January 28th, 2015 - the day after a big winter storm that blew up from New England delaying or cancelling all flights at the Halifax airport, we wondered anxiously if our first of three flights to Maui would launch our much awaited vacation.

Now this is no ordinary vacation. It is the celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary and, like our honeymoon many years ago, we are celebrating it well after the event. In fact, a year and a half afterward. And, somewhat like our honeymoon, we tossed around numerous ideas, made a plan, changed the plan and eventually came up with the perfect plan. You may notice a trend here or recognize from previous blog entries that Jim and I are, are, well...consistent to say the least in our habit of indecision and changing plans.

Back in 1989 after our 1988 wedding, we were booked to go to Brazil for a month and about a week before we went, decided we didn't want to go there. With classic Jim finagling, and some dancing with our employers, we changed the dates and ended up returning to our favourite destination - Thailand. That was a perfect honeymoon of beaching, trekking and engaging with Thailand!

I had been trying to convince Jim to celebrate this important anniversary. I reminded him repeatedly when we were on our round the world (RTW) trip that we could take the opportunity while away to mark our upcoming 25th with a special night or destination. When we didn't designate any activity, upon returning home I tried other angles...'25 acts of love' (we got to 3 before giving up on that), diamond earrings, a trip to New Hampshire - none were the right thing. We had passed our 26th anniversary when Jim announced "Hawaii". Bingo!

That was the one suggestion that would mark this extraordinary event in a way that was mutually exciting. And why not try travelling with another couple since we never do that? "What?!", you say. "How crazy is that?" For those that know us well you can expect the unexpected.

Here we are in Maui now after 25 hours of travel since we left our cold wintery home near Halifax. We arrived at our condo with Jim's brother and his wife, Jack and Brenda, to settle in and enjoy the aloha life of Maui for 4 delicious weeks. This is our celebration of 25 years (plus 1.5 more) of marital bliss!

After a sound first night's sleep, we needed to rest and acclimatize. We spent our first day scoping out the local coffee and breakfast joint, buying a few food staples and then recuperating. From our balcony, or lanai as it's called here, we watched humpback whales breaching at sea. Their enormous bodies jettisoning out of the water enough for us to see their entire bodies, one after another, was what I was hoping to see! I have never seen whales from the shore. I am anticipating getting out on the water to see them up close. December to February is the most intense time here for these gorgeous mammals as they are not only nursing their young but also breeding. By March they start the long trip north for feeding.

Soon we will be exploring the island and Jim will be taking photos. We will be here for World Whale Day on Feb. 14 and Chinese New Year on Feb. 19 bringing in the year of the goat. Stay tuned...

NOTE: To see all of Jim's Maui images in higher quality, visit his Flickr page:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimneale/ sets/