Lazy Monday ...

The bigger kids and Daddy and Papa, and one aunt and two uncles went out on a kayak/snorkeling excursion. O. was going to go with them and he got in a kayak for a little bit, but then decided that he did not like being out in such deep water and so far from shore, so Papa brought him back to stay with the rest of us. Papa is going to buy a cd of photos from their kayaking/snorkeling guide ... he had a digital cmaera with him. I'll upload those photos whenever we get that cd (should be later today)

Grandma, Auntie Am. and I hung out at the condos with the 2 babies, the 1 year old the 2 year old, the 4 year old and then O., the 6 year old. We were just finishing lunch and getting ready to goto the condo pool when all the kayakres returned so we waited till they got lunch and then most of us headed down to the pool ... spent 3 1/2 hours down there. The kids were swimming and playing most of the time, but I spent most of the time on a lounge chair. Z. even ended up falling asleep down there ... such a cute little guy!

Monday morning sunrise

Ok, so our condo faces west ... great for sunsets, not as great to watch the sun rise, but Zeke and Papa and I were up around 6 this morning and we watched from our deck as the sky turned colors and the moon disapeared.

Our Easter Sunday Supper

The hotel here offers several services (for an extra charge, of course), one of them is the option to hire a personal chef for the day or for a meal. We decided a month or so ago that perhaps spending the money for a personal chef to cook us a nice dinner right in our own condo would be better than trying to take all 9 kids and 8 adults out to a busy crowded restaurant Easter evening ... the chef and his assistants set up tables, prepared our meal in our kitchen, and served several courses to us as we sat out on the deck taking in our beautiful view as the sun set. The kids used the coffe table and some couch cousions to make a table on the floor (just like when they ate at the luau) Here are some picturs from our delicious dinner!

Our Sunday afternoon at the pool

After our beautiful Easter service and a yummy pancake brunch back in our condo, we headed over to the main hotel area for the Easter Egg Hunt and games for the kids. Shaved ice, cookies, ball toss, ring toss, miniputt ... stuff like that with little prizes. Kids enjoyed that. We all wore our swim suits over to the egg hunt, because then we planned to hit the big pool or the beach after the egg hunt fun. But it was sooooo packed over there that A. & I decided it was too stressful to keep track of the kids. They went around the lazy twice and the little boys played in the wading pool for a bit, but then we came back over to our condo and enjoyed the smaller much quiter pool by our condo. Acctually for almost an hour we were the only people using the pool ... very nice.






















Having trouble posting any more photos right now ... not sure if its my computer or Blogger or just my connection ... so we are going to go have lunch and hit the pool. I will try again in a bit.

For those wanting to see more of where we are staying here on Maui is their main webite:

www.grandwailea.com

We are actually staying in Grand Wailea's new addition called Ho'olei ... I think there is a whole page on the Ho'olei on Grabd Wailea's site. Its very nice to have several bedrooms and several bathrooms and a nice big kitchen. We also have a lovely deck, with the most incredible view! The sliding glass doors are more like a glass wall that retracts into either wall, which makes the deck and the view a part of the living room area.

Our Easter Sunday Service

Please Please Please if you get a chance visit this churches website!

http://www.hopechapelmaui.com/


My sister saw the sign for this church's Easter service yesterday and it was close to our condo, so we decided to have everybody up and ready togo by 7:30 ... not too hard when 7:30am feels like 12:30pm to our bodies :-)

I was so blessed by this service ... there is just so much I could write about, but the kids want to get to the beach so I'll have to ponder what I'll write till later today. I truely hope you are having a very blessed Easter sunday.


What a beautiful setting for a Church, ha?




Our kids outside after the service:



The picture above is what the sanctuary looked like as we walked in ... near the beginning of the service the worship director held up a couple stacks of differently colored post-it-notes and he commented about how plain and ordniary an individual post-it-note can seem.

"Each one has its own use or purpose, but that use and purpose can seem pretty insignificant sometimes." Then he handed them off and said, "But when you put those insignificant, ordinary things in the right hands and they all come together its amazing what can happen ... "

The person with the post-it-notes walked off and the choir entered and stood in front of the black back drop until later in the service and when they moved we realized what had been happening with all those post-its ... while we sang and listed to a solo, others where behind the choir creating a beautiful mosaic type masterpiece our of those ordinary post-its.


Notice in the next pictures the now colorful backdrop:





Click on this last picture to see how the individual post-its fit together to make this beautiful piece of art.

Easter Sunday!

What a great day to rejoice and praise the Lord, no matter where you are!
For He has risen indeed!




Christian Easter Comments - DazzleJunction.com

Saturday ... travel to Maui!

Saturday we packed our bags and said Good Bye to Oahu:





We were thrilled to arrive at the Grand Wailea in Maui:









After stopping at both Kmart and Walmart for:
Sandwich fixings, iced coffee, boogie boards, inner tubes, sand toys, egg dye, and chocolate Easter Eggs ... we had just enough time to check in, change clothes and head off to our luau:

























If you really like Luaus or want to see the 200 Luau photos I took feel free to visit our Luau Album at www.shutterfly.com Just click Here