Day 7 from koi to whales

We mostly stayed at the resort today. We spent a lot of time at the pool and at the beach. The kids got to feed the koi in the lagoon, so they had fun with that. My favorite thing was watching for whales. There are a lot of them and they are much more active than we've seen them on our previous two trips to Maui. This time a lot of them have been jumping out of the water and putting on quite a show! For dinner we walked over to Whaler's Village and ate at Leilani's on the Beach. We made a quick stop at the ABC store before getting rained on while we made our way back to the hotel.

Well, that sums it up, but here's a little more detail! We woke up sometime in the 5am hour. Not bad really considering that's the 9am hour at home! Fortunately, we have plenty of breakfast food. I watched the sun rise over the mountain, listening to the ocean waves and smelling the sweet air. I don't know if it's flowers or ginger or what, but it's great! Eggs and fruit never taste so good than in this setting!

Once the sun was up and it started to get warmer, we eagerly headed down to the playground and then the pool. We always chose chairs that faced the ocean. The ocean was really quite close to the whole resort, so it was great to be by the main pools, the beach, and Starbucks too! I got a hooked on a midmorning Mocha Coconut Frappacino! It was convenient that I didn't have to have any money or credit card with me. I was able to just sign the charge to the room.

(I'll put in more pool pictures in upcoming posts. There are a lot of pools!)

The resort has kids' activities. It's nothing like Disney's Aulani that you'll hear about when I describe the Oahu part of our trip, but it was nice that they offered a few things the kids could participate in at no extra charge. Feeding the koi was one of the activities today. I didn't go with (because Zoe was sleeping), but the boys did a show and tell about it later with me and I can tell they enjoyed it. A couple times a day, Zoe would take a nap while Marc or I held her on a lounge chair. It was very peaceful. We were forced to just sit, relax, and whale watch with a sweet sleeping baby on our chests. It doesn't get much better than that!

We had lunch at the Marketplace by the pool. I don't think there was any other name for this place, but it's misleading. They had a pretty good counter service menu. There were few items to actually buy other than that. When I hear Marketplace, I think grocery store; and it was nothing like that.

(This isn't a great picture, but it does accurately portray how we ate most of our lunches...on the beach chairs overlooking the ocean.)

We showered and got dressed after a nice long day enjoying the pools and the beach. We walked along the beach path to Whaler's Village--an open air shopping mall. The walk along the ocean and past other resorts is pretty. We took the stroller for Zoe and/or another random kid that gets tired of walking.

Since we were ready to eat about 5pm, we were seated right away and enjoyed our dinner overlooking the ocean. We ate at Leilani's on our last trip too. It's pretty good and the view is great! The kids enjoyed having smoothies--since they're always envious of our tropical drinks. It sprinkled rain briefly toward the end of dinner but we were under an umbrella anyway. We received a discount card at the Marriott good for various deals at local restaurants. We received a free Hula Pie here. It's an icecream pie that people rave about. Our kids always appreciate ANY dessert since they hardly ever get sugar at home!

We did a little looking/shopping at the mall and then walked home in what was now a steady warm light rain. No bother really. How could a little rain upset a walk like this one? We got to bed pretty early again...at least most of the kids did. Zoe would always wake up about the time the others fell asleep. In fact, I'm not sure Zoe had any idea when night and day were anymore. She mostly just napped many time all day and all night. Of course, that means many awake times all day and all night too. I forgot to mention that while I was getting ready for dinner, Marc took the girls on a walk over to the spa at the Hyatt next door to buy my favorite bath products on the planet. They are "cocomango" scented--an amazing smell! I fell in love with them when we stayed at the Hyatt 4 years ago and small bottles were given out in the guest rooms. Since then, they've been my standing Christmas gift request. Each year Marc calls the spa and has them shipped. This time he bought me the salon size shampoo and conditioner along with a normal size bath gel and lotion. Ella was a little flirt while they were there. They gave her travel size bath gel and lotion and two hand pressed bar soaps along with this box of thick cardboard coasters that she still loves playing with. They gave Ella her own gift bag to carry it in too. Cute!