January 6-8, 2011

Well, our vacation came to an end :(  The last two days (Thursday and Friday) were rainy days, so we did what any other person on vacation would do when the rain comes, we went shopping!!  We shopped all over Kihei on Thursday.  On Friday, Chase, Anna, Blake, Grandma, Erma and I went into Wailea and did some more shopping.  We went to The Shops at Wailea and hit the jackpot!  It was an open air style mall and they had some great stores.  We shopped til we dropped and then headed home.  It was still kind of rainy so most of us started the dreaded job of packing.  The sun did manage to come out late afternoon so we were able to catch one last great sunset.  We got all packed and all the suitcases squeezed into the cars and headed for the airport around 9:00 p.m.  The cars were returned, luggage was checked (and one of us had to unload some things from our suitcase and add to another because it was overweight...), security was gone through and to our gate we went to wait for our plane.  We boarded and took off at 11:50 p.m. and said goodbye to Hawaii and hello to a looooooong day of travel.  We landed in Los Angeles around 7 a.m. (LA time) and had a few hours until our next flight.  We got some breakfast and chilled for a bit.  We boarded our plane bound for Chicago and started the next leg of our trek home.  We arrived in Chicago and had about an hour and a half until our next flight.  So we got some food and sat in the terminal and watched the NFL playoffs.  We boarded our flight for Grand Rapids and 35 minutes later we were on the ground, which was covered in this white, powdery, cold stuff...snow.  Brrrr!  It was cold!!  We got our luggage and waited for Tom Najar and Dan Melpoder to arrive to take the family home.  It was a wonderful vacation, filled with many memories!  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the trip of a lifetime!!