Day 2- Hawaii (Kihei, Maui)

 We slept like the dead, until I woke up at 3am ready to take on the world. The world was not quite ready for me, so I rolled over and slept until the East Coast equivalent of noon o'clock. At that point I was so well rested I was invincible! We all emerged from our nests and had time to actually cook and enjoy breakfast. As a family. Together. At the same table.  A far cry from the "stuffing a granola bar down your gullet and screaming you out the door" to which my my precious imps have become accustomed.  It felt very The Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii, without the terrifying tarantula and voodoo curse.  Because the weather was a little iffy, we postponed our sunrise snorkel trip until tomorrow and decided to spend this morning settling into our new digs. This included a trip to the farmers market for fresh fruit at the girls insistence.  I believe that this was most assuredly because of some TikTac influencer some such nonsense. They don't care a lick about my "fruit haul" when I get home from the Krogers. But, we did procure some "exotic" local fruit (ahem, I can get fruit at the Krogers, and that farmer's market didn't play any Hall and Oates)

Fruit. It's for sale.

It was decided that because we had an open window of time, it would be an excellent opportunity for the family Bullington to take a surf lesson. A timely lesson, since Thomas considers himself a world class surfer with  one lesson under his belt. Mrs. Bullington is noticeably absent from said lesson as she still has flashbacks from her first surfing experience in Hawaii. The one when she learned that despite her desire to be Bethany Hamilton (pre shark encounter), her sturdy frame coupled with her lack of coordination and balance did not a surfer make. Anyhoo, 4/5 Bullingtons surfed while Mama Smurf went to the grocery store. Y'all. Mayonnaise is $13. I can't live like this. And I bought Spam: Story at 11:00.

Charlotte Hangs Ten

Mae killing it

Thomas strategically heading straight toward a girl 

After the lesson everyone was starving, so we headed back to our digs for lunch. Thomakazi had requested several atypical items at the store. Namely, Spam, rice, and seaweed. At this particular lunch hour, he  bestowed upon us a most creative concoction incorporating all of said ingredients into some sort of sushi situation (but with Spam). I tried to keep an open mind, but when a food stuff is categorized as "potted meat" and consists of ground up leftover pig parts, I take pause. And, I've eaten a lot of weird stuff in my day. I gritted my teeth, took a bite,  and marveled at Thomas' meat parts savvy. 0/5 stars. Would not recommend. 

The face the first Taste O' Spam. 

We headed to our dinner spot, Monkey Pod (Thanks for the excellent rec, Jennifer Fowler! I know you got married forever ago and you have an different last name now, but I'm a creature of habit and I'm a little miffed that you don't live in Maui anymore. I had planned on a grand Gilmer County reunion!) When we arrived it was pouring rain. The wait was over an hour so we put our name on the list and headed back to Kehei where we were staying because it doesn't seem to rain there. The weather is hella weird here. I was breaking out it literal hives because our forecast said it was going to rain non-stop the entire time we were here. There was a FLOOD WARNING. And aside from some drizzle when we arrived, there has been no rain where we are staying. Drive five minutes up the road, deluge.  It has to do with the micro-climates. Which I totally knew about before some sciency person told me about them. At any rate, we wanted to see the sunset.  We found an open spot in a random beachside parking lot and dug in for the light show. I did have to take off my fancy shoes and scale some rocks barefoot in my dinner frock. But, the sunset was spectacular and I didn't fall on my can. #soblessed