aloha, hawaii

you can probably guess that i had trouble leaving paradise.  it took forever to decide what to wear on the plane - going from 80 degrees to 30 is tough, especially with the red-eye flight from san fransisco on the second flight.  part of the difficulty, i know, was that i just did not want to put on that final outfit - so sad.  i cried a lot on this trip - if you know me, you know that i cry a LOT of happy tears, but mostly i was teary on the last day.  i told my friends that maui had better be perfect because that was what i was expecting.  well, yeah, maui was pretty perfect.  one thought that made me cry was that maybe our plane had crashed over the pacific - ala LOST - on the WAY TO hawaii, and this was our heaven.  here i go, i'm crying again. xoxo maui.  we will be back as soon as possible.

  aloha, hawaii from Mrs. Higgins First Grade on Vimeo.

art part 2

have you been wondering if anything has come of all the fishing trips?  well, i'll be honest, we did go here, just in case.

but, after several sad excursions, the old man did have some luck with the sea.  here he is at work.

and, here's out maui fishing souveneir.

birdie update

i wanted carol and of all you other birding friends out there to know that i saw an outstanding maui owl yesterday, the endangered hawaiian pueo.  they call him the protector of the island.  he was soaring around oprah country - not surprising!  here he is from far away.

i know, no telescopic lens on my iphone - so i found a nice internet photo!

cool, right?

click the pic above for some pueo facts.

i also wanted you to get a little idea of the beautiful birdsongs i'm enjoying.  here's a clip from our balcony.

balcony birdsongs from Mrs. Higgins First Grade on Vimeo.

nye for your listening pleasure

as promised, here are the videos!!!!!!
first, mick fleetwood, the beast on drums. . .

  nye mick fleetwood the beast from Mrs. Higgins First Grade on Vimeo.

next up, steven tyler, yup.

  nye rooftop wall this way from Mrs. Higgins First Grade on Vimeo.

this one was my favorite, steven and my new crush nuno. . .

  nye rooftop steven & nuno from Mrs. Higgins First Grade on Vimeo.

and here's a little glimpse of me making the most of it.

nye dancing with steven from Mrs. Higgins First Grade on Vimeo.

hny rooftop concert

as the sun set tonight, we got all dressed up and set off to lihaina for our much anticipated new year's eve celebration at fleetwood's on first.  the event was so hyped up in my mind that there was no way it was going to fulfill all my expectations.  but it did - and then some.

remember mark from our hotel lounge?  well, here he is in action.  he was playing all night!  he gave us a shout out and we spoke to him at the end of the night - a great maui friend :D

speaking of playing all night - did you know that mick fleetwood is an AMAZING drummer?  his house band is so good, joe and i started dancing and never stopped.

then steven tyler came, and the place exploded.  he sang walk this way, and i almost jumped off the roof.

then this happened.  this adorable singer/musician from the band extreme - i don't even know his name, but i know his song - played, "more than words" and steven harmonized - no words for this one.

the boys counted down the new year,

and my face looked like this all night!

happy new year from maui 

p.s. i'll post a video as soon as joe wakes up - all the video is on his phone - mine of course died, so i had to dance and forget about picture taking :D

the road to oprah

since fishing trips got in the way of the day long road to hana trip, we decided to have a two hour road to oprah's house ride instead.  she lives way up on the mountain behind us, overlooking all of maui.
the town is kula - i think.  no one really gives you details, they just point up the mountain.

the roads in maui are kind of crazy in a you can't get there from here kind of way.  to go up the mountain, we first have to go across the mountain for about 11 miles, then up for about i don't know how many miles, then, back across another 11 miles or so.  maybe i'm off a bit but it takes about two hours back and forth to go up. but, like everything else here, it's worth it.

if you're gonna live here, live up here and enjoy the whole island at once.

my new friend darlene said that oprah had her own road put in so that she doesn't have to do the around and up route - but only she can use it.  it also helps seclude her from crazy people like me who want to peek.  so we didn't exactly see the house, but the neighborhood is to die for.

here's an internet pic of the place.  not too shabby.

darlene also said that oprah's on island with stedman, and that they were spotted at the four seasons the other day.  i actually think i SAW her while i was watching that water yoga class from my beachchair.  REALLY.  a large black woman with a ridiculous hat walked past, was saying hi to everyone, and a lot of people were behind her.  i didn't want to assume it was her, but now that i think about it IT WAS!

aloha, oprah :D

maui lemonade

you know the saying about life giving you lemons?  well this happened today.

this morning we were up bright and early - as usual - for another water adventure.  we'd been watching kevin at wailea beach and his outrigger canoe taking tourists for lovely tours all week.  i was looking forward to this one :D

well, as kevin carefully and patiently surveyed his office space, he sadly had to let us down.  the surf was just too big and unrelenting to go out.  dang, lemons. so sad, i mean i had on the cute outdoorsy outfit again and was ready to go!

so, what to do?  find a fishing spot of course :D  we drove up to makeena state beach and maui gave us a big glass of lemonade. hidden beach, private lave cave for a bit of natural umbrella shade, and fish!  here's another slide show.