Maui, Hawaii - September 2014

As some of you may know, I just got back from vacation! I went to Maui with my best friend and her family for a week. We stayed in Napili, Maui and it honestly was such an amazing, relaxing week! I still have a lot to catch up with at home with my Etsy shop, work, laundry, and the blog so I figured today I would just round up my vacation and share some photos with you all. I would love to have all of my vacation summarized in one place, and if any of you are interested, here you go ;)

Saturday September 6th

We flew out of Seattle, Washington at 10:00 on a Saturday. We were up super early to head to the airport, drop the car off, and get ready for our flight to Hawaii. We flew on Hawaiin Airlines, and I would highly recommend it to anybody traveling to Hawaii. It really added to the experience having that Hawaiin music playing on the plane, can't really explain why, but it was fun! Each seat thankfully had a screen in the head rest so you could buy movies to pass the time. My friend Karli and I watched "The Other Woman" on the way there, it is so funny!

We arrived in Maui at 12:00pm (Hawaiin Time), so we still had plenty of time to enjoy our day. After getting our rental cars, and groceries for the week, we immediately hit up the beach. Like I said earlier, we stayed in Napili, and Napili Bay was literally right outside our condo, so it was so nice to be able to walk to the beach. It was so beautiful, we couldn't stop saying "is this real!?".

After we swam in the ocean for a while, we took a dip in the pool and then got ready for dinner. We ate at The Hula Grill, which was really good! It was right on the ocean, with a live band and we got a front row seat to watch our first sunset. 

Sunday, September 7th 

Sunday was such a fun day for us. We didn't do anything extravagant, but it turned out amazing! We started off the day getting coffee from a little coffee shop called "The Coffee Store" in Napili. We then hung out at our beach, Napili Bay, and then we went and rented snorkel gear and boogie boards from Boss Frogs. We went to D.T. Flemming Beach and tried boogie boarding. The waves weren't that great, so we didn't get to truly boogie board, but it was a great beach to hang out at! We went back home and had dinner at our condo and then went to downtown Lahaina for the night.

*this is a cool tree downtown Lahaina that is one tree that is all connected, all of these trunks and branches intertwine together and it's really cool! I think it was called the Banyon Tree.

Monday, September 8th

Monday, Karli and I woke up pretty early, and immediately saw purple and orange shining through our window. We shot out of bed and ran outside to catch the remainder of the sunrise. It was so gorgeous, I can proudly say #nofilter on all of my pictures! We then took a nice walk to the coffee store again, and then hung out at our beach for the morning.

Part of our group went and explored the Venus Pools, and a Blow Hole that were nearby Napili. I stayed back and took a nap because I felt pretty exhausted this day. I was extremely sunburnt from the day before and I think it was finally catching up to me. I am bummed I missed out on the venus pools, but I definitely needed that nap! After they got back, we again just hung out at our pool and our beach for the day! We had a big day planned for Tuesday so just had a relaxing night at home.

Tuesday, September 9th 

Tuesday, we went snorkeling! It was honestly one of the coolest things I have ever done! We snorkeled at Molokini Crater, which is in the middle of the ocean, and we took a charter boat over there (approx. an hour boat ride), and then got right in the water! It was so crazy to look down and perfectly see so many different types of marine life right below you. I saw an octopus, and eel, and SO many different, beautiful fish. I really wish I would have brought my boyfriend's GoPro camera, because I could never describe how pretty it was on the ocean floor!

It was about a 5 hour trip, and we visited two different snorkeling locations. If you are planning a trip to Maui and considering a Molokini Crater Snorkel Tour, I HIGHLY recommend taking some motion sickness pills (I took Dramamine). Even if you don't think you will get sea sick, it won't hurt you to take something. About half of our boat was sea sick the entire trip and never even got to get in the water to snorkel.

After snorkeling, we took some naps, and then went out to dinner at Bubba Gumps! We caught the most amazing sunset right outside our dinner window, and had an equally amazing dinner. It was such a fun restaurant, with trivia, fun drinks, and a great atmosphere!

Wednesday, September 10th

We had an amazing breakfast at The Gazebo in Napili. It has a huge line before the place even opens, it was so good! I forgot to take any pictures there, but I had white chocolate chip pancakes (they are famous for their banana macadamia nut pancakes). 

After breakfast, we went rock jumping at a place that the locals call "The Cliff House". It was again, walking distance from our condo which was really nice. I am a little baby, so I didn't jump off the rocks but I sat in the water giving everyone floaties once they jumped, I was the official Noodle Girl :) 

We then went back to D.T. Flemming Beach to try boogie boarding again since the previous time we went wasn't the greatest waves. We had great waves for boogie boarding! It was my first time trying it and it was extremely fun. We hung out there for the afternoon, went home and had fish tacos, and then went to downtown Lahaina to do some shopping.

Thursday, September 11th 

We took a little trip to Honolua Bay to go snorkeling. You had to take a beautiful walk through this canopy of trees, which was such a site to see. A local who owns the property recommending us not snorkeling, because the water was murky, and murky water can sometimes mean sharks will be around, so we decided not to snorkel. We took a walk completely through the trees to see the water, but then turned right back around to head to a different beach. 

We ended up going to a bay right outside Napili Point and ended up swimming with SO many sea turtles. This is referred to as Turtle Bay in Napili, and I can see why. We saw so many turtles, both above the water and below. Snorkeling is truly one of the coolest things because you can see all of these animals in their natural habitat. It was so amazing swimming right alongside a huge sea turtle, seeing how they back themselves up into their homes underwater, and seeing how they come up for air. I officially am a sea turtle lover! 

 After snorkeling at Turtle Bay, we took the drive (about an hour) to Big Beach. Big Beach is a famous beach on Maui known for its huge waves. It was extremely cloudy on our way there, but actually turned out to be a beautiful day. We hung out at this beach all afternoon, and I people-watched for hours. So many people try so many crazy things out in the waves, and I just sat back and watched!

 After Big Beach, we went downtown Lahaina again and ate at Cheeseburger in Paradise. There was a live singer, and an awesome atmosphere again. Great food too, I would highly recommend it!

Friday, September 12th

We woke up to go grab our coffee for the day, and ended up running into an extremely nice guy Jesse who let us take pictures with his parrot, Apache! It was so cool!

Our group took the trip to do The Road to Hana on Friday, but Karli and I stayed at our condo. We really wanted to stay by the beach on our last day, and not in the backseat of a car. Our group said that the road to Hana was gorgeous, but it truly took their entire day to do the trip. Karli and I didn't have a rental car, so we were limited on what we could do. 

We hung out at our pool for a while, then went to our beach. We went to a restaurant called The Sea House which was right on our beach for happy hour. After that, we went back to the pool to soak up the last bit of sun that was left of our vacation. We took our beach chairs down to the beach to watch our last sunset, which are always BREATHTAKING. 

We initially planned on meeting with our group for dinner, but they were gone later than expected. We didn't have many restaurant options so we walked down the road to a place called Iron Imu. It was southern BBQ food, and it was actually really good! 

Saturday, September 13th

We went home this day... :( I still don't want to talk about it... 

Overall, this was an AMAZING vacation. So relaxing, but equally fun and exciting! I loved going with my best friend, we made so many fun memories! I will always remember this vacation, if you have any questions about my vacation that I didn't cover here feel free to leave them down below in the comments. I will be back to normal beauty posts after this ; ) Thanks for sticking with me.

As always, thanks for reading

xoxo, Jaimie :)