As we left our hotel, they had a ceremony where they sang to us and gave us a nut lei. When we return they will replace one of the dark nuts for a lighter colored nut.
We learned how to make flower leis the morning that we left.
We had a wonderful time and hope to return again and again.
We took a tour on a Whale Watching boat to go and see humpback whales. It was a very stormy, windy day which made it more difficult to spot the whales.
It rained quite a bit that morning.
But that made for some beautiful rainbows.
This was the best actual picture that I could get. We were following a calf and its mother for a while. Very enjoyable and interesting.
Sunday morning we arrived early to church at the Lahaina 1st Ward, but still had to park quite a ways away. Apparently the ward was not expecting as many visitors, because they were still having people arrive up until the sacrament time, and they had to find every available chair from all classrooms. Our kids were a little jealous when we told them that the beach was just across the street from the church.
We attended a Luau at the Royal Lahaina Hotel on the other side of Black Rock on Kaanapali Beach. It wasn't too difficult to walk there in the light, but in the dark was a different story.
This was the only sunset by the beach we really saw our entire time in Maui. Thank goodness it didn't disappoint.
We probably visited 15 to 20 beaches during our stay in Maui. I am not going to show any pictures of me on the beach,(WHEW) but it is interesting how different they all are. 
After our helicopter ride, we hiked to the IAO Needle that we had seen from above. It was lush and green and beautiful. 
This is a sacred place and was the location of a great battle in the history of Hawaii.
We stopped at McGreggor's Point on the way back and did some whale watching- saw a few.
They don't always pose well for pictures though. Here is the best I could do...the splash afterwards.
Our tour took us in the West Maui mountains as well as across the channel to Molokai.
Because of all of the rain, the waterfalls were plentiful...it was just difficult to get a good picture from the back seat.
Brad really liked the helicopter ride...his Valentine' s Day gift from me. 
I am by the banyan tree that has taken up the whole cityblock.
A quaint and relaxing tourist town. 
Here I am at dinner at Cool Cats. We were on the upper level next to the railing. It began raining during our meal.
This was our view as the sun set on our first FULL day in Maui.
We figured that we would have some jet lag our first morning in Maui, so we decided to wake up and drive to Haleakala Volcano. Many people drive up to the top to be there at sunrise, but we were not up quite that early. Maui was experiencing a tropical storm system and it was stormy, but we decided to go anyway since many books said that it may clear up at the top even if it wasn't down below.
This is what we found at the top...WIND, rain, 40 degrees and about 15 feet visibility. We waited a while to see if it would clear up, but it didn't. We purchased some post cards of the view of the volcano so that we would know what we were supposed to be seeing. (ha ha)
Isn't it spectacular!
This is after we drove quite a ways down, and actually caught a glimpse of some blue sky.
Not many would guess that I am in Hawaii.
We did stop and take a hike in a beautiful grove. It smelled so nice. We headed back when we started having to wade in deeper water and the mud was getting too thick.
When we arrived at the airport, we were informed that due to bad weather, our flight scheduled for 8:40 would be delayed until at least 11:55 pm. Within about 20 minutes they came back and said that our flight would actually leave on time. (We were happy with that). A fairly sleepless night brought us to Honolulu at 7:00 am.
We changed planes and landed in Maui at 8:00 am.
Since Brad had hurt his back, I had to lift the heavy luggage at the airports, into the rental car, etc. 
We had to find things to do before we could check in to our hotel that afternoon. We rented a Nissan Sentra, but we noticed that there was an overwhelming amount of Ford Mustang convertables out on the road.
One of the places that we went to was a Throckmorton Garage. Since Throckmorton isn't a common name Brad had to get his picture taken there. We tried to find things to do, but we finally just ended up sitting by the pool waiting for our room to be ready. Ahhhh- relaxation!
