Christmas in Hawaii

Nate and I had the opportunity to spend Christmas in Hawaii this year. We went with Nate's parents and 4 brothers and sisters. We barely made it out of Seattle due to snow and ice...Seatac airport is not prepared for winter weather. Most airlines ran out of de-icer and had to cancel all their flights. We were fortunate enough to take off only 5 hours after sitting on the plane. So we exchanged coats for swimsuits, boots for flipflops, and blankets for beach towels.

We stayed in condos in Kihei on Maui. We spent our week snorkeling, surfing, playing frisbee/beach volleyball, and sightseeing. It did not quite feel like Christmas in that climate, but we thoroughly enjoyed 80 degree weather in lieu of snow and ice.

On Christmas Day we took the road to Hana, which is a long windy road with hundreds of tight turns and about 50 one way bridges. The views are spectacular and well worth the drive. We hiked to a waterfall at the end of the trip. The hike involved several smaller waterfalls, a bamboo forest, and fun to climb rubber trees.

No trip to Maui would be complete with out watching the sunrise at Haleakala. We all piled into the cars early one morning to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to the 10,000 foot sumit of the crater Haleakala. Our view was slightly affected by a high cloud cover, but the clouds were beautiful. The morning was bitterly cold so we were more than ready to head back and spend our day on the beach!

We arrived back to rain in Seattle around 6 am, but Nate and I headed straight into work that day. We were quite tired and ready for bed that night but were preparing for another trip...one to Sioux Falls and one to Florida.