we flew from kauai to maui just in time to be with my brother jonah and his family at their home for thanksgiving. it was so so great to be with jonah, aja, elsie, poem and ezra for the holiday and to stay at their awesome home for a few days.

aja insisted that the best thing we could do to help with the thanksgiving feast was to get out of the way – haha! so on thanksgiving morning we headed up haleakala. we took in the views from the summit, we got junior ranger books at the visitor center and the boys worked on them overlooking the crater, and we explored above the clouds. we came halfway down the volcano and did a little nature walk and then found a fun playground to play at for a bit until it was time for feasting at jonah & aja’s.

we helped with final preparations (and did some macadamia nut cracking and some games!), and then had a glorious thanksgiving dinner with people we love. it was so great.

the next morning ian and i got to take moses and his cool cousins poem and ezra on a snorkeling adventure to molokini crater! (and we got to leave gabriel and the twins for adventures with jonah and aja! – they took care of the chickens, squeezed orange juice and brought it to neighbours, and learned about all kinds of things from uncle jo while aja was working from home.) moses was sooooo excited about getting on a boat and heading out to an epic snorkeling place (he fell in love with snorkeling in japan this past summer). he and his cousins had fun sitting on the bow of the ship as we approached the crater and then we hopped in and peaked underwater. the visibility was insane and there were so many outrageously colourful fish! after an hour or so at the crater we went to another snorkel spot along the coast of maui and saw more fish, some turtles, and at the end got to hold an octopus which was so cool!

we collected the twins and gabe from jonah’s and took all the kids to get shave ice and play at the beach. it was overcast and moody-sky weather but everyone had a great time – po and evie collecting treasures in a coconut husk, the boys exploring and playing in the surf, august playing with his sand truck of course! we also found a rope swing before heading out!

the next day we drove the road to hana! ian had never been. we made a few stops along the way and drove through the town of hana to the part of haleakala national park that is down on the coast. moses and gabriel got sworn in as junior rangers after completing their work and we did a little hike that afforded us amazing views. we found an awesome beach on the drive back home and stayed there playing until almost dark

the next day was sunday and in the morning the twins got to help jonah with some dinner preparations and feeding the chickens, and then jo took us on a walk (august was thrilled about the school bus parking lot at the top of the street), and then i took august and eve to makawao forest (i’m pretty sure that entire time moses and gabriel were playing board games with ezra haha). some of the kids got to drive in jonah’s sweet blue car to church and we had a good time at church all together. after dinner we went to thompson road for sunset and it was so, so beautiful! mo was so excited to try out ezra’s skateboard!

the next morning ian had to work so i took all our kids to the beach (cousins were back in school!). this beach had huge waves and lots of surfers to watch and also a little area of calm water (due to a wall of coral) where the kids explored. august and moses got buried, a sand throne was built, the big boys played some imaginative game that had them both giggling their heads off, and then ian picked us up and we grabbed some lunch and rainbow shave ice in the town of paia.

then we went to a resort in kaanapali – that was the cherry on top of our awesome hawaii trip … pictures of that coming next! 🙂