Maui Week 2: Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 23-24

We got up early and met some friends of Galen and Carol's at the Gazebo Restaurant and enjoyed the famous macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup. The restaurant opened at 7:30 and we got there early and stood in line to make sure we would get a table. Great view of the ocean and wonderful food. It was a drizzly day, and we headed to Lahaina to do some shopping later that morning. Boys and girls in separate cars of course, since we girls enjoy the shopping experience so much more. We went out to lunch separately as well. The pic didn't turn out very well and I don't even remember the name of the restaurant, but since I hardly took any pics that day, here we are at lunch!

Wednesday, Christmas Eve dawned fairly wet as well, but that just made the flower pictures more beautiful, and the rain had diminished to a very light drizzle and stopped altogether before I got back.

 Galen was up early, and JD showed him his Awana's book and explained all the things he was learning.

Hot chocolate and whipped cream: JD loves it!

I helpfully got all sorts of necessary breakfast foods out of the fridge. Steve didn't notice that I had picked up the Caesar salad dressing instead of the coconut syrup until he put it on one of his waffles. Oh well, the bottles look remarkable similar!

Steve's children, our darling great nieces and nephews, are so polite and helpful. One or more of them thought Uncle Will needed a generous portion of whipped cream in his morning coffee.

It got a little messy before it was over!

A little later we headed down the road to the beach at Milepost 14. The snorkeling was good and turtles were seen. There were lots of beautiful shells, coral and even some sea glass found on the beach.

JD found a lovely sand crab.

We took a few posed photos. It was difficult for Steve and Katie to get nice picture taken of themselves due to the photo bombers in the area.

No one photobombed us so we got a nice one.

The girls made a gorgeous snowman.

Ok, maybe snowgirl. Or sandgirl? Someone christened her "Sandy". She had quite an attitude, and Carol's hat looked good on her.

But Carol needed her hat after she got out of the water.  A new hat appeared.

What a guy, Galen shared his hat with Sandy.

Oh, life is good.

Yikes, partially buried alive. Or is it a one-legged teenager?

Back at the house a little later, the sunset was incredible.

The kids were all taking pictures. The pic below does not do justice to the colors.

It was one of those sunsets that just keeps getting better for a long time. We were wishing that we were down on the beach to see all the sky and the reflections on the water.

With all the activity in the day, dinner was going to be a little late. It got even later when the oven lost power about 10 minutes after we put the lasagne in. Neither the top or bottom oven had any power. After some searching, the oven manual was found, and instructions for performing a reset were found.

The men reset it. Less than 10 minutes would pass before it would go off again, with a "PF" for power failure showing. Carol reset it. Several times. I reset it. Several times. A lasagna was put in the barbecue grill. Steve and Katie had gone to the store and got stuck in a long line (on Christmas Eve, imagine that!) Steve reset the oven using the convection setting and it lasted longer. I believe we had dinner by 9 p.m. that night.

But we still had time for a really fun game of Apple to Apple (the Bible version which Aunt LeAnn brought!)  Lots of good laughs before a late bedtime!