As I sit here tonight I am writing from the ever perfect island of Maui where Paul, Syd and I are on our annual sun vacation. As we sat on the beach yesterday I calculated that this is Sydney's sixth trip to Maui which means that Paul and I have been here together well over a dozen times. It does feel a bit like a second home at this point.
Every year I love watching Sydney at the beach and around her favourite haunts. Each year seems to bring a new pastime and passion. She is such a beach girl, loves the sun and sand and water. This year she is still so interested in collecting sea glass, a passion fueled by her Auntie Liane's love of the same. Every day she and I trek down the beach to our favourite collection area by a cluster of lava rocks to see if we can find any 'treasures' as she calls them. With each wave that crashes onto the shore she hopefully says 'I wonder what this wave will bring us?" She has taken great pleasure in finding a couple of very large pieces of coral this year which she insists we are taking home with us!
Sydney also loves hanging out in 'the cave', a large lava rock that has been carved out by the ocean which provides a little haven for her to play in the ocean somewhat sheltered by the big waves.
One of the things Paul and I love to do while in Maui is to get up while it's still dark and as soon as daylight breaks we head out up the hill to Wailea for our morning walk. Since Sydney's been born she has joined us in a stroller with one of us huffing and puffing up the hill pushing her along with us. This year I rented another stroller but my big girl has almost completely outgrown it! She curls her legs up to tuck them into the stroller and sits for as long as she can before jumping out to join Daddy and I for our walk. I have the feeling that next year at this time she'll be trekking up that hill with us and keeping up just fine!
Every year when we are in Maui we aim to see four different animals in their natural habitat during our time here before we can dub our trip 'perfect': humpback whales, sea turtles, green geckos and egrets. This year we hit all of them by our last day except turtles, then the morning that we were leaving, we walked down to the beach to return a bucket of sea shells and coral that Sydney had collected and saw two of the hugest turtles we've ever seen in our life swimming in the ocean on our beach. As the time drew near to say goodbye to them we turned around to see the most gorgeous rainbow stretching across the sky. It was a magical moment that I won't soon forget.
We are home now, it feels good to be back in our own surroundings. Sydney and I spent the day unpacking, doing laundry and grocery shopping to get everything back to square one. Midday we popped out for sushi for lunch and while we were waiting for our meal to arrive Sydney pulled a notebook and pen out of my purse and wrote a list of "Best Maui Memories 2014/2015" Here's what it looked like:
1. Sunsets
2. Walks
3. Pool
4. Beach
5. Visiting Lori and Marcus
6. Seeing a Colourful Dead Fish
7. Sea Glass
8. Shells
9. Turtles
10. Whales
11. Gecko
12. Aquarium
I loved her list, it beautifully summed up all the things that both she and Paul and I loved about our holiday. It truly was a perfect vacation and an amazing way to bring a new year in!
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