Maui - part 2

This is Part 2 of 4 about our trip to Maui. Click on the links here to visit Part 1, Part 3 (Snorkeling Trip) and Part 4 (Trip to Lahaina).

This morning, we enjoyed our very convenient and affordable breakfast in our hotel room (cereal and milk we bought at the store yesterday) and then headed to the pool.

First steps - getting used to the water.

YB the Water Monster.

ES Stuck in "Jail"

As I mentioned before, we could have paid for four tickets to Hawaiian Adventures Water Park and almost equaled the price we paid for our hotel room here (not including all the resort fees and taxes they add onto the "price" of your hotel room). Sure, we could have stayed home and just gone to Hawaiian Adventures every day, but then we would have to put up with the drive whereas here we just walk out of our hotel room and into the kids' pool. So I think we're getting a pretty good deal in that regard. This morning we did a lot of this...

and this...

The boys liked what a big splash Daddy makes at the bottom of the water slide.

We spent some time diving for toys in the bigger pool, too.

Aside: Man... whatever happened to my little baby boy??? How'd he get to be 6 years old??? He's swimming like a fish! Look how deep he is in that second picture!

Just like yesterday, we got cleaned up and headed into town for lunch. We went to an Italian placed called Bada Bing. The service was friendly and prompt, although they didn't bring LW what she ordered. The food was good and reasonably priced (which is saying a lot for most of the places around here).

After lunch, we took a scenic drive around the coast, found a couple of geocaches, saw some whales, and stopped at the Hula Cookie shop recommended in the Maui Revealed book. The boys each got an ice cream cone, but I got one of the Hula Cookie Ice Cream sandwiches. You get to choose the type of cookie and the flavor of ice cream. I chose the Hula Delight cookies (Morsels of Mango & Pineapple with Ground Coconut and Macadamia Nuts) with Haupia (coconut) ice cream, and it was FANTASTIC!

Hula Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich

LW taking pictures of whales at a scenic overlook on the west side of Maui. Our hotel is somewhere across the water in the distance in the background.

While LW was taking pictures of the whales, I headed down the cliff for another geocache.

Oh, and YB had another run-in with the paparazzi.

For dinner, we more than made up for the savings we had at breakfast. Note to self: READ THE MENU before you go in. We thought the Longhi's restaurant sounded good. I checked the menu on the website, but based on the prices of their salads being cheaper than the prices of the salads at the hotel restaurant, I made the erroneous conclusion that everything else on the menu would also be cheaper.

We walked into Longhi's in our t-shirts and shorts from having explored the island all afternoon and felt severely underdressed, and I just about needed to sell one of our children to pay for dinner. Yikes. The service was good. The food was okay, but not worth what we paid for it. Thank goodness we ate cereal for breakfast! :-)

Tomorrow, we're off to snorkel at the Molokini Crater.