Nothing says it’s Saturday afternoon like a post from the archives!

For the first week of 2012, Nick, Gary (his dad), Rachel (his sister), and I had the amazing opportunity to visit the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii. Nick’s mom, Beki, had been living there for six months interning at the Surfing Goat Dairy. If you want to know more about her experiences, check out her amazing blog. Not only was it among the greatest vacations ever but getting the opportunity to see Beki again after half a year made it that much more special.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a year, but after reliving the memories through the photos, I knew I had to share some of my favorite snapshots on my blog. I had three cameras to record the whole trip: my 5D Mark II, a 35mm film camera, and a sturdy digital underwater camera.

The first morning we all woke up extremely early (although it didn’t feel early with the jet lag) to watch the sun rise on Haleakala.

Instead of a sun rise, we saw and were engulfed by a whole bunch of water vapor as we were basically standing in a cloud. But it wasn’t all for nothing because as we made our way down the mountain, we came across a couple of Nenes, the state bird of Hawaii.

A few days later, we sailed on a catamaran to the island of Lana’i for snorkeling and happened to see quite a few whales on the way (the crew on the boat said they had never seen that many whales in one trip)! It was both amazing and humbling. I can’t believe I managed to capture this majestic animal in its element.

Nick really loves to snorkel. I wasn’t as extreme, but it was a great opportunity to take some unique looking portraits! This one is my favorite.

I fell in love with everything about this place: the laid back lifestyle, the stunning landscapes, the weather, the food and so much more. Plus, there’s something about being surrounded by a gigantic ocean on the most isolated chain of islands on the planet that makes it feel like you’re in a whole different world.

After hearing so much about it for months and months via blog posts and emails, we finally got to visit the Surfing Goat Dairy! There was so much delicious goat cheese eaten throughout the whole vacation; I will always associate my induction to the world of goat cheese with Hawaii.

After taking turns trying to milk a goat (which was quite an experience!) we got to go along with a daily herding routine.

After we wrapped up at the dairy, we visited a macadamia nut (mac nut for short) farm. It was so far off the normal tourist path that there wasn’t even a paved road to the owner’s house!

We also found Abbey Road and Penny Lane. Check out those awesome rainbow sunglasses! :)

A fresh macadamia nut!

We watched some extreme surfers at Ho’okipa (one of the greatest/most dangerous spots to surf on Maui) before heading over to Pa’ia.

Pa’ia, Maui was a delightful little village where I am pretty sure I had the best pizza of my life.

We ended the trip by watching wind surfers on a beach right by the airport. The final day of a wonderful trip is always bittersweet, but the bitterness was slightly intensified as we had to leave Beki behind because she still had one more month at the dairy. Luckily, that month flew by and said bitterness was well countered by her return.

Thank you so much for viewing this trip down memory lane!