My Maui Memorial

This is my husband's family. We were blessed in May to be able to join them on a great trip to Maui to remember my father in law. My father in law's wife gifted us the trip so it was an even bigger blessing. For those of you that haven't read through all my blogs of the last year, my father in law took his own life January 23, 2010.
It was a shock to our family. He was an amazing man & the loss of him is felt every day. I hope he knows that.
I ended up on pregnancy bed rest and missed the funeral and the memorial with the spreading of his ashes. So for me, this trip was my funeral. That was a challenge in itself because my family was in a different place in thier grief process. Because we had so much to deal with last year just keeping me and our growing baby alive, our grief process has been delayed. So I stole many moments on our trip to hide away and think about my father in law.

My mother in law found this amazingly beautiful house called Maui Majestic in Lahaina.

We did so many amazing things on this trip! It was busy every day! You know that saying "I need a vacation to recover from my vacation"? That's how I felt coming home! Here's some of the amazing things we did!

Road to Hana trip. AMAZING! My suggestion is to do the guided tour so you can relax & enjoy. Our guide was incredible & was pulling over & hacking fruits and vegetation out of the jungle! Awesome!

Snorkel Cruise to Honolua Bay. Some of the most beautiful snorkeling I've done on the island! AND we did Snuba! So fun! Plus we got to see whales! So amazing!

We tried to see Haleakala (The volcano on Maui) at sunrise but it was too cloudy. Luckily we scheduled a bike ride down the volcano after sunrise and it was so amazing that it didn't even matter that we didn't see sunrise!

We flew over to the big island to see the lava in the crater of the volcano. It was a beautiful flight!

We did the obligatory luau but we did the Feast at Lele which served food at your table (instead of buffet style) and offered each course from the surroundung islands. BEST kahlua pork I've ever had!

We also did paddle boarding lessons! That is not as easy as it looks by the way but so fun! And a great work out too. I had muscles aching in places I forgot I had muscles! For fun one night we saw the Dave & Annabell magic show in Lahaina and it was hilarious!!!!

All in all it was such an amazing trip. It was so hard to be away from my babies. I cried from the minute I woke up until the minute I got on the plane when we left! I think its going to be a while before we leave them again!