Look Kristine.... it's really a chicken!

See!  

It's actually a chicken... crossing the road... at the Maui airport.  When you see this, you know that you are in the country! :)

I surprised Brian with a trip to Maui for his 40th birthday.  I picked him up from work on Friday afternoon with his bag packed.  He thought maybe we were staying at a hotel for the night, but when I told him we were leaving the island he got really excited.  He was happy to be going to Maui, an island he hadn't been to yet.  

Then when he saw the car I rented for us, he was really stoked.  

I love this photo of us.  I love that you can see Lanai (another island) in the background.

I LOVE this.  This is a pineapple stand on the side of the road.  There were alot of them.  And they all had these little jars that said "Money Jar" (red arrow) with no one anywhere around to make sure you are honest.  I love the honor system.  Restores my faith in people.

We drove on this road.... notice that only one car can actually fit on this road... and there are actually 617 curves and 56 one lane bridge.  (that's from the brochure, I'm not making it up.)

Yikes, I can't see what's around that corner... or over that hill... aaaaggggghhhhhh!

That's the Road to Hana.  Alot of people opt out when they see the road conditions.  But it's definitely WORTH the drive for the views!

1 of 56....

White knuckles....

I think there should definitely be a hammock right there, what do you think?

Sunset... warm and breezy where we were sitting, but you can see the rain on the horizon.  It was a great last night to a wonderful sweet weekend.

Now for other things going on around here:

Here is the tree I told you about last week.  This is "Bob" as seen over Jack's bedroom (from my bedroom door.)

This is "Bob" from my front yard.

Getting closer....

This is Bob, standing in my neighbors yard, across the street from Bob.

This is Amy giving you a little perspective on just how tiny she looks standing next to Bob.

Jack had his Christmas chorale performance this week at school.  Please note that everyone is in shorts and barefoot.  This is MY kind of Christmas performance.  Being barefoot makes just about everything better, don't you think?

We made Gingerbread cookies... fun memory!

This is a bit backward in terms of timeline, but this was taken on Brian's actual birthday.  We went deep sea fishing.  Here we are starting out the day, so hopeful about a huge catch and some whale sightings.

Lines are set and we are ready to reel.

Brian caught the first "catch" of the day... a barracuda.  :)

There was ONE more catch the entire day.  There are many stories from the day, and maybe soon I'll figure out how to post the video of the incredibly rough seas we experienced. I thought it was 8 foot, but was informed that while I was asleep, it was determined that it was actually 10-12 foot seas.  People, that is twice as tall as me to twice as tall as Brian.  I don't know much about rough water, but I know that was a wild ride.  

At the end of the day we caught one Mahi Mahi and one barracuda.  Brian sort of blames it on me because I brought a bottle of Banana Boat sunscreen with me (which he eventually threw overboard.)  See, Hawaiian seamen believe that bananas are bad luck.  So, even though I don't believe whatsoever in superstition, I will say it seems unusual that we had so little activity that day.  Maybe the ocean was just too rough for the fish too????  Yep, I'm choosing to believe it was the water, not the sunscreen.  haha

I will say that when we landed on Oahu this afternoon, I really felt like I was home.  It was an odd feeling.  It's the first time I've left the island since we arrived, so it was a very odd sensation.  I thought of my friend Kim in Hong Kong.  I remember a post she did about coming back to Hong Kong after a visit elsewhere.  It was a definitely multi-faceted sensation.  Maybe I'll share more when I've had time to chew on those feelings for a while.