I haven't really wated to sit down ad write about my trip because I am Lazy with a capital L. So here's an excerpt from a letter I sent my sis. Sorry about all the typos because the N key on my computer still is't working on a consistent basis. Drives me bonkers. Hope you ca make sese of this:
I must admit, that Maui was a bit disaapointig and lots of fun mixed together. Because the two volcanoes are so huge, half the island has a desert climate because all the water gets dumped o the other side. We stayed in the desert, which looked liked Utah butted up against the Ocean. The wet side of the island is curretly havig a drought, so we only saw two waterfalls ad the 7 Pools Ohea that I was lookig forward to jumpig i ad swimmig around, were completely dried up. Completely. Ad the roads o that side ofhe islad--Yikes. Imagie oe lae roads and bridges, literally a drop down to the ocea, ad hair pi turs you really ca't see around. I was holdig onto the door frequently ad NOT lookig down. The secod road trip excrusion was even o dirt road ad I just about lost it. It souded real attractive to walk the eight miles of upaved road rather tha ride i a car that could roll me to my death.
O the plus side, the whales are matnig ad calvig this time of year. Our hotel was right on the ocea with an ifininity pool that you could lea up against ad just watch the whales spoutig, breaching, and fluking in the distance. Just about ay time you sat dow to watch, you'd see them out there i the distace--really far away, but still cool to watch for. We took two whale excursions while there. Our first it was ucomfortably windy, but we had a mamma breach (jump ad fall o her back) right in front of us ad a baby copyig her. That was pretty much all we saw o that excusion and I still had a hakerig to see more, so i an attempt to get a btter whale watching trip, we accidetally siged up for a sunset booze cruise. Ya, I know, I groaned whe I heard, but it was a really, really cheap trip which is why we got it. Ad then, they said there would be live music. Live music=one man on a ukelalee that did't have good pitch. He eve sang twinkle twinkle little star ad ABCs. But we did see a ton of whales that night. No breachig, but we did see pectoral slaps, ad plenty of flukes(tips of whale tales that flip up before they dive so you see the whole fin). Matt even got the ukalalee guy to stop for five minutues while they lowered a microphone i the water ad we listeed to about 14 whales singing. I had my fill of whales after that trip. Our last day on Maui, the Ocea was unusually quiet. Not eve any whale spouts. Matt suggested we rent a kayak and paddle around the rocks to look for turtles. We saw one little guy, but that was it. Matt noticed a bunch of kayakers way out i the ocea and wated to go out there, just to see if we could see any whales further out in the distace. Like an idiot, I agree. We paddle about a mile (not a exaggeration) out into the deep blue. The kayakers had moved further east by then ad we were kid of o our own. It was hot, I was getting uncomfortable that far from shore, and convinced Matt to head back in. All the sudde we hear, "Fwoooot." A whale spout fifty yards from the boat. A big, black back rolled across the surface of the water. There's a law that if you're within a hundred yards of a whale, you have to take your paddles out of the water, turn off your boats, ad just wait. This is to prohibit people for chasig the whales and gettig right up to them, but it also prevents you from gettig AWAY from the humoungous animals. I froze, my hands clutching my paddle so tight, like a lifeline. But i reality, if a animal that big gets close to me, what is one dinky kayak paddle goig to do to keep me safe? "Fwoot, fwoot." Two more spouts, twenty yards away ad this time those whales are swimmig exactly i our direction. They go down ad come up again ad judging the distace they cover, I realize if they come up oe more time it will be directly underneath our kayak. One whale flukes, which generally means they are diving deep, but the other didn't. He came up right in front of the kayak, ten yards away maybe. I see his eye, all the scars and lines alog the side of his body as he rolls across the top of the water, every detailed splotch and line on his fluke as glides back undereath. This whole time I am repeatig Matt's name over and over and he is saying "Don't panic. Don't panic." You don't uderstad how vastly huge those mammals are util you come that close to a livig breathig one. They are monstrous huge. Ad if they had decided to breach o us we would have been dead fish bait. "Did you see that?" someone from a sailboat shouted in the distance. "That whale's fluke was as big as their kayak!" Yes, I did see that, thank you very much. Now get me back to shore! Only we couldn't. We hear whale song, eve above the water because we are i the midst of a six or seve pod of humpback whales ad all we ca do is wait, wait, wait. I do't think my heart has hammered that hard or long before. Matt was pretty shaken up too. We were both so scared, neither of us eve grabbed the camera we had o board. I'd had eough waiting ad we paddled back to shore regarldess of the law, where we saw one nice small friedly lookig turtle before handing the kayak back in.
Maybe I'll get around to postig some pics of the trip soon.
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This year with Easter falling on General Coference, the kids wore their new outfits a week early. None to soon. I hadn't bought Paul any new church clothes since last Easter and the pants were a good three inches too short and his wrists stuck out a mile from the shirtsleeves. I vow to dress that boy better in the coming year.
It felt like Spring this week. For three days we had weather in the upper 60s. Can I tell you how lovely it was to go outside without bothering with coats, mittens, and boots? One day we had a pretty stiff breeze, so we broke out the kites and flew them in the field next door. What a blast we had doing pretty much nothing at all except holding a piece of string for an hour. Yay, Spring!.jpg)
Week 8: I know I post mostly pictures of Jarom, but he's home all day. I wanted to play aroud with shutter speed and caught these fun pics of Jarom in the tub. He splashed water everywhere: on all the walls around the sink, all over the floor, and soaked his bath towel. I think the sink had less than half the water we started out with.
Week 9: Matt and I (plus Jarom) just got back from a trip to Maui, where we hiked a volcano, traversed scary one lane roads with hair pin turns, and were charged by two whales while kayaking. But more on that later. Here's a pic we caught of one whale diving under another whale that was doing a pectoral slap.
