Maui

Clint and I were lucky enough to go on a little vacation to Maui for 8 days with no kids! My in-laws had been offering to send us on a trip since we got married and we finally found the time to take advantage. Clint got my mom a plane ticket to come to Omaha and stay with the girls. It was nice of her to make the trip and also nice for her because she doesn't get to see them very often. I was a little worried about how Ava would do without me, but she did great. I tend to think she needs me a little more than she really does.

We had a really good time together. We had a bunch of activities booked, including a snorkel cruise, a luau, a zipline tour, and cliff jumping. We did some shopping, lots of eating, and drove around most of the island with the top off the Jeep. All that stuff was really great but honestly our favorite thing while we were there was to just lounge on the beach or in the hot tub and read our books with no interruptions from the girls.

You know how you always go on vacation and come home with only pictures of either you or your spouse (never both at the same time), because the other one is behind the camera? Then the few times you ask some stranger to take your picture together, they end up cutting peoples' heads off, or shooting out of focus. We didn't want to take the risk of being disappointed with the pictures we came home with, and decided to hire a photographer to do a little shoot. We're glad we did.

Now as nice as it was to have a break from the girls it was funny how much we talked about them, and how often we said, "aww, Mayah would LOVE doing this..." or "Ava would be having a blast here." I think the best of both worlds would be to take a vacation with the whole family, but arrange for a babysitter some of the time. Turns out you can arrange for that through the concierge or other local services. We'd just have to get past the initial worry of leaving them with a complete stranger.

After 8 days of doing everything imaginable on Maui, we were excited to come home and tell the girls about the whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and other wildlife we saw. We both had built up a pretty good tan (which is already fading), and our batteries were charged to get back to our daily lives.

Omaha welcomed us home with its hospitable 9 degree weather.