at the prison!

Monday was the big day! The girls started their day at the Royal Hawaiian getting ready for the ceremony. We all got to wear the most incredible flowers in our hair! Caitlin was just stunning and we had a blast getting beautiful!

Beautiful rainbow to start our morning!

Getting beautiful!

Can’t get over how beautiful the flowers were!

Just stunning!

Next stop, the prison! It was a beautiful ceremony with more unbelievable flowers. After the ceremony, we boarded a whale watching boat to cruise around Maui, Lanai, and Molokai. We saw whales and an incredibly sunset.

Jake and Kersten!

Next stop was Down the Hatch in Lahaina followed by dancing at Monkeypod to ring in the new year! It was such a wonderful day celebrating!

Lahaina at night

Shots for Jake’s birthday at midnight!

Mitch’s Sushi

Posted on January 5, 2019 by sandersnm

We recently tried Mitch’s Sushi for the first time and it was AWESOME. Everything was super fresh and delicious!

Moorea

Posted on January 3, 2019 by sandersnm

After our cruise ended, we stayed an extra two days on Moorea in an overwater bungalow. This was an item on my bucket list that I never thought I’d have a chance to cross off. I don’t think I can truly put into words how awesome it was to stand on our deck and be able to see fish, stingrays, and sharks clearly. We spent every day walking outside, jumping into the water, and snorkeling for hours.

On our first day we checked in, grabbed lunch, and hopped in the water to snorkel. After snorkeling, we enjoyed some champagne, a sunset, and some pretty awesome stingray watching.

Saying bye to our ship from the ferry to Moorea!

Loved that we could sit and look at the water inside!

Quite a view.

This stingray seems to be missing it’s tail :(.

Huge pufferfish!

Spotted eagle ray. So graceful!

After our sunset, we headed to dinner at the crepe restaurant. At night, the blacktip reef sharks come to visit the restaurant so we had quite a few friends hanging out for dinner.

So cool.

Mango Rotui!

Delicious crepes for dinner!

After dinner, we crashed after our big day and got some sleep so we could do it all over again!

We woke up on Friday and started our day on stand up paddleboards in the lagoon. We saw tons of fish, sharks, and took in some great views. After that, we grabbed our snorkel gear and jumped in the water. The day brought more fish, more sharks, and a snowflake eel!

Pufferfish

Butterflyfish

Wrasse

Giant spider conch shell

Triggerfish who constantly protected her nest by attacking us as we got in the water.

Snowflake eel. So cool!

Longhorn Cowfish

Triggerfish

We ate dinner again with the sharks and organized ourselves so we could spend the morning in the water before we had to check out!

We woke up on Saturday and made the most of the few hours we had left. We spent the morning in the water with some familiar fish. We went pretty far out in the lagoon and on our way back we encountered a giant moray eel…which is the scariest thing I’ve seen in the water snorkeling and diving. He was really annoyed at us and came pretty far out from the coral and made it known he was pissed by baring his teeth at us. Pictures do not do this thing justice. Pretty cool that we got to see this without an incident!

View of our bungalow from the water.

Loved these tiny blue fish!

Giant moray eel

Another shot of the giant moray eel.

Super sad our bucket list vacay is coming to an end.

Had the best time ever!

Beautiful flowers in the lobby as we were heading out.

We checked out of our hotel, grabbed the ferry back to Tahiti, and headed to the airport to hang out until our flight left. No words can describe how incredible this trip was and the pictures only start to do everything justice. So thankful we were fortunate enough to see this part of the world! ❤

Cruise: Taihiti

Posted on January 2, 2019 by sandersnm

Our last stop on our cruise was Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia. We had one full day there and took full advantage of it. We started the day by having a lovely breakfast in our room, wandering around Papeete and visiting the market, then renting a car to drive around part of the island. Once we picked up the car, we headed North to start our trip around Tahiti Nui (we only had time to drive around the larger part of the island).

Lovely view for breakfast.

First visit to the market.

After stopping at a black sand beach and waterfall, we continued our rainy drive by a bright colored church and stopped at a botanical garden. Unfortunately the botanical garden seemed pretty desolate. However, we did see a Galapagos turtle but we were somewhat concerned since no one seemed to be there.

Our final stop on our tour of the island was the Maraa grotto. It was pouring down rain but well worth the stop. We met the cutest kitten and wished we could have taken her home with us!

Sweetest thing.

Such a cool photo of them walking away.

After a decent amount of time at the caves, we drove back to Papeete to return the car and explore more. We walked around the city, visited the market for lunch and souvenirs, and eventually made our way back to the ship to eat dinner and pack our bags for an early morning departure.

Loved the pearls everywhere.

Cruise: Moorea

Posted on January 1, 2019 by sandersnm

Our second to last stop on our cruise was Moorea. We once again rented a car and drove around the entire island to explore. We knew we would be coming back to stay for a couple nights so we wanted to see as much as we could. Moorea is shaped like a heart and has some stunning views of jagged peaks along with an amazing lagoon to snorkel in.

Sofitel in the background.

After our drive around the island we stopped at a pizza place that had great reviews. It definitely did not disappoint! We sat at the bar outside and watched them make our pizza in the wood burning oven….and it was absolutely delicious!