Aloha

We just got back from the most AMAZING vacation of our lives! After working for National Instruments for almost 11 years, Jared earned an all expenses paid vacation to Maui for the two of us.

The timing wasn't perfect. Jared is in school and our youngest is especially hard to leave, but we needed the getaway more than ever and it ended up working out better than we could have ever expected!!

We stayed in a five star Four Seasons Resort in Wailea. It was unreal. I've never been so pampered in all my life.
Our room.

Even the bathroom was luxurious.

Here is the view from our deck. All of the landscaping looked spectacular!

The SPA was fabulous! I had two one hour massages and a pedicure... that was a real treat!

One thing I LOVED were these Eucalyptus scented cool towels.

These were sitting on the counter in the SPA, but they were throughout the hotel and someone would hand you one to cool off with as you came in from the heat, or after working out. I loved that after my morning run, the bell hop would hand me a chilled water bottle and cool towel.

All of the food was amazing and the atmosphere was beautiful.

How often do you get this kind of view while you eat?

I love the beach!!! We spent a lot of time right on the beach,

but there were also 3 great pools surrounded by comfy lounge chairs and service like you would not believe. You could stay all day and be served cold drinks, and melon slices, and even meals. (You actually got most of that at the beach too.) Someone came by one time and offered to clean my sunglasses then spritzed my face with a facial cooling spray. Seriously.... They even had cucumbers for your eyes. I didn't think people really did stuff like that.

This infinity pool was really cool. You could hear relaxing music playing under the water. Who thinks of this kind of stuff?

One afternoon, we took naps and read books in these relaxing cabanas.

more relaxing.

We saw the most beautiful sunsets.

After the first day in our fancy hotel Jared said,

"If I've ever dreamed about the perfect dream vacation,
this is what I didn't know I should have been dreaming about!"

One morning we got up really early (3 a.m.) and headed up to the Haleakala summit, the world's largest dormant volcano (10,023 feel in elevation). The view was amazing. Thank goodness our tour guide had jackets, warm pants, and gloves for us because it was really cold. We watched the sunrise and took pictures of the crater.

After getting a ride all the way up to the summit, we hopped on bikes and coasted down almost 28 miles. I admit I was a little nervous about it, but in the end I loved the feel of the breeze blowing against my face (I think I only pedaled twice) and I wished our tour guide would have let us go even faster. I loved it!

Here's our entire tour group.

Tuesday afternoon we went on a Snorkel Tour. I love to snorkel and went out several times from the beach in Wailea, but I got sick on the boat and honestly couldn't wait for it to be over. I didn't even take any pictures. Jared had fun and saw a bunch of sea turtles.

One night we had a private Luau at the Hotel. These girls welcomed us with lays and danced the opening number. They reminded me that I had kids back home and I sorta missed them.

It was pretty fancy. You can't see very well in this picture, but the spread of food was amazing!

This fire dancer was pretty impressive.

He actually lit his mouth on fire from one end of the torch and then lit the other end. Crazy!

Thursday we did a zipline tour through the rainforest.

Here we are, just about to soar over the tree tops below.

It started to rain (that happens a lot in the rainforest apparently). This stretch was 2,800' long and with the rain and grey skies, you really couldn't see the end, yikes. But it was SO MUCH FUN!!

There are a lot of beautiful sights to see in Maui. One of the popular tourist activities is to drive the road to Hana. It's only about 60 miles long, but ends up taking most of the day because the road is so windy and there are all sorts of neat stops along the way. We didn't make it very far before we decided the road was just too windy for us (we both get carsick easily), but it was absolutely beautiful!

Here is one of the stops we made, Twin Falls. You had to hike in a little, the scenery was gorgeous!

We decided it would be really neat to live here.

A little further down the road you can see painted bark Eucalyptus trees. They looked almost unreal.

I love this picture of Jared.

I loved spending every minute of the entire week with him, we had such a great time. I also enjoyed getting to know some of the other people he works with (and their wives).

Here's a big group shot of all 27 couples. We're in the very back.

Every evening we had meals as a group. They ended up being really fun. We got to chat about what everyone did that day and the food was always super fancy. On our last night we had our own private dinner at one of the restaurants. They even had a special National Instruments Menu.

Here we are on our last evening. See those big smiles. That's from all the sunshine, relaxing, good food, and friends.
We have always dreamed about taking a vacation to Hawaii. This was everything we dreamed about and more. I can't wait to go back!