November: Fall colors, Hair (the musical) Thanksgiving and festive markets in Portland

Julian and I on a walk enjoying the fall colors.

We saw a wonderful production of the musical "Hair" in Portland.  I love the music in this show!

Happy Birthday Hyrum 💕

Our annual tradition of going to spend Thanksgiving at Mt. Hood.  Hyrum cooked us a wonderful feast and we had a lot of family join us:)

Hyrum's Mom, his brother Jason and Jason's partner Tony all came to celebrate with us.

Silly photo of Oma finishing off the sparkling cider...she looks like a real boozer 😛

The condo we stayed in had a foosball table which was really fun

We spent a beautiful, sunny afternoon walking around in the snow by Timberline lodge.

Mt. Hood was gorgeous...

...the view looking out across the valley from Mt. Hood.  Also, gorgeous!

We went to the food trucks in Hillsboro for a farewell dinner to say goodbye to Oma.

My friends invited me to a "German Christmas Market" in Portland.  I had been to this "market" before and it's really not much but they had a cute St. Nicholaus:)

We also went to the Portland Night Market which was super fun to walk around and they had yummy food carts BUT it was packed! So many people that if you walked past a vendor you liked you couldn't really stop to check anything out because you would be blocking the human traffic flow!

The Santa at the Night Market was so cute! I loved his big belt buckle:)

 

Maui Hawaii with Oma

This year Hyrum and I went to Maui for his annual medical conference and we decided to invite his mom to come along. We had a very relaxing week and enjoyed the sun and sand. Oma went for a nice long walk along the beach each morning and found some treasures from the ocean she could bring home. I enjoyed lots of fish tacos and wonderful sunny days. We have been to Maui so many times we didn't have any "must see" to do lists so we just took it easy and enjoyed our time. I love Hawaii!

Enjoying the sun poolside on our first afternoon in Muai

Sun, sand and waves...a beautiful morning on the beach

Fish tacos for lunch? Yes please!

A wonderful afternoon for a hike in the forest at Makawao Forest Reserve

A rainbow on the beach:)

We had a bunch of fun watching the kite and wind surfers at Ho-okipa Beach.  Those guys make it look so easy!!

Tuesday was VERY windy so we went to a museum we hadn't been to before. The Baily House was interesting but kind of sad and run down. 

Beautiful quilt at the museum

The historic Bailey House

Windy, windy day at the beach. It was gusting up to 50 mph and the sand came flying at you and it felt like you were in a sand blaster on your legs and face!

Windy day in the Iao Valley...love Hyrum's hair:)

This giant tree is barely hanging on with it's roots over this river, such an amazing tree!

We stopped at Kepaniwai State Park, which we hadn't been to before. It was very interesting. It was a park dedicated to all the immigrants that came to Maui to work on the plantations and each culture was represented by a garden or little building. Such beautiful setting and great little park to walk around.

We walked around the Haleki-i Pihana Heiau, again, it was a place we hadn't ever stopped at before because it's always been super low on our list of things to see. But it was a nice little spot with a great view of the ocean. The Heiau's of Hawaii are ancient temples where the priests would perform ceremonies and royalty gave birth to future kings. Even though not much is usually left it's always neat to see a piece of Hawaiian culture.

Foundation of the Heiau

Hyrum and I had walked along the boardwalk at Kealia a few years ago but we had to go back this time because we had read that a bacteria outbreak had turned the water a deep purple...it did not disappoint. The scientists have sampled the water and don't believe it is toxic to the wild life but it sure looks crazy!

We spent the whole day on Wednesday at the beach but this is the only photo I got. We snorkeled and saw 3 sea turtles!! So glad we took a whole day just to relax at the beach and enjoy the ocean.

Wednesday evening we drove up Haleakala to see the sun set. I love the beautiful silver sword plants at the top of this volcano!

It's sooooo cold 10,000 feet up!

It's worth freezing for this gorgeous sun set you get to witness from the top of the world! It looks like you could just walk off the edge of the volcano and walk on top of the clouds!

Haleakala Crater

Even though it's freezing and the wind is blowing and you just want to get warm, it's worth it to stick around until the sun completely sets because the sky changes and you see so many amazing colors!

Fish tacos for dinner:)

Thursday we drove a bit of the Road to Hana. We made it to Keanae Peninsula before turning around. It's always so fun to see the waves crashing on the old lava formations here on the peninsula.

We paid to get a fresh coconut...it's a lot of work to get the meat out of these coconuts!

Of course you have to stop at Aunty Sandy's banana bread stand on the peninsula...best banana bread in Maui! It's fresh and warm when you buy it!!

We stopped at Keanae arboretum for a little walk. It rained off and on but it was still a fun little stop. I love all the unique plants in Hawaii and how they look like they come from the age of the dinosaurs!

The rainbow eucalyptus trees are my favorite

Crazy looking banana tree

When we got back to our car after the arboretum walk we noticed our tire was completely flat. Hyrum had to change it out for the spare tire...I'm really glad the rental car had a spare tire! We must have run over something sharp but we couldn't remember running over anything...just bad luck I guess.

Saying goodbye to our Condo on Friday morning...

One last shave ice before heading to the airport. Aloha Hawaii until next time!