Atlantis Submarine

 On our last day we had to check out early, but our flight wasn't until the evening. So we booked a submarine ride to kill some time. It's hard finding something to do that doesn't involve swimming or sand! The submarine ride was pretty good. We went down to 109 feet and saw a shipwreck. We saw a few reef sharks and some huge schools of fish.

 

 

 We couldn't take Keira on the sub so my mom stayed with her and did some shopping on Front Street.

We had a red eye flight that night and luckily the kids slept on it, although we were all exhausted the next day. These pictures made me laugh, sometimes it's really great having thumb suckers.

Luau

 You can't go to Hawaii without going to a Luau! We had booked a luau a few days in advance and of course that night was the one night it rained. Not just sprinkling either, it was pouring for a while. I ran inside with Keira, but everyone else braved it out with the plastic ponchos they were handing out. It stopped raining after a while so they still did the show. Gibb said that the kids loved it! But I had the camera with me so we didn't really get many pictures.

Whale Watching

 We got up early one morning to go whale watching. This was probably my favourite thing we did! Gibb wasn't feeling good so he stayed home with Keira. He had gone out scuba diving a couple times and spear fishing, so he wasn't feeling up to another morning on a boat.

Jayna, Kepler, Avery, Alex and Abby

We saw tons of whales this morning

Within the first 20 minutes we saw 2 whales jump and 2 whales breech!

  

Kepler was just so happy to be on a boat

 

The boats are not allowed to go close to the whales unless a whale swims up to you. So we stopped for a while and there were a few whales all around us. Then a whale swam right under our boat! We were sitting right up front and it was close enough to reach out and touch it! Then it sprayed it's blowhole about 10 feet away from us and splashed us with it's tail, and kept splashing it's tail a few times as it swam away. It was incredible!

 

I had put away my camera at that point (of course), so I didn't get any really good pictures, but I did catch part of Jayna's reaction. :)

Alex and Jayna

Polo Beach

 We spent a day at Polo Beach in Wailea. This beach was amazing! I liked it way better than the beach at our resort. It was way more flat and shallow so the kids could play in the waves.

They loved the boogie board!

Kepler's new aspiration in life is to grow up to be a surfer dude. He was singing "Surf's up, surf's up! Ho Daddy!" all day long, literally! (It's from Backyardigans)

We also met up with Cheryl and her family, one of my roommates from 12 years ago!

Camryn and Jayna

He barely ever let go of this rope all day

My mom relaxing in the shade with Keira while she napped

Keira in her Pea Pod, she spent a lot of time in there and loved it! This thing was a lifesaver.

 This little cutie was so easygoing, she is such a third child.

Sugar Cane Train

 There was a little train right across the street from our resort and Kepler was dying to ride on it. So we took a little ride on the Sugar Cane Train one day. Kepler is still obsessed with things that go, he loved this!

Maui Ocean Center

 We spent half a day at the aquarium.

The sharks were the favourite!

Jayna's rainbow shaved ice

All 3 kids had a lot of random cat naps in the car. They were always so exhausted and slept so well at night!

Maui

 We spent 2 weeks in Maui this year! My mom came with us, which we kept as a surprise to the kids. It was funny to see their faces when she showed up at the Calgary airport! We left at the end of January, and I feel like it was the perfect timing to get away. We stayed at the Honua Kai Resort on Kaanapali beach and we loved it! We had a room on the ground floor, which was perfect for the kids, and it was really close to the pool. Gibb was signed up for a dental course with Brad for 5 days while we were there. And it was so perfect having the McCoy's there to hang out with. Jayna and Kepler loved having other kids to play with. We did a pretty good mix of relaxing and downtime at the resort, and going out to do stuff.

We spent a ton of time at the pools! Jayna and Kepler both got a lot better at swimming while we were there. 

Warming up in the hot tub

 

I didn't take Keira in the water as much as I thought I would, since she loves to swim. And I didn't even get any pictures of her in the water.

  

 

Avery, Jayna and Abby

Jayna's new snorkel, she mastered it pretty fast and was swimming without her life jacket the whole time after that!

 

Kepler took a little longer to get used to his mask and snorkel, baby steps!

 

 

 But he did get up the courage to go snorkeling in the ocean with Gibb. That didn't last long, he was scared a shark was going to come eat him!

 We also spent lots of time at the beach

 

 

 

  

 One of the great things about going to Maui in the winter is that it's whale season. We saw whales all the time from the beach. You could see the spray from the blowholes almost constantly sometimes. They were usually pretty far out there, but one time there was a mama and baby swimming along the shoreline so close! You'll have to look pretty closely to see it in this picture.

Out for lunch

 

 Daddy's girls

 

 Jayna loved these flowers and was always begging us to pick them. A couple times she found them already fallen off on the ground and she was so happy!

 

Jayna and Avery being silly, these 2 were pretty much inseparable!

Jayna, Avery, Kepler and Jackson

We let Jayna and Avery have 2 sleepovers, one at our house, and one at theirs. Of course Kepler and Jackson couldn't be left out of the movie night.

One night Gibb and I took just Jayna out for a little treat. She was so happy to be alone with us, we'll have to remember to do this more often.

We saw a boat stuck on the rocks that looked like it was going to tip over. So we had to be the typical tourists and pull over to take a picture.

Keira was so good on this trip! Of course it helped a ton having my mom there. She was always so happy and smiled at everyone. *(I was just re-reading this and realized this last sentence sounds like I was talking about my mom. I was referring to Keira, but that actually applies to mom too. Maybe Keira will take after her namesake!)