Maui Vacation Day #1

Day #1 - Thursday, January 7, 2016

Last month our church celebrated its 10 year anniversary, and as a surprise for my wife and me, lots of people within our church and from all over the world chipped in to provide us with a 10-day vacation to Maui. We are both very thankful since there is no way we would have been able to take a vacation like this on our own. This was also very special for us since it was our first vacation WITHOUT THE KIDS in 15 years of marriage! When you have 8 kids, you will understand the significance of this (Thanks, mom, for watching the kids!). It was also by far the grandest vacation I've ever been on in my life.

View of Maui from the airplane

Another thing that made this vacation possible was the fact that there is a large house in Kihei, Maui, known as the Brewster Rest Haven, that is designed as a place for pastors to stay on vacation for a super low cost. We were able to stay there for the entire week and a half for a total of only $200 per person. The accommodations were very nice and included a fully furnished kitchen. Not only that, but the lodging also provided lots of things to use while on vacation (snorkels, face masks, fins, boogie boards, water shoes, ice chests, binoculars, etc.).

Brewster Rest Haven

This series of 10 blog posts will give a day-by-day rundown of our vacation and include lots of pictures we took on the trip.

As you can see on this map, Kihei is very centrally located.

The first day we arrived late in the afternoon at the end of a 6 1/2 hour flight, so the short time we had in Hawaii that day was mainly just spent getting settled in, buying things we needed at the store, etc. Our first meal on Maui was dinner at a really good restaurant called "Da Kitchen." I had the Terriyaki Burger and Zsuzsa had the Tempura Mahi. The portions were huge and the food was amazing.

We went to bed early because we were still on Arizona time (Hawaii is 3 hours earlier), and at 3:00am the next morning, I was up and ready to go on our first activity: watching the sunrise from the top of the 10,000' high Haleakalā crater!

Sunrise at Haleakalā crater, the highest point on Maui (10,023 feet)