Hawaii ten year anniversary

We have literally been planning our Hawaii ten year anniversary trip for 10 years!  I have never been to Hawaii and when we were first married we talked about going on our 10 year anniversary (which seemed like a lifetime away) and I honestly can't believe it's already been 10 years! 

10 years and 4 kids later planning for this dang trip was no joke! A few days before the trip I was in tears and told Landon that I was not going anymore because there was just no way I could leave our kids.  We have a crazy schedule, which I have down like a science, and I didn't want to burden my parent's with it but I also wanted to keep everything as normal as possible for the kids while we were gone. They still had homework to get done, piano practice, gymnastics, basketball, music class, a dance recital, basketball games, special projects that needed to be turned in and a million other little things. I was just too stressed about all the logistics of leaving that in the end I didn't even want to leave! Landon ended up getting babysitters to come every night and put the kids to bed so that my parent's could get a break here and there.  We also typed up a huge 9 page paper of an hour by hour schedule for the week (I still don't know if that made it harder or easier though...) It sure eased my mind a little bit! My parent's were so good though and they reassured me that they were excited to babysit and that everything would be fine. (And of course everything turned out great)

 Our flight to Hawaii was eventful. I really really do not like to fly but I bit the bullet and luckily the plane didn't crash :) Our flight from Salt Lake to San Francisco was delayed because of heavy fog in San Fran so we were worried we would miss our connecting flight to Maui.  When we finally landed in San Fran we had to run down the halls of the San Francisco airport to catch our connecting flight to Maui! When we got to the gate the plane was still there but everyone was on board and the doors were closed. Luckily one of the workers ran down to the plane and asked if they would let us on and they did!  Landon and I didn't get to sit by each other and our bags didn't make it on the flight but luckily we made it on the plane!

 Landon has a lot of American Express points saved up from his job so we were able to use the points for the trip and stay in a really nice resort.  We stayed at the 4 Seasons in Wailea which is a really nice luxury resort.  When we were researching hotels we read that a lot of celebrities like to stay at  this resort!  We actually ended up seeing a few haha!

 When we got to the resort we had such a warm welcome.  They put leis around our necks, and handed us water bottles and cold scented cloths! We walked in right as the sun was setting over the private beach. We knew we had picked a winner!

We did A LOT of laying by the pool, reading, napping, eating and getting some sun.  It was heaven!

My favorite drink was the Lava Flow! It's a strawberry, banana pina colada and oh so yummy!  We got multiple of these drinks a day! 

Look at the book he is reading...melt my heart!  In contrast I was reading Shadow and Bone... Yes he is definitely the better half haha! 

My favorite part of the trip was not worrying about chasing any kids and holding Landon's hand wherever we went. We got asked if we were on our honeymoon multiple times and when we told people it was our ten year anniversary and we had 4 kids they were always so shocked! Haha!

At home I rarely have time to eat breakfast so eating breakfast in Hawaii was a luxury and my favorite meal of the day!  We usually ate breakfast at the resort and they had the most amazing buffet of food.  I am a huge foodie and I love good food and this food was incredible! The pastries were some of the best pastries I have ever eaten! They also served the yummiest pineapple juice and I guzzled glass after glass down.

The resort restaurant food was pretty expensive so we loved to order the cheaper (but just as yummy) room service food.  We loved to eat on our veranda overlooking the ocean or sometimes just in bed while we watched a movie.

We loved to run on the beach in the mornings and take walks in the water. The weather was incredible and the sound of the ocean is so soothing to me.  I really need to live by the ocean someday.

The smells in Hawaii are amazing.  The flowers smell incredible and there are so many of them everywhere.

We took a fun tour around the Maui Tropical Plantation. They grow bananas, avocados, coconuts, pineapples, macadamia nuts, star fruit, papaya, mango and our favorite jackfruit. It was a fun little tour and we learned a lot about tropical fruit.

We mostly wanted to do a lot of relaxing and eating but a few of the days we ventured out on the town.  One day we drove out to see the road to Hana.  On our way there we did a little bit off roading.  I saw my life flash before my eyes a few times and we saw multiple abandoned cars along the road but we made it to this fun little cliff overlooking the beach.

We stopped at a few waterfalls and there was a little farmstand set up where we got fresh coconut to drink and eat.  It was actually really gross haha!

We made it to about mile 15 of the 40 mile road to Hana. It was a really pretty black sand beach and we got to watch some surfers. We decided to turn around and explore this old surfer town where we started. We got some yummy peanut butter gelato and camped out at the beach and watched some young surfers. It was my favorite part of the day.

Later that night we walked over to the Grande Wailea and went to a luau. We had a yummy traditional hawaiian feast with roast pig and yummy fruit and then we watched some hula dancers preform. It was the perfect way to end our night!