It’s been a nice 2 weeks, but I’m back home again.  Our Hawaii visit ended with us doing a whale watching boat trip.  We saw a mom and baby being escorted by a male.  We also saw a juvenile female just playing in the water for a long time.  The next day we went the the Gazebo Restaurant in Napili, followed by a short trip up to Kapalua.  Bernie never got to golf up there as the weather was bad that morning – sure was beautiful in the afternoon tho.

We said goodbye to the islands and caught our flight.  As Bernie, Luke and Cody were still searching for thier luggage,(at 11:00 pm) Danny took me and Lani back to the car, where I literally threw out my HI clothes and threw in my work clothes.  I barely made my flight out to Dallas and then onto Orlando.  I dragged myself into my hotel room and made it downstairs to my conference just in time to catch the end of lunch.

As the confrerence was for all of the Americas, I spent part of the time visiting with people from Argentina, Uraguay and Chile, and   2 days at a table with people from all over Canada.  Can you say "eyhh"??

Now it’s back to the routine…but only 9 weeks until we leave for Puerto Vallarta…not that I’m counting.

Sad to say but we only have 2 more days here.  Yesterday we went out on a boat so the guys could do some snokeling.  The trip was a bit disappointing as it was cold and we didn’t have much room to move around.  The snorkeling was good and bad.  My birthday shopping day the day before was fun.  Bernie got to golf and we shopped till we dropped.

Today, we went to the other side of the island and checked out the best wind surfing location.  I dropped a couple of pictures, but did download a couple as well.  It was so beautiful out there, I’m sure the pictures don’t do it justice.  Tomorrow, Bernie will golf again as we check out Kapalua.  Later in the day, we’ll go whale watching as yesterday we only caught a few dolphins, but no whales.

More pictures are posted in the same Maui folder

Internet access is great.  Instead of waiting until later, I can post stuff as we go along.

We’ve just ended our 2nd day on the island.  We spent the 1st day recovering from our trip.  We were about 45 minutes over the Pacific when the pilot told us we’d have to turn around due to engine vibration.  Pretty scary, but all went well.  The delay cost us about 7 hours total and we didn’t get in until 7:30.  We did find out that Cody’s football coach, newly married the day before, was on our flight.  His new wife took the picture you see posted of our lei greeting.

Today, after a great breakfast at Charley’s, (thanks Pam and Willie) we braved the rain and hiked up to twin falls.  Cody literally carried Luke in for a better view.  After the boys were soaked, we make the drive up 10,000 feet to Haleakela, a dormant valcano.  Freezing temps and wind kept our visit short, but what a site.  We were actually above the clouds.  You can see 100 miles to the big island of Hawaii.

Tomorrow (or I guess by Pacific time, today) is my birthday so while Bernie golfs, we’re going to do my favorite thing…shop!

Tomorrow morning we leave for Maui.  Danny and I haven’t been there since Nick was just a gleam in our eye – June 1978.  We’re taking Cody, Lani and Luke as well as Bernie with us.  We have a 2 bedroom oceanview condo at the Westin  waiting for us.  Mai Tai’s anyone?

Upon our return, I’ll be staying at LAX and flying out at 12:30 am to Orlando.  I will be attending a conference there Mon – Thurs, and retuning home on Fri.  Nick flies into town on Thurs so I’m hoping he’ll greet me at the airport.  That should make it a fun two weeks!  Look for new pictures to be posted about a week after I get back.