Hana is Heaven part 1 of ???

We just got back from 10 days in paradise with our really good friends. 12 of us total (including 2 bambinos) went to Hana, Maui - we were really lucky to have been there once before but this time the group expanded:

Rob & I got to Maui first so we went to Costco for everybody. I felt like we had a huge house of foster kids or something - we had 2 completely full carts of food...insanity! That's $1,100 dollars worth of Costco groceries (plus $1.50 hot dog in that belly, of course)

I'm glad we rallied and made the 2 hour drive to Hana that night - once we woke up in the morning we had 9 days of nothingness stretched out in front of us!We ended up renting the cottage next door to Karen's parents' place because there were so many of us. We had the kid-free joint, which was quite a blessing for nighttime...although we woke up with the sun ever morning at 6 anyway (the one and ONLY drawback to staying on the ocean). Here was our little pad, we stayed there with Jason and Tara:Having coffee on our porch with the ocean view:


We mostly just hung out at Karen's place, though. I cannot begin to explain the level of chill that we reached while there. There is nothing better to sit lazily on the porch (or on the hammock, brilliant!) and chat while looking out over the ocean. I swear, there would be no wars if everyone could have the chance to spend a few days there.
We laughed a ton, ate our weight in fresh fruit and the cocktails were definitely flowing.

We girls would pick poumeria flowers daily for our hair - I bought some fake ones at the airport that will just have to sustain me until next time.Hanging on the porch was heaven but so is their massive back yard. Bocce was almost a daily event (complete with cocktails and wearing swimsuits, of course):...and we also tried some backyard golf as well (a hole being one of 9 different pre-determined palm trees).

But the piece de la resistance is Karen's Dad's John Deere. I can't help it, I like John Deere's a lot.

Not really sure what that's about, but why the need to analyze it, eh? Riding the JD around the yard was one of my favorite activities...

Karen and Alex even got us all matching JD shirts - brilliant!

More hilarity and hijinx to follow: