Technically, I’m in a blackout period from January first through the end of our Q1 filings in May but after spending weeks of leaving the office at 4 AM and getting back in by 8 AM prior to one of our March filings made me feel like I could ask for three days off in order to fly over to Maui and spend time with one of my NY girls that was travelling with her husband for work. We had been friends for 8 years prior to our simultaneous pregnancy and maternity leave that made us even closer, right before I left for Hawaii. So needless to say, I was missing her something fierce and jumped at the chance to see her. Ryan couldn’t take any days off of work so he joined me for Friday night – Sunday night and my mom joined me from Sunday night – Wednesday afternoon.
The only problem was working 20 hour days meant that I was battling a horrible cold by the time it was over. Still, just like that travelocity commercial from probably 10 years back said, a bad day [on Maui] beats a good day anywhere else.
We didn’t leave the hotel property much except to grab dinner on some nights, but that was fine with me because the hotel had everything, even warm-weather penguins (who knew???).



Emma got to experience hanging out in the front seat of the car (while we were parked waiting in the cell lot for my mom) and now it’s a struggle to get her in her car seat because she loves the front seat so much.

There were horrible, horrible people that stayed at our hotel and 1 of them stole my slippers after we got in a tiff over pool chairs (#HawaiiProblems) so I had to hoof it to longs (read: CVS) for some new beach footwear. Emma hasn’t grasped the concept of size yet apparently.

Emma enjoyed long walks around the property…

And her favorite local dessert…

And the beach of course.


Meanwhile, my friend is the absolute best and treated me to a morning at a spa (while my mom treated me to a morning of free babysitting).

And Emma to an awesome pool toy she loved so much that this is one of the clearest shot I got of her… running around like crazy over her new “frog”.

Last night with my girl. Miss you Dede!

Emma is freakin OCD about cleaning up things that aren’t her mess. Which is pretty awesome. Cleaning up her own mess on the other hand…. pshawwww.

And we rounded out our Maui trip with a stop at the aquarium before heading for the airport.


A starving Emma munching on a croissant as we leave HNL.
