Bird's eye view

After much reassurance, our oldest son reluctantly accepted that his parents were going to see Maui from way up high in the air.  It seems that he was very concerned about us falling out of the helicopter.  He had envisioned a helicopter without door/windows, seatbelts or any other type of protection.  I was touched when I saw the sincerity of his fear.  We talked about everything that would be done to make sure that we would be safe.  As I mentioned earlier, he reluctantly accepted that we were going on a helicopter before our trip, but was so excited to hear about it after we returned...I bet he would love trying it!  I bet all our boys would!!

Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Tours showed us views that everyone should see at least once in their lives. 
I snapped a quick shot of the monitor that just happened to be focused on The Big Guy Lowe and I!

The Lowe girl with pilot Jason in the background.

The Big Guy Lowe, sitting to my right.

You might not be able to tell from these calm, albeit happy pictures, but when we didn't think we were being recorded we had the biggest, toothy grins on our faces--we found that out when we watched the cd of the trip!  Haha!  We were just so excited to be on a real helicopter!  I'm smiling just thinking of it.  We were even able to sit in the front next to the pilot.  We were told it was because we were the lightest in the group.  NICE!!  I guess P90X really did it's job!  Yahoo!!

Here are a few shots from the sky.  For the full hour-long trip see the cd.

Views of Haleakala at over 10,000 feet.

East Maui

Northeast Shoreline

Central Maui coastline accented by fields of sugarcane.

Giddy riders after their trip.  Our Eco Star helicopter in the background.

What an awesome trip!  We loved every minute and still smile thinking about it.

To celebrate, we could only go to one place for lunch...Mama's Fish House in Paia.

Our food choices are as follows:

Drinks:

The house juice blend and mango-collatas--because we don't drink alcohol all our choices fall into the "virgin" category.  That being said, they were so good!

Appetizers: 

Hood Canal Clams, Kalua pork and Kimchee--this was truly one of the best dishes of the entire trip!

Entre:

Mahimahi caught by Shawn Boneza along the north shore of Maui Stuffed with lobster, crab, Maui onion and baked in a macadamia nut crust--another winner by far!

This isn't an inexpensive restaurant, but it was worth the price.  And then there was the view from our table...

Such a satisfying day.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.