Wedding Anniversary in Hawaii, First Activities

Several years ago (eleven, as I recall) when the U.S. government finally issued a formal apology to its citizens of Japanese descent for their incarceration and associated severe economic loss during World War II, Jodie's family used their token payment to celebrate in Hawaii. By coincidence, Mary and I were in Hawaii at the same time and ran into Bill & Julie and Craig & Jodie in the Haleakala crater during this celebration. We joined the whole family for dinner that evening. Through the years I've often recalled their celebration, and when Mary's and my 50th wedding anniversary approached we thought having our family together in Hawaii would be a memorable event.

I'm selecting representative photos from the trip in roughly chronological order to post on these Web pages, posting each page as I complete it. On our first morning Mary and I took a tour of the four Elua Village condos that we rented in Wailea, Maui for the event. The condos are arranged like seats in a bowl-shaped amphitheater, so each one has a good view no matter where it is. I've indicated by red balls in the plan view below the locations of the four condos we stayed in.

Plan of Elua Village.
The road is at the top and the beach at the bottom, going from highest elevation to lowest.
#304 - Craig, #201 - Dave, #702 - Andy, #1402 -- Mom and Dad

View from the deck of Craig, Jodie and Tyler's condo, Unit #304.
This was the highest unit with the broadest deck view over rooftops.
The decks of Barbara and Andy's Unit #702 are barely visible to the right of center.

View from Dave, Mickie, Nik and Courtney's condo, Unit #201 on the next tier down.

Another view from #201 -- Marriott's in the background.
Roofs dominate the view because #201 is on the ground floor. However, this was the nicest and
best equipped unit of all, so we had two of our three family evening barbeques here.

Another tier down -- View from Andy, Barbara, Nadia & Jon, and Maddie's Unit #702.
Even numbers are on 2nd floor. Herb and Mary's unit is on the other side of the condos at left.

View from Herb and Mary's Unit #1402, one floor of stairs above the slope to the beach.

Reverse view, from beach lawn back toward deck. Our deck is second floor center.

Mary and I did a lot of relaxing with books on our deck. We each finished two.

A sunset from the same deck.

Tennis court, viewed from front door of our Unit #1402.
Paddle ball equipment was available, but we were so busy we never got around to playing.

We did almost all of our swimming and snorkeling from this beach at Elua Village.
The northwest lobe of Maui is in the background.

We (Barbara) rented seven boogie boards and as many snorkel outfits the first day.
Below, Nadia's friend Jan (pronounced between "yon" and "yawn")
and Barbara step out for a wave.
Jan is from Norway and is now doing research and teaching at Princeton.

Nadia and Jan ride in on a wave.

Nadia and Jan ride another wave to shore's end.
I grabbed a board and joined them during this session -- great fun.
Then you clean sand out of your shorts.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday Mary and I enjoyed these and other beach activities, and read our books when the rest of the family went on excursions we'd already taken on previous visits to Wailea. Snorkeling at this beach is the best on the island, which I enjoyed along with the youngsters. However, my snorkeling was cut short by a left fin that cut into my toe and face masks that leaked (too many old-age creases, I guess). The next Web page covers a trip to the Iao Valley with Craig and Dave's families. Craig and Jodie had seen it but it was new to the rest of us.