Well, it finally came - the last day of our tropical paradise vacation! We snorkeled right out front of our hotel, The Maui Ocean Club. It was a little harry getting out past the surf, but once we made it - wow! We swam with 3 turtles and one even let us touch his shell. It was so amazing. 
We have had such a great time - but I think we are ready to get home to the rest of our family! So, aloha for now!
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Today we took it easy. I laid out by the beach while SB snorkelled in the water right in front of the hotel. He saw 5 turtles and they were really big. Then we swam a little and had some lunch and a nap and then we headed in to Lahiana for our big show - The Warren and Annabelle magic show. This was so good. If you are ever on Maui, I highly recommend this activity. It is sooooo worth it. I don't want to tell you much because I don't want to ruin it for anyone. Suffice it to say that you will spend much of then evening with your mouth hurting from laughing so hard and your jaw wide open in complete amazement!
The picture of the tree is of a Banyan tree! That is ONE tree! Can you beleive it?!!
We headed back to Honolua Bay (the last 2 pictures is of the Bay from the street) for another round of snorkeling. It was pretty windy everywhere else, but since the bay is secluded it was a perfect spot to be - except that all the boat snorkeling groups thought that too - just a little crowded. The snorkeling was amazing and we saw alot!! We saw a school of hundreds of silvery fish, we saw a group of trumpet fish, we saw a couple of pretty good sized puffer fish and 4 of these really large fish with a neon blue stripe down their backs! We had an underwater camera, but it is just an old fashioned FILM camera so no pictures to upload!
The wind today is nothing! It looks like the hurricane is falling apart and stalling out down south. Expected to wake up this morning to a very windy overcast day - BUT it is a gorgeous day. We signed up for a dinner and magic show tonight. Stay tuned for Day 5 post for more on what we are doing today!
The picture above is of us on the drive to the aquarium. We had a blast and the dive was so peaceful - YES peaceful and amazing. The sharks would swim right by you - a few times I saw one swim within a couple of inches of SB's fins. Once we got there, we had a little briefing of the actual dive and then we split into 2 groups (there were 5 divers altogether). SB and I were the first group and the other 3 were the second group. WE had the tank all to ourselves plus we got to show the others how its done! The dive leader, Jeff, said that the sharks would come close if you were calm and surprisingly enough once in the water we WERE calm. There was an eagle ray who we got to hand feed clams and she was all over us. She was very sweet and she would rub all over you and she managed to rub SB's face once or twice! Our dive leader took some great pictures for us - but he is sending us a disc in the next week. So, to get actual pics of the dive you will have to check back! These are pics from after the dive - we stuck around and watched them feed the sharks (we thought they would've fed them before the dive - but NO! They fed them just minutes after the second the group got out of the water!!! The picture below is of the tiger shark (the only one in captivity in north america) eating some tuna - if you look closely you can see the tuna in his mouth! My pictures are horrible - they are through the glass at the aquarium - just wanted to give you an idea!!
A big shout out to Sixbit for not letting me back out while we were still at home before we came or for yesterday morning before the dive - one of the most amazing things that I have ever done!
the view from our hotel room!
Yesterday was another day in paradise! We got up early AGAIN - making the most of our time. We grabbed a bite of breakfast in our room and headed down to the pool and beach. SB checked out the swimming in the ocean for his buddy who is coming in October for the Hawaii Iron Man - Good Luck, Matt! We swam beneath and through a waterfall (ok, so it was just in the pool - but still very fun). Then we headed down south for a drive to Wailea. This is where all the very - no strike that - EXTREMELY rich people come to vacation! We were both going to snorkle, but it was very windy and so I laid out on the beach and SB snorkeled. Not near as good snorkeling as Honopulau Bay from the day before.
It is now 4:30AM and I am having trouble sleeping. Today is the day we swim with the sharks in the aquarium and amazingly enough I am nervous! At this point, I just want to bow out and be an observer. I doubt though that SB will let me - I know that when we are through I will be so stoked that I did it. I will let you know how this all turns out.
The pictures below are from the beach trip to Wailea and Palauea Beach. As we were driving back we saw this rainbow in front of the mountain and thought it was cool. The house is one from the beach where all the rich people vacation.
Here we are in Maui!!! It is a very long flight. We ended up wide awake at 5AM! So, we decided to get up and start our day. We went to a little restaraunt called The Gazebo for breakfast and had Macadamia Pancakes and ham and pineapple omelettes. After that we decided to drive up north a little and explore. We found this really neat little beachy cove where you had to hike down through the JUNGLE! SB hiked it to see if it might be feasable for me to get down there and he thought it would be! We didn't have our snorkle gear so we had to go back later! Then we stopped off at the grocery store to pick up some food so we could maybe save a little money on food! We got back to our hotel and decided it was time for a nap. (note that it was only 10AM at this time! - wow, you sure can do alot when you get up early - we both felt like we had a 2 for 1 day today!!) After our nap we headed out to that little beach and the pictures below are from the hike. 
Well, we went to Santa Fe and sure enough it didn't disappoint! We saw real life Zombies (ok so that is an oxymoron and I had to explain to C that is the reason we do not celebrate Halloween - she thought they were real- and BTW no pics of the Zombies, SORRY) in the St Francis Cathedral Park, there was a normal guy that actually warned us to beware of the zombies before we saw them; we saw a mouse sitting on the back of a sad cat who was sitting next to a big dog,we ate at Del Charro where their were angry waitpeople who were cussing wildly and we thought we just might witness a brawl, and lasst but certainly not least - we saw HEAVEN (see pics below if interested in what heaven looks like)! Here are a few pictures from our wild adventure!
I love SKYPE! I love living in the technical era of today! Last night I got on my computer one last time to check some email and my girlfriend, Smile, from California with some other very fun friends who are on a scrapbooking weekend in Big Bear, called my computer via SKYPE. We both have webcams and so it was like I was there with them. I love this technology age where we can keep in touch with each other in so many more personal ways - than just letter writing. By the way - those girls were having way too much fun!!!
Today, we are off to Santa Fe to show Jenny the sights of "the city different"! I was looking on the Santa Fe website and saw this was their slogan. So, this just goes to show that we are in for a real adventure! We are planning on walking around the square and sampling some fine dining (suggested by the lovely Mr and Mrs J) at Del Charro. I will post our atual adventure in "The City Different" soon!
Today we went to the orthodontist and I got my braces!!!!!!!! They didn't really hurt except for when they put the little X in between my two front top teeth. They don't hurt right now. So here are two pictures:
We are having a blast with our buddy from California. Right now we are playing our video games and switching turns playing. We keep yelling at it and B tells us to stop all the time.
Aubrey
WOW! I am so overjoyed that there is still people checking in on me! I never expected to have 6 comments with my first post back!
We spent the day at our friends, Mike and Susan, painting cabinets and celebrating birthdays. I really tried to remember my camera so I could have pictures with my post - but I ended up forgetting and now will either have to have NO picture or wait until someone else blogs about this event and included their pics (Like Cody - totally saw you taking pictures!) and then I can steal their pics! This is quite the time of year for birthdays! Then we picked up our dear friend Jenny from California. She is in town for 2 weeks to hang with us. Check in on us to see what we are up to!
Thanks to Bob and Judy for the pictures!! 
So, I just figured that I would surprise the probably only reader I have managed to sustain on my blog and post a new posting after almost 2 and a half months!!!!
We have been having such a nice and relaxing Summer. We have been waiting and waiting for Laughter Thoughts and her family to come for a visit - We keep thinking that she might bring her sweet little Mowgli with her and of course all of her sweet little monkeys! We had to endure a 4th of July without them this year! We managed to have a good time though. We went to the Wrestling Mat's house and had a nice cookout and it rained! We haven't seen rain in ages (almost as long as you have seen a new post here!) Then we loaded up and saw fireworks. The wind calmed long enough for a great show, although I don't really think that the kids even noticed the fireworks! They were way tooooo busy launching their glow sticks into the dark.
We have been hanging out every Tuesday at the multi-generational center. They have a really fun sprinkler park and we just found out how fun it is to play follow the leader there! (I stole my pic from Blue Bicycle who also played follow the leader with us and she was wearing a skirt! You ROCK BB!)
Here are some pics of our weekend getaway to lovely Mesa, AZ for CKC Mesa. We had a blast and C did an amazing job. She worked the cash register like A did when she went with me. They both did fantabulous jobs. I am so thankful for my weekend trips with my girls.
C got her braces on the front 4 teeth yesterday! She picked two different color blue for her bands. I think she looks GREAT!
Don't forget! Tuesday is FREE cone day at Ben and Jerry's! WE always try to make this and last year we got there just minutes after they ran out of ice cream! So, go early and often!!! Hope you are lucky enough to have one of the AWESOME ice cream shops in your neck of the woods! My favorite is Chocolate Fudge Brownie! Sound off and let me know your favorite!!!
My neighbor and I went in together and bought some flowers from Spring Hill Nuseries. So, I thought this was as good as chance as ever to start FRESH! SB and I cleared out the old bed and tried to harvest some of the bulbs that I wanted to keep and rearrange. We'll see how I do at saving those and making that work! The flowers don't come in for a couple of weeks - but when they do we will be ready!!! Here is a picture of my blank canvas!
I know this has been around for awhile BUT. . . we LOVE this! Go ahead and watch it only lasts a minute!
I have a New TOY! It is called Memory Mixer and it is a digital scrapbooking program. YEAH! This really interests me way more than actual scrapbooking! 
Don't very well want to be the next William Hung!!!!
A and I are off on a mother/daughter trip. We are going to be working at CKC scrapbooking convention. I am very excited that A gets to come with me this time. So, if you check back and there are no new posts - that is why!
I have fixed the black issue from the previous post by making my header a little bigger. Although, now it is a bit too big. But. . . you will have to live with that little flaw for awhile. I am just excited to have a new look!
Our little C has started a family newsletter. She thought of it and put it together all on her own. It is so adorable and I think she might have a future in this area. She has it formatted with 3 columns and each article comes equipped with its own headline and she makes use of many fonts. She is amazing! It is in a weird program though so it can't be converted. But. . . here is one of her articles regarding the PTO President (Yours truely)
"The yearbook had to be ready in ten days, so please start working on the yearbook."
Our little editor is soooo CUTE!
I have a new header and I can't figure out how to get rid of the black padding behind it! Anyone have any suggestions. I played around with the numbers under header setting but can seem to get it right. When I do preview it looks GREAT and then when I go to save it, I get the black line!
My very long lost friends, Janie and Hill, whom I lived with for a couple of months right before my wedding has joined the blogging community. I am so excited to have a way other than the telephone (which hasn't worked too well over the years) of keeping up on what's going on with them. So, WELCOME!!!!
I just love my "mommy" necklace. My friend Sillybug and Sandi gave it to me for helping them in LA at the CHA show. I cried when they gave it to me - never mind the fact that I hadn't really slept AT ALL for a few nights and was pretty much emotionally wiped - I have never had "mommy" jewlery! I love it!
I am not going to go on and on about where I have been or why I haven't been blogging - suffice (used that word just for you Kelly) it to say that I have been ignoring the blogging world lately. I know many of you are nodding your heads in heavy agreement about that right about now. I don't know if I will be back on track or not BUT. . . we'll just take it one day at a time!
SO - What in the world is gonna happen with Papa Smurf tonight? Is he gonna bail and do you think he broke his ribs? I thought maybe he was ok after eating pig snout last week. That just goes to show you what being hungry and having too much adrenaline can do for you! (if you are lost then that is because you aren't watching survivor!)
Let me know what you all think. I will even take comments about this subject after tonight's show.
