Animals we saw while in Maui

We saw a Katie bird (Blue and gold macaw)
A cockatoo (this photo is turned, turn your head to the right for the proper view... the bird is leaning down over the bottom of her perch, chewing on it... yep, that's what birds do! crazy birds...)

A military and scarlet Macaw. (they were the only birds that sat together, they are good friends or something... maybe bird mates...)

A gecko of some kind.

Flamingos.

A white and black swan....Stop looking at me swan (Billy Madison reference)

A black swan. (hard to see from the night shot, but he was cool. And his best friend is one of the dudes that works at the hotel because one morning we came down and heard the swan who wouldn't stop making this crazy noise because her/his friend was there, the hotel dude, and was petting the swan... it was just so cute how the swan would wig out, and the dude would pet it, then the swan would wig and the dude would pet the swan some more... too funny!)

A weird but cool fish.

Hella big fish.

Koi... and hella big Koi...

There was also a Gorilla sighting... no, that was just Amy using her Chiquita Banana floatie in the ocean... no picture of that one, sorry!

Thanksgiving with Benezra's then Brelsford's

Thanksgiving as always was celebrated first at Mom and Dad Benezra's house on Mercer Island. Even though there were less people and Mom made less food, there was still tons left over. Maybe next year......

Mom made a delicious meal of Turkey, Salmon, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes and marshmallows, green bean casserole, stuffing, cornbread, biscuits, etc. Selena and Samara made desserts. Amy made an appetizer because she thought people would need something to munch on... little did she know there would be so many apps there already too! Geez, what a feast! Below is Debbie in the kitchen as she slaves away... yes, she did have help, but she really does most of it all on her own! Thanks Debbie! Again, this was just part of the left overs. Yikes. Selena had quite the sugar high after dinner and decided wrestling with Jason was a great idea. Finally, Jason showed her who was boss. Taylor, Libbey, Amy and I watched the Selena Jason match and it was quite funny.Dad went all animalistic and decided to take a man bite of turkey. Amy had a temporary braided stash and goatie going. Gross - maybe she was bored for a bit...Friday we went over to the Brelsford's and had Papa Murphy's pizza, eggnog ice cream sandwiches (seriously, the Nog is the bomb!), pumpkin pie, chocolate brownies, etc. Norman and I watched movies while Lynn and Amy went to the annual wreath party at Karin's... wreath photos will come later we're sure... Oh, and Mickey is SO cute. The original cat whiner, but CUTE!Lynn gave Katie a Turkey bone and she cleaned that thing out. When she was done it was 1/3 of the size of when she got it.

It sounds really sick, but the bird loves bones. Not just bird bones, but any bone really. She loves to crack into it and get the yummy stuff inside, she makes a mess and it's all over her face but she just loves it! You say, "Katie, what do you want? Katie, do you want a bone?" She says, "Wanna bone?... MMMmmm, is it good? Mmmmm!" Too funny! We love that crazy screamin' maniac of a bird!

Ridiculously long post from our vacation in Maui

After such a mess on our travel day, we got in, ate and went to bed. As we were eating, maintenance came to our hotel room - it was so windy the wind was whistling, quite loudly, through our room. Someone came to our room and made the noise much better - thank you to whoever that was for giving us a good night of rest! When we woke up the next morning, this is the view we had. A huge rainbow (actuallya double rainbow but the picture doesn't show it) went right into the horizon. It was a great omen for the rest of our trip and the thickest rainbow either of us had ever seen. Again, picture doesn't do it justice! Reid, Sara and their roommate Larry came to our resort and we hung by the pool and beach all day. After a quick break, we went to Sansei (THE BEST SUSHI PLACE EVER!) and ate until we couldn't anymore. This place had been suggested to us by friends at home, then in the paper we were reading that morning, and then suggested again by Reid and Sarah, so this dinner choice was a no brainer. Our waiter was super funny saying that this dish was his 3rd favorite and the dessert we ordered was his 4th favorite. It was quite comical. In the photo below, we were waiting at the bar due to a 35 minute wait for a table - that's how good this place is. No, that's not a stripper pole - it's just part of the bar we promise!

Reid had the large beer, and struck a pose, like always.

We ate at the below restaraunt twice - nice view huh? It was called Leilani's (at the Whaler Village) and they have excellent Ono (fish) tacos.

Again, not a bad view from our room thanks to our double upgrade to a full ocean view...

We had yummy drinks like this a bunch. Pina Colada's with mango this time.

This restaraunt was called Long Boards and they had this cool car set up for a cool photo Op. This is a strange pose from Amy - she does those sorts of poses when she doesn't want her photo taken... which is often...

The only thing that sucked was the gravel you had to stand in...it got between your foot and the flip flop. No biggie. Just another reason Amy didn't want her photo taken :)

Just a sweet photo of one of my favorite things: palm trees

The hotel had 5 pools and 2 water slides. One was super small for kids (but that didn't stop us!) and the other was 2 stories tall.

Amy used the slide a little more - here (above) she is prepping to plug her nose for the big plunge! Needless to say she didn't get the memo about how you are supposed to sit up on the slide as you go down, and went WAY faster than she planned... but found laying down to be more fun, although more dangerous too...

Anth got some bruises from this last turn on the slide (below). It threw him up on the high ends of the slide.

Here is a video of the slide from Amy's perspective! (only a couple seconds, then a pause, then you see Anth come down the slide...)

We saw this cabana-ish area where the view of the ocean was gorgeous. We're pretty sure you have to rent this place out, or at least sign up for it, but it was finally empty and we wanted to sit somewhere to finally view a full sunset, so this worked perfectly!

Amy got a new dress. Fancy, huh?

The Maui invitational was going on while we were in Maui and Cincinnati, Wisconsin and Colorado stayed at our hotel.

Sunglass hut was in our hotel. Amy always says Sunglass Hut when we see one, so this was funny to us.

At Wailea with Reid.

This was the restaraunt that Reid works at. Yes, it has 21 letters and is abbreviated as either Humu or Humuhumu. Humuhumunukukukuapua'a... say that 3 times fast!

Before wine, appetizers, dinner and dessert, we strike a pose. Thanks to the stranger who took this photo and had to be calm with us as we had to change the setting on the thing 3 times before the picture came out...

Does this island ever have a bad sunset? Nope! This was the view from our table at dinner.

And again, but without the zoom...

Ahi tuna is our new favorite meat. It tastes just like steak! At least to people who haven't had steaks for 4 or 8 years...

Yes, after most of a bottle of wine, I looked a bit faded. Thanks to Reid and his buddies at the Humu for showing us such a nice time!

This was the last Bia that we encountered on our trip. The jist is that the kid behind her left shoulder accidentally spilled water on the back and side of her dress. She continued (after they apologized profusely and bought the couple 2 glasses of champagne) to complain to everyone she could, and throughout the dinner to her sad sorry companion (we say that because we feel sad and sorry for him to be with her) for the entire time we were there. She kept telling servers, hostesses, etc. She is an ugly woman inside and out. And really, that dress is awful. She was swearing, a lot, and talkign about how she's always being assulted, and now children are assaulting her, and complaining about children... pretty sure she isn't fit to be a Mom, good thing it appears she is ancient and still without child... a blessing on the world if you ask me... Sorry to stoop to her level, but she was just a horrible person, and ultimately it took a lot for us not to let our evening be ruined by her. Remember what I said about not talking loud enough for the whole plane to hear you... that applies to restaurants too... We blurred out his face, as well as hers, because he's probably embarassed to be seen with her anyway...

Reid's typical pose. Nice skirt, oh I mean "Lava Lava"

This was the $99 bottle of wine that Reid gave us for free. Nice having people in high places.

I miss this dude. Glad we were able to hang out a couple of times.

On our last night, we went to Merriman's off of Napili Beach. Another excellent view with great food. We shared 4 different kinds of fish. Butter fish (meh), Mahi Mahi (excellent), Ahi (delicous) and Opaka Paka (pink snapper, that was the best of the 4).

Amy got a Effen Shirley Temple and loved it. Yes, Effen, like....well you know. Anyways, this was a very funny drink name and we have to get some of that Effen Black Cherry vodka for home. Yes, the vodka is made by Effen!

Delicious, the drink....beautiful, my wife!

Last day of the trip....we needed more pool/reading time.

Amy may have a future profession as a Private investigator. She kept taking pictures of me reading from different places around the pool. Sneaky McSneak.

My final pose from Maui.

And Amy's with her new pool tank top.

Maui is awesome. Anyone who is thinking about going....DO IT! It was 37 degrees out when we left Seattle, 84 when we got in Maui and 39 when we got back to Seattle. Hawaii is the best of the best and Maui is the best Hawaii has to offer (at least... from what we've seen so far :)).