Day 1: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 (Aunt Cindy's 75th Birthday!)
In honor of our trip, we started the day with a wonderful breakfast at home of homemade Maui Banana Bread (I'll post the recipe on a Tasty Treats Tuesday), cottage cheese with pineapple, and some fresh grapefruit from some friends at our Weight Watchers meeting. The best part of the morning was our flight did not depart PHX until 10:45am. It's the best when your flight is not too early so you don't have to wake up early but since you're going to Maui, you can't help but get up early because during that first bathroom visit of the day, you think I'm going to Maui TODAY! (Who can go back to sleep after thinking that?)
Our flight was wonderful. Walt told the flight attendant that it was Aunt Cindy's 75th birthday and not once but twice she mentioned it over the intercom!
I wonder why these people look so happy? :DWe made Aunt Cindy wear this silly sign and pink ribbons all day which she turned around and got me back two days later on my birthday and made ME wear it all day!
We arranged for Aunt Cindy to get a lei greeting at the airport. Lei greetings aren't standard unless you book through some travel agents who throw it in. For this trip, we found that all travel agencies were quite a bit more than the deal we found online. Since Walt and I have had multiple lei greetings, we decided to forgo it to watch and enjoy Aunt Cindy getting hers. She was so surprised and couldn't believe all the surprises that day! We told her they weren't done yet!
Everything went so smoothly and we got in much earlier than scheduled...over 15 minutes early...around 2pm. Our luggage was delivered to baggage claim quickly and we were one of the first batches on the belt. Walt went to hop on the shuttle bus to get the rental car while we went to baggage claim thinking it could take awhile with such a large plane of vacationers! We decided to go ahead and hop on the shuttle bus and meet him at the car rental place and we were there so quickly that we got on the same one as Walt! When we got to the car rental pickup, they apologized for not having our reserved vehicle and gave us an upgrade to an SUV for free! We knew it would be more gas but with all the driving around the island that we planned to do, we were very excited. (On a side note, the back seat of the SUV was so nice and spacious with air/sound controls that we all wanted turns throughout the week riding in the backseat!)
While Costco is right outside of the airport, we had a couple errands to run beforehand. First, we were picking up a pecan pie and a banana cream pie from a highly recommended local bakery that we found online. Pecan is Aunt Cindy's favorite and since I don't like pecans, we also got a banana cream pie. This was also a surprise and we could tell Aunt Cindy was excited. We had asked her what her favorite cake was a few months prior because she loves to make cakes for everyone's birthday. We were surprised to learn that she's not much of a cake fan and pecan pies are her favorite! Another suprise as Walt thought her favorite pie was chocolate!
Ooops...a little smooshed! Still tasty!
We then headed to find a farmer's market on the south side that was open in the afternoons to see what fresh produce we could get before grabbing produce at Costco. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the farmer's market...we found a "flea type" market with a scant selection of less than appealing produce so we hopped back in the car and headed to Costco. (We hit an amazing Farmer's Market later in the week close to our condo and seriously were amazed that the other one wasn't the same as they were advertised by the same store...oh well...more on that later!)
Before arriving in Maui, we had made a grocery list and meal plan with Aunt Cindy of what we wanted to prepare in the condo for the week. So when we went to Costco, we kept track of what they either didn't have at Costco or what wouldn't be practical for us to buy in larger quantities with only three of us. We ended up getting many things for a great price at Costco. They had the same honey roasted turkey breast as they do in AZ for the SAME price...only $3.85/lb! Very affordable in everyday life, let alone in Maui! We picked up several fruits and vegetables including a Maui Gold pineapple! Our only regret was not tearing into it for a few days and realizing how TASTY it was! Seriously better than any junk food!
After Costco, we loaded up and headed towards our resort to check into our condo. We were staying at the same resort that we stayed at for Walt's 40th birthday. (We figured if you find something you like at a great price, why risk going somewhere else? With condo rentals, you never know what you're going to get.) One of the many things we enjoyed about staying there was that while it was a condo with a fully-equiped kitchen, it was also still in a resort setting with beautifully landscaped grounds. There was a restaurant, gift shop, spa, fitness center and everything you'd find at a resort. The best part of all was the resort was right on the ocean.
To start our vacation off right and because it was Aunt Cindy's 75th birthday the day we arrived, we went to dinner at Bubba Gumps on the water in Lahaina at sunset. It was wonderful! (We went for Walt's 40th birthday too when we were there last.) 
Aunt Cindy getting sang too and our beautiful sunset view...too bad it was cloudy that day!
We turned early pooped but happy that it had been such a wonderful travel day and full of blessings. It was sweet resting our heads on our pillows knowing we had a whole week ahead of us in Maui!
To Be Continued...
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