Day 8 & 9 of Maui trip

Day 8 - Friday - Today is the day we leave our short lived time in paradise. The day we've been dreading to come and hoped wouldn't come too quickly once we arrived. Unbeknownst to us it would be the longest day of our lives...melding this day and the next into one.

We had talked about going into the aquarium on our way to the airport but once we found out how expensive it was to quickly just go through it didn't seem a good idea. What we all really wanted to do was just relax and enjoy the beach as much as we could before we were to fly out early that evening. None of us knew when the next time we would be getting to the beach again (the Couer d' Alene lake doesn't count) so we just really wanted to take our time there. We walked along the beach and enjoyed the surfers for the last time. Later on in the early afternoon we loaded up and started for the airport but planned on doing a little shopping and looking around in the city that the airport is in. We finally made it into the scrapbook store too. They had a couple of aisles that was paper they have designed themselves along with a ton of die cuts that are specialized to Hawaii and things to do over there.

We got to the airport and wow what a WONDERFUL experience that was. We had to go through an agriculture check (for our check-in luggage - finding this out after we made it up to the ticketing counter) then regular check-in and security. Once we made it up to security we had things in our carry-ons that they wouldn't allow on...oh joy. So we had to take one of my bags and switch everything around so I could go back in and check it. My sister had in her bag some syrup and jams that she had bought (in glass jars, you carry it on generally because the way they throw your luggage around, just what you need is a bunch of broken glass in your luggage when you get home) and I had a larger bottle of really yummy lotion I had bought off Terry, since I didn't make it back to get my own bottle. The bag I had to check it in was the one we had our laptop in and we weren't going to let our laptop get checked so we had to re-arrange our carry-ons and hold up the lines. By the time I went all the way back down to ticketing and ran it through the agricultural check, then get it checked in and back through security...I had definitely got my workout in for the day. It was a good thing we were there 2 hours before our flight was to leave. We flew out and had a layover in Oahu, so we grabbed something to eat really quickly there. Our layover time got cut short because they started boarding early and thought we may be able to take off early if everyone was boarded. Since we didn't have much time we were scarfing down our food and I ended up taking my burger onto the plane and waiting until we were ready to leave before I ate it. We had the same size plane coming home as we did in going so we were all crammed in there like sardines and since we were leaving at 9:15 from Oahu and getting into Sea-Tac at 5:29 am...that was supposed to be our sleep time as well. We lost 3 hours coming home and there was so much turbulence coming back it was really hard to sleep. I think we all got a little bit though and when we got into Sea-Tac we were super tired. We picked up our bags and had to re-check into Southwest to come home but first we had to do some re-arranging again because we had to get Amanda's stuff to her and we weren't planning on checking the bag that we HAD to in Maui. Once we got checked in and got our boarding passes, Scott and I's flight was to leave at 8:55 am to come to Spokane and Amanda's flight didn't leave until 1:05 to go to Boise. Since we were there so early, Southwest has it so you can't check your luggage until a minimum of 4 hours before take-off....OH JOY! So my sister had to sit out by the ticketing counter. We hung out with her for about an hour before we had to get through security and find our gate so we could leave. What a terrible feeling to have to leave your sister sitting there by herself and knowing you are in the same airport but on two different ends of security and you can't spend that time together....who knows when the next time we'll see each other will be. We were all so exhausted too that she wasn't going to get home until after 3 pm her time. I slept the whole flight to Spokane (which is only 35 minutes). Both Scott and I were just tired all day and once we got home and un-packed it felt like it should be late afternoon but was only actually 11:30 am...thus the feeling of being the longest day of our lives.

Once we got everything put away we both just wanted a hot shower (because I was still in yesterday's makeup, etc...) but were a little bummed by the fact that the last shower we had taken the day before we had this as our view and it was no longer to be. The shower in the bathroom that Scott and I had looked right out over the ocean...how great would that be everyday.