roro wearing his father's day shirt. s, w, and b wearing the clothes that roro and cathy brought out for them!
b showing off his hand-made maui shirt.
roro and cathy at i'ao valley state park. it was deliciously cool up there.
serious faces. 
a happy family in maui!
a happy couple!
playing around in the water at i'ao valley.
a cool pictograph.
b and w trying to catch crawdads.
success!
the fam at the big banyan tree in lahaina.
a good reminder of how big "hawaii" really is.
w and i working on getting our luau tickets.
what a gorgeous picture! we were on our way up to haleakala.
these pictures seem like they'd make good album covers.
s and w are haleakala jr rangers!
hiking around in haleakala.
a white rainbow. what?!
roro trying to see the big island from haleakala. so luck on the day we were there--too many clouds.
so meta.
at the obon festival in wailuku. it was nice and cool out, and we got to eat delicious japanese foods.
the pretzels in my hand were brian and cathy's favorite treat.
s didn't like the pink coconut jelly deserts. i loved them.
and then, of course, there was the dancing at the obon festival. brian and i immediately joined in on that fun.
it started raining, which felt good.
cathy joined in on the fun.
w joined us for the last dance.
b eating poi.
our sunday morning walk around la pereuse (the sw end of maui).
a cool yellow, spiny, cucumber-like plant we found.
a gorgeous view of the ocean and rocks.
we looked around in the tide pools. we found a baby eel, an octopus (roro and b saw this one), and lots of other cool little critters.
a lovely sky.
there were lots of goats around that blended in really well with the rocks.
we ate sunday dinner with our friend one. the dinner was amazing! i loved the breaded and fried marlin and giant shrimp.
cool blue berries we found on our way to hana.
at the arboretum on the way to hana.
ooohhhh....
a beautiful waterfall we got out to look at. roro and w hiked down to it.
i like this picture.
eating fresh bananas at a roadside stand on the way to hana.
oh! the blacksand beach in hana. this is b's favorite beach in all of maui. we all swam there and had a good time. the weather was as gorgeous as the pictures make it look. the last time we were there, it was rainy and gray. and the waves were really big.
we tried to find a beach that would have good body surfing (near hana), but no luck. the waves weren't too big, but we were still able to play around. this is the beach were i got caught in a riptide. i was able to get out of it with b's help (it wasn't too bad), but it scared me.
i love this picture of roro!
a message to b from me.
b looking very proud at the timeshare hotel. we went to a timeshare meeting to get discounted tickets to the luau. we listened to their message and kindly declined to spend $20k on a timeshare.
waiting to enter the luau. look at s's moo moo!
making braided leaf bracelets.
getting their faces painted. 
pulling the pig out of the imu.
a good s face.
s and grannie doing the hula.
playing in the water. we tried to find a good body surfing beach but to avail. but we still had a good time.
getting on the ferry to go to lana'i!
we took the 6:45am ferry over to lana'i. it took about 45 minutes. we saw lots of little flying fish as we boated over. 
this was the beach we walked to from the ferry terminal. the waves were big near the shore, but we were still able to get out and snorkel. it was a beautiful snorkeling spot. we all snorkeled together for the first 1.5 hours, and then roro, b, and i went back out. we found gorgeous underwater valleys with tons of fish. we also found a big triton's trumpet and a cool octopus. i love seeing octopuses!
there was a great tide pool area for us to explore, but we only had about 15 minutes. we had to catch our bus into lana'i city, but the water was also coming in quickly. after 15 minutes the areas to walk on seen below were disappearing.
we waited for the bus into lana'i city at a super hoidy-toidy resort. 
us in lana'i city. it was so cool there. it felt amazing.
the restaurant we had lunch at. i had teri chicken that was good. 
the best hibiscus i saw on the whole trip.
we found a really great thrift store in town. while i was trying on clothes (i found an amazing dress for 50 cents!), the boys put on matching shirts.
there were lots of animal horns/antlers around lana'i city. guess who liked that?
as we walked around some residential parts of town, we happened upon the lds chapel. 
and we even met up with the elders there--so got to see the inside of the meeting house.
one house had two pet deer. 
waiting for the ferry to go back to maui. we had a great time on lana'i. we spent a day there and loved it.
the sky on the way back. 
what!? we found a sign about roro's tilley hat. remember how an elephant ate a tilley hat 3 times? this was such an exciting find.
on our last day, we went to lahaina's jail. there were some mangoes that had fallen from the tree. b peeled them by hand, and then we ate them by hand! they were so, so good.
a reminder of the poi pounder b found at the salvation army in kihei for 25 cents!
some of our other favorite things that didn't make it into pictures were snorkeling. we went snorkeling nearly every day and loved it. we saw tons of sea turtles, lots of cool fish, several eels, two octopuses, and a triton's trumpet. cathy and roro gave us a fish of hawaii book that made it fun to id fish.
we ate lots of great fruit while we were there. we had an amazing papaya--it was big, fresh, and so good (all of us agreed that usually papayas are not that great). we had some really good pineapple and mangoes too. we did get some passion fruit, but it wasn't the super special.
our condo was in kihei right by kameole III beach, which we took full advantage of and enjoyed. we swam, snorkeled, body surfed, played in the sand, went on beach walks, etc. our last morning in maui we went there thinking we'd snorkel, but the waves were so big we opted to body surf. some of the waves were true crushers. i got carried by one i tried to dive under!
our first day we went to the salvation army and found a lovely print called "hula girl" from the 1940s. once we realized we could take it back with us, we bought it. it's now hanging on our living room wall. so nice.
we all had a great time, and we weren't tired of being together by the end, which was a nice way to end things. our 10 days worked out perfectly. if/when we got back to hawaii, we've decided that going to kaua'i or the big island could be fun to try!
